You sound a lot like me. I was finally diagnosed AuDHD in my 40s, and my diagnosis specifically mentions that my ADHD is masked by several factors (with autism ranking highly among them). I also had a previous psychiatrist tell me straight up that he didn’t believe I could have ADHD because I was nothing like his ADHD patients. For some of us, the mask can be extreme.

I describe it as more claustrophilic than agoraphobic. I’ve always enjoyed small, windowless rooms and closets. I’m willing to admit I’ve slept in the closet more than a few times.

And the better it is, the harder the fall. I’m five months into a very long RPG series, but starting to approach the end. The hangover from this one is going to be absolute hell.

I love this. It’s exactly the kind of thing I would do. I have so many detailed routines that give me the right mix of planned variety, freedom for true novelty, and security from familiarity.

Also diagnosed dual, but still doing a lot of thinking about it.

I have never met my limit for how long I can go without human contact (outside of incredibly minimal “contact” such as posting here). I never measured specifically, but I know I’ve gone at least a month without contacting anyone and been perfectly content. When people were going nuts after a week of lockdown, I truly did not get it. I could have done that forever. I’d prefer it.

I might be kinda broken.

The mute system is a little confusing. Basically, Twitch auto scans the video for what it thinks might be copyrighted audio, then it mutes that section for you to prevent you from getting a copyright strike. This is all automatic and set to extremely paranoid because when a big wave of copyright enforcement went around a few years ago, that was equally paranoid and ridiculous. People got copyright strikes for 2 second snippets of something you could barely hear in the background. It was bad.

But the auto mute isn’t a strike or even a warning. It’s no authority at all. It’s just a random automated guess at what companies might be looking for when doing their scans. It’s there to protect you in its weird and uncomfortable way.

You can dispute, but that puts the responsibility for any claims on you. You’re waiving the protection. It might be fine, but if it isn’t you suffer the consequences. So generally it’s usually not worth the risk to bother. But a mute is no big deal. It doesn’t hurt you or count against you in any way.

tl;dr: nobody is actually claiming that audio is copyrighted, except some robot scan thought it might be and better safe than sorry.

That AuDHD life

Nah, I’m AuDHD so my memory retains whatever tf random crap it wants and constantly forgets relevant things like my own address and what I was right in the middle of saying. But even if I could convince somebody, in my experience it still makes them uncomfortable. Or, it did enough times that it’s now lodged in my brain as something to put underneath the mask.

I often play dumb about little details I’ve noticed or remembered. I got in the habit when I was a kid and people would react weirdly like, “why do you know that?” So I’d just pretend I didn’t even when I did, and I never really stopped. I might notice what car somebody drives, for example, but if it comes up I just act like I don’t know unless they’ve specifically told me. I barely realize I’m doing it anymore.

If you like QfG, you might be interested in Heroine’s Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok on Steam. It was released for free and I imagine that hasn’t changed. But I still ended up donating because I enjoyed it so much.

I’m not normally one to point out a spelling mistake, but there is a very important difference between someone with deficits in lots of areas and someone who defecates in lots of areas.

Random thoughts in no particular order:

Circle of the Moon was actually not made by IGA. It was developed simultaneously by Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe while IGA worked on Harmony of Dissonance in Tokyo. However, to me Circle ironically feels closer to an IGAvania of the two while Harmony feels like IGA was trying to make something partway between Symphony and a classicvania.

Aria and Dawn are generally the best liked portable games, but OoE has a loyal following due to its much higher difficulty more reminiscent of the classic games.

Harmony of Despair is surprisingly enjoyable. Even if you missed the boat, it can still be enjoyed on a PS3 emulator with all the DLC and even online multiplayer. It’s honestly a blast.

There’s also a mobile game called Grimoire of Souls and, for the really obscure stuff, some Japan only Castlevania casino games.

Of the PS2 games, I remember quite enjoying Lament of Innocence and keep meaning to give it another play someday. The other one I forgot completely.

I’m looking forward to Bloodstained 2!

Edit to add one more: there’s a Sega Saturn version of Symphony of the Night where you can play as Maria. It’s Japan only, but a translation patch can be found online.

