People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.
I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.
I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.
There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me
I’m both concerned and comforted by how many people seem to relate to this
do you ever sabotage your own free time? like wtf is that about? i want to play this game or read or do something specific but instead i will just stare out the window or scroll mindlessly???
Please do things to strengthen your attention span. It stresses me out so much when people just accept their small attention spans and cater to them without any acknowledgment that they are making it worse by doing that.
There is a reason attention spans are worse now and it didn’t just happen by chance. Media and the internet designed it that way and we went with it because it was easier.
Some of us with ADHD and brain fog need to meet ourselves where we’re at and lengthen our exercise span by watching a two minute video instead of a one minute video. Some of us need to sit down and read a novel with our phones turned off.
Wherever you’re at, just realize that not doing things that feel hard will keep making your attention span worse.
