I’ve got a degree in engineering. I love engineering, programming, electronics, CAD and physical prototype design. I love identifying problems and figuring out requirements and designing something to solve it. I know I’m really good at it, but I can only really perform what feels like 20% of the time.
I’ll get into some hyper focus for some problem, learn some complex technology, solve the problem, then not be able to look at tech for weeks. This is cool for hobby stuff but man I gotta work too.
I find it nearly impossible to work on things which I don’t find personally interesting which isn’t good because most “work” isn’t interesting whatsoever. I envy people who are able to just go “ah time to do this boring thing” and they just fucking do it. It genuinely feels impossible to just start.
I’m medicated for ADHD but it feels like it only works like 20-30% of the time. The rest of the time my eyes just lose focus and I stare blankly at a screen waiting for hours to pass.
I don’t know how to make this work for me either. I know theoretically I could be a prototype engineer, the type of freelance generalist who gets an idea out and disappears but I don’t know how to network sufficiently enough to do that. I’ve got a good job right now, but COL is so high and full remote isn’t possible so I’ll always be living in a small apartment or be in so much debt I’ll never be able to retire.
I want to do more hardware stuff but that’s so rarely a remote type job and offices just hurt my soul with how uncomfortable I am all day long. I could probably make a living as a software engineer but I don’t know if I’d be able to keep up any kind of pace long term that would let me keep my job.
I almost want to take a stab at doing youtube videos and see if I can make a handful of neat projects that get me a sponsor. enough to score a house in a rundown rustbelt town and be able to fuck off and work at my own pace without the impending doom of rent or mortgage staring me down.
I drink plenty of water, jog when its warm, use a pomodoro timer when I remember. I learned the fundamentals of Rust in a weekend, designed and manufactured a run of PCBs in under 3 months. I just can’t keep that momentum going, even if I try to slow down.
thanks for letting me rant. Its not lost on me how privileged I am in this scenario. I’m quite lucky and comfortable but it terrifies me how even someone doing well like myself can’t see an exit off this awful ride.
I’m kind of in the same boat. I do rather enjoy my work as a software developer (or rather, I don’t actively hate doing it), but the impostor complex combined with my typical ADHD lack of ability to get the “boring stuff” out of the way can get pretty rough. The first couple of years or so at my current job was mostly just staring blankly at the screen for (n) hours and feeling like I was doing just barely enough (i.e. 20%-30%), all while panicking because I wanted to make a good impression and keep the job, and being afraid of someone catching on and getting me fired. Apparently I did something right though, because I’m still employed after several rounds of layoffs, and it almost seems like my colleagues are starting to consider me a “senior developer?” I can’t say I’m any more efficient these days, and the apparent “job security” makes me a lot less stressed out and worried. Therapy has helped a lot too with getting rid of the impostor thoughts. It might even be that I was always actually good at this job, just the constant thoughts that “I could do more” was fucking me up.
I struggle a lot with the same thing of wanting to do all sorts of other amazing things that I KNOW I’m capable of. I want to make a video game, I want to do more shader programming, I want to reverse engineer proprietary bullshit, but god damn jesus who has the energy for that after work? On the other hand, I also know myself well enough to know that if I quit my job to focus on the aforementioned amazing things, I’d feel the exact same things. “Man I should really be doing that thing right now, I quit my job for this, oh jeez why am I not doing it?” etc etc. That leads me to believe it’s less of a problem with my lack of ability, and has more to do with the standards I hold myself to. It’s would be quite unsustainable to always work at that 400% efficiency hyperfocus godmode (though it would be nice to be able to tap into it more often), so it’s not reasonable of me to have that as the baseline of “doing well” and “being productive”. If that makes any sense. I’m still working through this stuff.
As for meds, I take 28mg methylphenidate every morning. Honestly it often feels like it doesn’t do anything at all. Though if I don’t take it, the executive dysfunction gets turned up to 1000, so I guess it probably does something, it’s just very subtle some times. 56mg was way too god damn much and made me all jittery and anxious. Anyway, I think of it less like some magic pill I can take to magically make me neurotypical (which it kind of felt like when I initially started taking it), and more like a slight push in the right direction. Lowers the threshold for my brain machine to go “hey, weren’t we supposed to do this other, important thing rn?” rather than just ignoring it and coping with the anxiety with bullshit while the pressure builds and builds and builds. I still have to actually do the thing, but the meds make it a little bit easier to convince myself to at least think about it.
Solidarity with your struggle.
I do a weird thing with my dosage. I dunno if your doctor is chill. I take the same med but I take 36mg extended release. I also have a prescription of 10mg. Depending on the kinda day I am about I will break one in half and sometimes take an extra 5mg. I found my levels would vary through the day and thst with lunch seems to really keep my executive function okay. I work 12 hours shifts so your milage might vary about how much and when you take them.