I’m in one of those story hyperfixations now and I’m legitimately scared of it ending. Finding it was my solution to a terrible slump I got stuck in. I finished a great game that hit just right, but there was nothing like it to follow up with. Now I’m several months and hundreds of hours into a massive series and I’m going to crash so hard when it’s over. But I don’t want to slow down either, so I’m just enjoying it while I can and barreling towards my own oblivion.

Stories like this always make me think: that dude probably rarely thinks about what he did that day, but to the person writing the story it’s a treasured memory. We do countless kindnesses like this, big and small, then never think about them again or know how important they were to the person receiving them. It might be paying for somebody’s groceries, letting them go first when they’re in a hurry, or something you said without realizing the impact your words made.

I think about this because I’m one of many people that will scroll past a meme saying “you matter” and instantly know that it’s wrong. But this idea is the closest I get to seeing the truth in it. We’ll never know how many people are out there telling a story like this about us without even knowing our name. But they are out there - and that feels pretty nice to think about.

It’s internalized ableism related to being told their whole lives they’re so smart and talented if only they weren’t so lazy. We’re extremely capable - sometimes. The rest of the time we struggle at the most basic of everyday tasks that normal people find trivial. Now combine that with late diagnosis. That’s a lot of years being told you should be better and wondering why you’re not. At the very least, it’s an extremely specific kind of low self esteem.

It may not be solely caused by dopamine levels, but the experience is common among many ADHD sufferers and our brain chemistry does predispose us to responding to that in certain ways (which is why we can break out of that pattern more easily when medicated).

For me, it was studying more effectively. Whether it’s studying, cleaning, or even enjoying a hobby, I just cannot buckle down and grind through the hard part. My brain needs some minimum level of efficiency to be satisfied. If it feels like I’m working too hard without enough of a result, it’s an impossible battle.

So I figure out how to do things better. Someone already mentioned Anki flash cards, and those were great for pure memorization. But every subject - and person - is different. The key was always going off the beaten path to look for other ways and other resources rather than just trying to grind it out. If I were in school now, I’d probably ask ChatGPT a lot of questions to help me learn. But I want to stress that I’d do so very carefully.

Maybe it’s because I’m AuDHD, but I tend to have to figure out my own way of doing things anyway. I rarely expect that the way other people do it is going to work for me. So I research and experiment until I find my own unique path. That feels less awful and it’s much easier to stick with.

Just about every aspect of linguistics has always fascinated me, even basic phonetics. I didn’t have much opportunity to study foreign language until I was older though, which I still regret. If I started earlier I probably would have gone a lot farther. Despite several years of intense Japanese study, my ability at using it is still poor. I keep practicing what I have even now though.

I was mostly avoiding writing a 12 paragraph comment. Any diet or self image issue taken to the extreme is an eating disorder. The most important lesson there is don’t take it to extremes. For people who struggle to diet in the first place, it’s not impossible but also not likely for the pendulum to swing that far in the opposite direction.

But if It ever did get to that point, no matter how or why, it’s not shameful or embarrassing and you can ask for help. Everybody just wants to see you healthy.

I’m only a sample size of one, but I lost half my weight and have kept it off for over a decade. I’m still borderline overweight, but healthy. There was no single trick, but the biggest thing was just sticking to it long enough. Once my body got used to being a lower weight, I was way less tempted to eat such large portions. The reframing I posted was taught to me by my therapist and helped me get to that point.

You gotta be in it for the long haul, but it’s long and difficult so take anything you can get to ease the journey. The easier it is, the more likely you will make it to the end.

It always helped me to think of hunger as winning. Hunger is the goal. Hunger is weight loss. If I’m hungry, it’s not a thing to be fixed. It’s what I want! I win! I’m hungry? Hell yeah.

Get your dopamine from hunger instead.

I’ve always had something wrong with me. The various diagnoses never fit and treatments didn’t do much. After making progress with my depression, I reaffirmed that it’s a result of my struggles, not the cause of them. So I stopped taking my meds, which never helped anyway.

At least, not how I expected. All my life, the mental fog and feeling scatterbrained was just normal. Even when starting Wellbutrin, it was mixed with other medications and ramped up so slowly that I never noticed the difference it made. But suddenly going without, I realized … oh, this has gotta be ADHD. So I got diagnosed and I’m seeing where that leads me.

It’s been a long road, and more difficult than most. But maybe soon it’ll finally get a little easier.