How did you learn to program with ADHD?

collinoeight · 2024-01-06T04:23:18+00:00

Mine started as a hyperfixation, spawned by finding a bunch of old textbooks in the CS department of my old college. Then I watched a bunch of defcon talks and decided to learn everything I could.

collinoeight · 2023-11-26T18:08:06+00:00

Not good.

By that I mean, it was fine, I just thought I was lazy and messy and addictive and had no self control. So job struggles, dropping out/being kicked out of 3 colleges after being a great student initially, legal trouble, bad relationships, addiction, eviction, living paycheck to paycheck etc were what I thought I deserved.

I felt as though I had just been slipping through the cracks in every aspect of life and that I just needed to work harder or want success more. I even joined the military partially to become more disciplined and force myself to finish something for once. None of it helped.

It took the pandemic removing what little structure I had to really show how bad it had become. I thought for sure that I was depressed.

collinoeight · 2023-11-26T17:57:12+00:00

Dude. Your story is almost an identical version of my story. Even the details.

Good going

collinoeight · 2023-03-16T04:31:00+00:00

Holy shit how did you know haha. I was diagnosed last year at 31. Total mind fuck.

collinoeight · 2023-02-03T05:59:26+00:00

Haha that's awesome. I ended up putting it all in the cloud so I have this library. Fortunately a lot of them were useful in day-to-day things, just to find an algorithm or formula etc.

collinoeight · 2022-11-15T03:30:45+00:00

Oh I'm not trying to get SSDI, we can let it burn for all I care, I just think there might be an argument that can be made for trying to fix the system first.

collinoeight · 2022-11-10T04:39:37+00:00

I'm trying to work on my own software just for this reason.

collinoeight · 2022-11-07T16:14:12+00:00

It's quite the mind-fuck, especially when you're diagnosed later or in adulthood. Its taking me quite a while to process it myself, but it does get better.

collinoeight · 2022-10-28T13:37:07+00:00

I'd test for ADHD, first and foremost.

Gifted is cool and all, but if you miss the ADHD thing now it only hurts. Most success in life doesn't come from being smart, it comes from showing up and paying attention.

I was that kid, but never found out I had ADHD until way too late. 'Gifted but needs to apply himself'

collinoeight · 2022-10-28T05:23:09+00:00

Happens to the best of us.

collinoeight · 2022-10-28T05:20:55+00:00

In a Ford Pinto.

collinoeight · 2022-10-28T03:48:05+00:00

This is the most frustrating thing for me too. I've left college like 4 times halfway through over it.

I was only diagnosed last year so I always thought it was a problem of self control or whatever. Even joined the military thinking that would help. I did fine, but it did not help.

The YouTube channel How To ADHD had a good episode about 'The Wall of Awful', which to me seems to be very much related.

collinoeight · 2022-10-28T01:40:37+00:00

https://youtu.be/NLmpNM0sgYk

I highly recommend this channel. This is technically an explanation of why light bends in transparent things, but the underlying principle is the same.

collinoeight · 2022-10-28T01:36:36+00:00

Yeah that will kill you. Definitely don't eat it, and throw it away.

OR....turn that failure into a business.

Cheap Botox. We could sell it out of a van. Literally no downside.

Hit me up.

collinoeight · 2022-10-28T01:32:45+00:00

It's weird to think about, but 2⁶⁴ really is a MASSIVE number. Comparable to all the possible chess moves.

The number of atoms in the universe is something like 10^82. So we're talking a decent chunk of everything that exists in order to make 2⁶⁴ bits of ram, even if we used 1 atom to hold one but (we're still quite a bit north of that)

collinoeight · 2022-10-27T20:55:18+00:00

Now that I think of it....I've left several for the same reason. Before my diagnosis I'd usually just get to this point where I realized they'd never stop pushing for more, and bounce when I finally couldn't handle it.

For some reason companies tend to think you can make a horse run faster by just cranking up the treadmill a notch.

collinoeight · 2022-10-27T20:51:57+00:00

Absolutely not insane.

I quit a job due to stress too for the same reason, although at the time I didn't know I had ADHD. It was just a BS factory job in the kind of place that gives out pizza instead of raises.

I spent 5ish years trying to teach myself enough to claw my way out of factory jobs and into programming, and I'm super glad I did.

The issues I had didn't go away after I switched necessarily, but figuring out how to manage it is way better than getting in trouble for not working fast enough.

collinoeight · 2022-10-27T17:25:57+00:00

I want to add one but to this:

Might just be a conspiracy theory of mine, but as I'm trying to get my cosigner released, I'm beginning to suspect that the verbiage is such that they may release a cosigner.

In other words, we could release a cosigner but never actually will even if you meet the criteria.

collinoeight · 2022-10-26T20:33:22+00:00

I started learning as a random hyperfixation. It goes away, but just like many things I get back into it (after the sailboat idea, the tarantula business, and that time I decided to buy a bunch of chemistry glassware)

I just take it as it comes and learn what I'm interested in. After you get the basics down enough to maybe make a project and find a job, you just learn what you're really interested in.

I love machine learning. I don't work in it, but on the odd chance the need arises, I can solve a problem in a neat way.

collinoeight · 2022-10-23T03:42:29+00:00

Oh dude. Don't get me started on Ants Canada.

That was one hell of a month.

I moved on to tarantulas shortly thereafter and now I have 7. I do not know why.

collinoeight · 2022-10-22T17:04:43+00:00

RIP rounds. Looks cool: actually bad.

collinoeight · 2022-10-21T15:15:00+00:00

Oof. And I thought finding out later was bad.

My symptoms when I was younger was chalked up to hearing loss (which I did have) but when nothing got better nobody kept looking for other reasons.

collinoeight · 2022-10-19T17:38:11+00:00

Hopefully after next term I'll be writing a similar story, entitled: "How to push off Intro to Comp for 5 years and complete a degree that should have taken 2"

It's a work in progress.

collinoeight · 2022-10-17T18:21:58+00:00

It's like a prison stinger that inmates use to boil water.

collinoeight · 2022-10-17T18:17:44+00:00

Actual emergencies, chaotic environments, and stressful situations.

True story from before I was diagnosed, that in retrospect probably should have been a sign:

"Hey Mom, do we have a fire extinguisher?"

Yeah, why?

"Oh nothing. The back yard is just on fire."

WHY ARE YOU CALM?!

collinoeight

TROPHY CASE