Engineer/Mathematician/Student. I’m not insane unless I’m in a schizoposting or distressing memes mood; I promise.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 28th, 2023

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  • I recently made a decision to transfer colleges in order to save my mental health. This meant I’d have to take on a few student loans, but with FAFSA it still felt manageable, and it has significantly improved my life.

    However, If financial assistance from the government drops, the chances I will be able to afford school long enough to graduate drop significantly too.

    I’m not super jazzed about that; though, I still think the transfer was worth it.

    Oh yeah, also, I just recently got medicated for ADHD and it’s what’s let me start to pull my life together, but adderall might get banned so… rip me.

    Maybe I’ll take up smoking lol. I mean that as a joke, but what a world when clinically safe, prescribed meds might get banned but literal cancer causing, heavy metal filled, habit forming drugs are going to be legal forever…

    Cheers mates, couldn’t have asked for a better seat to watch the final fall of America and possibly the rest of the world. Good luck to all of you who’ll last longer than me.


  • hihi24522@lemm.eetoComic Strips@lemmy.worldIt's the dishonesty!
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    13 days ago

    Remember folks: weather models are based on historical data. As climate change forces weather patterns to break from their historical norms, weather predictions based on previous models will become increasingly inaccurate.

    Though the local, short term predictions shouldn’t be that affected so I have no clue why Siri tells me “it doesn’t look like it will rain today” while there’s literally rain falling outside my window…



  • If it wasn’t clear, I’m well aware of the unlikelihood of the situation. But what’s the harm in believing such? I mean it’s not like either of them is going to come back from the dead and say: “Actually, we argued about the internal weight distribution from astronaut motion, how it would effect the natural frequency of the capsule, and if that effect would be significant enough to need accounting for, not racism.”


  • Fun fact, my grandfather was a leading engineer on the Saturn V and other aerospace projects, and according to my dad he apparently got into arguments with Von Braun. Considering the line of work and knowing some of my grandfather’s written down arguments from that time, it’s likely these arguments were more about random physics than anything else, but I like to think it was about von Braun being a Nazi piece of shit.

    I do know my grandparents were very against segregation to the chagrin of their neighbors, so it’s not entirely unlikely right?


  • This is the second best benefit of my meds. I can keep lists now and actually just do things, so if I feel this way I just start making a list of all the major to-do things I can think of and a list of all the stuff I kind of feel like I should do. Just putting it into a list helps because I then feel more confident I know what needs to get done. Plus I can break down the big things into smaller steps now which is useful.

    I definitely tried doing this kind of stuff before getting medicated but it didn’t work. Gotta love how every piece of advice for dealing with ADHD shit only is an option if you don’t have ADHD to begin with.



  • To me, it feels like there is a big difference between not realizing you are harming others and purposefully causing that harm because you know it is harm.

    Blindspots in empathy is like saying something that hurt someone because you didn’t know it hurt them. Sadism is saying something that hurts someone because you know it will hurt them.

    There’s definitely a difference between the feeling of sadism and revenge too. One you do because it feels like justice, the other you do because feels like eating candy.

    This kind of ties into the answer to “why would you care?” This is actually something I’ve thought about a lot (big suprise lol) and the conclusion I’ve come to is that morality and empathy are not directly correlated.

    There is a difference between not stabbing someone because you’d feel that pain, and not stabbing someone because you don’t want to be the cause of someone else’s pain.

    Another influence for perceived morality is the desire to be like other people. We’re a social species so lots of us have an innate desire to feel connected to others. Sure there is some desire to be unique but often times that is constrained by the desire to be accepted.

    You can satisfy this feeling Patrick Bateman style like most of the psychopaths I’ve met, where you just put up a facade, doing good things only when you know you’re being watched. Or you can satisfy it by doing what I did—which come to find out is basically cognitive behavioral therapy—trying to make yourself want to do the things others think are good.

    I’m pretty sure this choice is also based on internal drives where people in the former situation want the benefits that come with being a good person or fitting in, while people in the latter case directly want to fit in, we don’t want to act good, we want to be good.

    Honestly that desire to be moral that is separate from empathy can be detrimental. People tend to say that “empathy without bounds is self destruction” but it’s been my experience that the moral obsession is more damaging.

    For example, not eating because your roommates have friends over in the kitchen and you would feel rude to interrupt them, is unhealthy and while it is empathy that may make you think you’ll ruin the flow of their conversation, that pain is minimal compared to the pain of not eating. You don’t do it because the empathy hurts, you do it because violating your overactive moral compass hurts.

    Anyway this is turning into a rant, so I should stop. I do agree with you that most people seem to lack empathy for others and this is largely because they don’t try to see things from other people’s/things’ perspectives. But I disagree with your hypothesis that empathy is what drove me to increase my capacity for empathy in the first place. I think it was driven by much more self centered drives like pride and the desire to be wanted.


