Precinct Omega
patreon
...Also, it turns out, I have ADHD
🕑 Added 2023-03-27 08:19:03 +0000 UTCI try to keep personal stuff off this feed as much as possible, because it's rarely relevant to the purpose of the blog and not what you're hear to read about. But in this case, I thought it was actually sufficiently relevant to share.
I should say that I haven't had a formal diagnosis. But after he faced some challenges in his education, we did pay to have my son assessed on a range of neurodiversity disorders and although it turns out he doesn't have ADHD (probably ASD), I got to walk through the diagnostic process with him and it turns out I probably do (or, rather, I definitely do, but I'm not paying someone to write it down for me).
Forty-seven bloody years old and a whole heap of stuff makes sense!
A number of features of ADHD (Inattentive type) turn out to be things I thought were personality flaws and character failings that have contributed extensively to my long experience with depression and social anxiety. But it transpires that there's a whole heap of non-pharmaceutical strategies for dealing with this stuff that I could have been using for the last 35 years or so. Some of them, I was already using but tried not to because other people found them annoying or rude. Now, I understand their value and can explain them to other people. I am, for example, playing a mobile game while you talk to me, because if I don't my brain can't process anything you're saying at all and I'll leave the room instead.
This is relevant to this project, because before realizing this I was really struggling with Horizon Wars because I felt like I was "doing game design" wrong. Now, I understand that moving on to layout and formatting before having the text fully finished is fine. My brain has decided it can't do any more rules and needs to do something else before it can re-engage with rules development. This has impeded other things, too, like photography and art commissioning, and this Patreon! But now I am embracing my inner butterfly.
I am seeing the benefit in my Other Job, where I am able to juggle a lot more balls at once than my colleagues, even if it takes me longer to get each one to a satisfactory conclusion. Some projects finish in lightning speed. Others will take months, even when they are ostensibly the same. This is - deadlines allowing - fine. It's how I work.
And the same with Precinct Omega. I can stop beating myself up about my lack of focus and embrace my ability to manage a dozen different things simultaneously.
So you can expect a bit more content around here, but also even less logic to the structure. I still have deadlines and targets, but I will be trying to harness the ADHD power for good rather than evil henceforth.
Comments
Precinct Omega
Percy, Jason, Magnus, Apollo... Been there, read that! 😁
Italianmoose
Good on you! Use the power :) (Also if you haven't read Percy Jackson already, can recommend :) )
Gavin Thorpe
I’m in a similar boat - no formal diagnosis so I don’t like to say I have adhd but if I don’t, I’m pretty close to it (and decades of coping mechanisms mask the full extent). Figuring how to work with it (particularly away from formal employment situations) is an ongoing project.
