For the past like 7 days I’ve been in a hyper-focus researching all this new shit that I’m interested in. Hours and hours of YouTube videos, tons of forums and Reddit threads just feeding my brain information on this one thing. This one project that I’m so incredibly excited to learn about and work on. I’m gonna master this fucking thing and create this insanely wonderful piece of media that I just can’t stop thinking about. This is it, the turning point in my life. I’m gonna have this new skill set and people will love me and praise me for the amazing thing I have created. 

And then it hits me, over and over and over again. I’ve been here before. Hundreds of times… maybe thousands of times. 

I hate it.

The romanticism of this fucking neurological “disorder” makes me want to tear my brain out of my skull sometimes. 

Why is it so hard to just be interested in one subject? And why is it so hard to stay interested? 

I know I have a literal dopamine deficiency but sometimes it feels like it’s almost impossible to hold onto any of that for a long period of time. I get an idea, learn about it and then within a week or two I’m over it and already onto something completely new. It’s an exhausting way to live and sometimes it’s genuinely depressing. I have so many interests and yet I can’t focus on one thing at a time.

Let me take you back a few (20 ish) years. 

When I was a kid, I knew exactly what I was interested in and I excelled in everything I applied myself to. 

Drumming? A fucking natural. 

Gaming? smashed it. 

Painting Miniatures? You couldn’t get me away from that desk for love nor money (maybe some new blood angels though…)

Cartoons, anime, films, comic books, Spider-Man lore and history, Star Wars, Nintendo consoles, toys etc etc etc 

I couldn’t get enough of it. The whole world was my oyster and I could just take all that information in like a sponge and keep it in a vault in my brain ready to access whenever the moment arose. Everything I learned about just MADE SENSE. I could be shown or taught something about anything and within a couple of days I had such a huge knowledge of that subject it was crazy.

Now, coming up to my 33rd year on this earth I struggle to remember something I learned last week. My brain just says “bored now, onto the next one so I guess we gotta delete some files off the hard drive.” 

It is so debilitating. 

Not only that, but the focus on one thing is SO STRONG that you end up wasting tons of money on new equipment that you tell yourself you’re gonna use and it just ends up sitting there. I can’t even tell you how many projects I’ve started that now sit there unfinished. How many incomplete figure collections I own because I didn’t buy the last figure in time and now I’m over it. A guitar that I learned for a bit, got the basics down and just went “ehh that’s enough probably”. A keyboard I so desperately wanted to learn to master but instead it just sits on the shelf waiting for my next foray into composing the next award winning video game soundtrack. I’ve got about 4 fully fleshed out novels and scripts with planned chapters and story arcs that I just can’t seem to put on to paper correctly. A fully primed, sanded and unpainted 3D printed Mandalorian helmet (I was gonna do the whole set of armour at one point). A camera I bought to get good at action figure photography. A podcast I stopped because it felt like a chore by the end of the first year. An iPad I bought to get good at drawing my own webcomic that never happened. All of these products and thoughts that were once ‘the greatest idea ever’ now just sit gathering dust waiting for their next shot in the limelight. Hell, even this blog/website only gets 1 post a month, if that!

To be honest I’m genuinely surprised I’m still doing music at this point. 

I’m not trying to put a massive downer on ADHD because it does have its moments. I don’t believe in the “super power” thing that some people say it is. I ain’t saving any lives or moving shit with my mind. But it does give me the ability to fully apply myself to things I’m interested in. Even if the moments are fleeting and I’m stuck in another rut of figuring out what my next big adventure could be, and how much my bank will hate me for it in 2 weeks time. 

ADHD isn’t just a lack of concentration and fidgeting, we can concentrate on what interests us and we do it fucking well, until the next shiny new thing arrives. It’s just that we juggle so much in our brains at once that the stress and agitation builds and builds so we have a bit of a mental breakdown because we just cannot process all of this at one time.

Some days the base of my skull feels like it’s going to explode with information. Some days I can sit for hours and make something truly fucking special to me. Some days I can’t even get myself to leave the house because I genuinely do not know what order to do things in. 

I’ve completely forgot what I was trying to say with this post but thank you for reading. I’m probably already onto the next thing.

Maybe I’ll work on making my own video game like 12 year old me wanted to do…

Or maybe I’ll just start streaming again.

Anyways, it’s late and there’s probably loads of spelling mistakes. 

Add me on Switch.

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