  • Fun fact: I think I had to purposefully construct my sense of empathy.

    I was literally like psychopath-sadist when I was really young. I didn’t really enact anything irl besides torturing bugs or imagining cartoon characters in pain, but around 4yo I started feeling like I was a bad person because other people didn’t seem to desire to do those things, in fact hero’s in movies purposefully avoided violence.

    So the shame/guilt of feeling like I was a monster, a the desire to be like everyone else, lead me to try and make myself feel pain when I hurt other things. When my mother or sisters would tell me to come kill a spider I’d pinch myself or bite my tongue while doing so.

    Then, being a curious kid, I started just trying to imagine the physical sensations of being in different bodies and having different injuries. This eventually spread to trying to imagine different emotions and by and by I didn’t have to force myself to feel it anymore. When I see someone/something get hurt, I don’t have to think about it now, I just feel it.

    While I’ll admit it is possible that I’m correlating this purposeful imagination with some possible natural development of my brain creating empathy, considering that until recently I only really felt pain, negative emotions, and physical sensations through empathy, I’d say it seems most likely I built it myself.

    Since realizing this a few years ago, I have started trying to feel happy/positive empathy too and it does seem like it’s been working. Though, it’s slow going because I’m hella antisocial lol.

    Oh and just in case anyone is worried, I’m no longer sadistic at all. I literally can’t bring myself to kill spiders or other bugs, and there are some scenes in movies I can’t stand to watch. I can unfortunately still feel those old feelings and empathize with sadistic characters/actions, but the saccharine feeling of enjoying causing pain actually makes me physically sick now.




  • Executive dystfunction is a symptom of ADHD and one that I have a hard time explaining to others. Most people I know don’t understand that even if I actually want to do something, sometimes I literally just can’t start doing it or I have to do weird shit like this to like talk myself into it.

    Getting medicated helps a lot if you find the right meds. Honestly the current meds I’m on don’t help as much with focus, but they do help with just being able to fucking do shit and that’s the greater benefit in my opinion. The fact I can just think “oh I should do the dishes” and then start doing the dishes without having to think about doing it for half an hour before starting is still mind blowing to me sometimes.





  • Not sure about lust specifically though I suppose it’s possible to hyperfocus on it.

    However, getting off is definitely something ADHD people can feel the urge to self medicate with. It is pretty strong stimulation, activating both dopaminergic and adrenal pathways (I think) which are the two that ADHD meds try to trigger to alleviate symptoms.

    Furthermore, it helps with those under-stimulation days because it is stimulation, but can also help with overstimulation days because sex activates both the sympathetic AND parasympathetic nervous system. (it acts as both an upper and a downer) So it helps you relax and feel less stressed/irritable.

    Sidenote: Nicotine is one of the only drugs that activates both pathways like this and surprise surprise it’s also something I’ve heard several ADHD people use to self medicate with or that they would use to help them focus before they realized they had ADHD.


  • Imagine someone says something rude you want to reply to but don’t/can’t. This is annoying but normally you just move on. Sure maybe you’ll think about it a little while later or maybe while in the shower later that day or maybe it will come back you randomly while laying in bed sometime in the future. Still normal (I think…) and pretty manageable.

    However, with the right (or wrong) kind of neurodivergence, some days it isn’t possible to let go. Even the slightest annoyance will invade your focus the entire rest of the day. You can’t do anything because you’re just pissed about that thing, or pissed that you’re still thinking about that dumb thing for no reason and can’t get it out of your head. You get mad at being mad. Anger spiral ensues.

    Rage wells within you as your frustration rises because you’re trying to focus on other things and this annoyance isn’t worth your time, but you can’t stop because you’re not in control. It’s like a song stuck in your head but even harder to get rid of.

    If you’re like me, self destructive fantasies play in your mind to relieve the feeling. This does work but it takes time. Once the anger spiral is gone you feel dumb because like why the fuck did I just spend four fucking hours imagining global conquest because I tripped over my words answering a question in lecture this morning?

    Anyway I think this is kind of related to hyper focus. Basically your mind decides—without and/or against your will—to focus on something that angers you all day. You feel the desire to do something about it, but you can’t, and you can’t even really stop focusing on it no matter what you try, so you just get more mad.

    Unfortunately it often happens when I’m stressed to begin with because I have tasks I need to get done, but then that stress just feeds the fire. Meditation might be helpful but the most effective option I’ve found is to put on phonk or metal or vocaloid songs that are very fast and loud or violent then imagine acting on my anger till I’ve exhausted all the rage. Once it feels boring to stay mad, I can get back to doing my tasks. Again, this takes time and is probably not the healthiest way to cope, but it works for me so maybe it’ll work for other ADHD peeps who want a solution.