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Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

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Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#71

Post by whalesalad »

rtuin wrote: post #50
whalesalad wrote: post #11

weed, adhd meds, you are scrambling and desensitizing the already compromised executive function center of your brain. you essentially need to do a dopamine detox and start back from ground zero. for weaning yourself off THC my strategy is to buy high-end CBD flower (online mail order in the US) and then taper my usage. At this point I am consuming about 1g of CBD flower every morning and loving it. Some vendors I li…

> …, adhd meds, you are scrambling and desensitizing the already compromised executive function center of your brain. Any references to prove or substantiate this? I’m specifically interested in the claim about adhd meds

any psych will tell you this. stimulants lose their effectiveness over time. your brain adapts, more is required. pretty soon you cannot function without it. breaks are important, as-is using them as a single tool in a complete toolbox of strategies. it is not a magic bullet, although anyone who has been on it a month or two will lead you to believe that it is.

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#72

Post by pydry »

gedy wrote: post #33
nicoburns wrote: post #5

> All I really look forward to these days is getting high and playing video games or watching Seinfeld reruns each weekend Not saying it's the only cause of your problems, but you shouldn't underestimate the affect that getting high can have on how you feel when you're not high (especially if it's an every day or most days thing). Consider a (say 3-6 month) detox.

Yeah it's interesting to me how little this gets talked about now days, but back in the 80s teenagers called it "antimotivational syndrome"[0] to describe what happens to stoners. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amotivational_syndrome

I get all of those symptoms periodically without weed or any other kind of drug to make it happen. Maybe there's a confounding variable there.

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#73

Post by nashequilibrium »

n00bskoolbus wrote: post #30

> Also, I have ADHD. This is probably relevant, but I haven't quite figured out how. Are you medicated for this? I got diagnosed with AHDH last year. The doctor I'm seeing specializes in ADHD and OCD and they have found in their experience that there are kind of two forms of ADHD. One is the hyper active part giving struggles to focus. The other is a motivation side of it where it's difficult to even get started on t…

I don't think I have the motivation type ADHD but I do struggle to get motivated, especially after the initial excitement phase of a project. What I found worked for me was a particular set of songs, once I put that playlist on, within 5 minutes I'm in the zone. I don't ever listen to that playlist any other time.

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#74

Post by varispeed »

htilford wrote: post #29

> Also, I have ADHD. This is probably relevant, but I haven't quite figured out how. Yeah, ditto but having been through these ruts many times in the past I can offer some advice ADHD makes you incapable of settling into easy You have work to do but it's easy. You have a side project but you've figured out the hard parts and so it's just the implementation grind, which is easy. Find a challenge switch your side proje…

> You have a side project but you've figured out the hard parts and so it's just the implementation grind, which is easy.

I found a stupid mind trick for that. If I can't do it, then it isn't easy. I kind of found a satisfaction now in doing boring stuff, feels a bit like a super power. I find it useful at work as well - if there are very boring tasks to do I take them. Team loves me for that and these usually are so "easy" that I have more time to "procrastinate" and e.g. do my own projects as well.

Also about figuring the hard parts - when I start I get hyper focused on these and often I won't stop until I figure something out, that means working even 16 hours a day - which is not healthy! That's why I rather avoid it at work...

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#75

Post by spion »

EddySchauHai wrote: post #40

Exercise, drop the drugs, ensure you have some part of your identity unrelated to work. I was in a rut for years because my work was my identity and I wasn’t where I wanted to be (thank you effective altruism for the identity crisis lol). When I moved out to California I quit drinking (for a while, quit again more recently), focused on exercising, and set a goal of not seeing my whole identity as a software developer…

How did you go about achieving that identity goal?

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#76

Post by freemint »

ipnon wrote: post #53

What if you followed your gut? Quit your job, stop working on your game, quit smoking cannabis and being lazy. If nothing in your lifestyle brings you joy, get a new lifestyle. There will be a period of initial listlessness, but it sounds like it can’t get much worse anyway! I think everyone with a good life goes through this. You’ve got everything you’d need but there’s still some itch left to scratch. My advice wou…

> quit ... being lazy

Can be quiet toxic advice for people with ADHD.

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#77

Post by danieldevries »

My therapy is Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It's basically active meditation. When someone is trying to choke you unconscious, you are not thinking about the past or future. It's not just exercise that makes you exhausted, you become an assassin. And it's very social!

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#78

Post by electrondood »

Can I ask why you went for TW rather than dev? I ask because I almost used that as a cop-out once because I was overwhelmed by the technical interviews, etc. required for being a dev.

For me it was a way to stay comfy and avoid situations that would force me to grow.

Also, the last 2 years have been rough. Are you getting enough social connection?

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#79

Post by bckr »

A lot of good advice here; I'll throw in my 2c.

What do you actually care about in life? Is it people? Ideas? Circumstances or something you can give yourself? If you can find just a tiny seed of caring about something outside of yourself, bigger than yourself, something that goes beyond basic pleasures, cultivate that, and it can lead to much greater happiness.

Speaking of pleasure and happiness, these two things are not the same. There's a book called The Hacking of the American Mind which really helped me understand this. Essentially, we have been conditioned to confuse pleasure with happiness. Pleasure is fleeting, a feeling we get from good food, or sex, or drugs, or video games; or, confusingly, from realizing that we are happy. Happiness is a deeper and longer-term circumstance. Replace "pleasure" and "happiness" with whatever words work for you.

Others have mentioned the importance of human connection. +1 to that. +1 to therapy as well.

I'll mention about the weed. Others are suggesting you detox / go cold turkey. This could work, or you could enter into a cycle where you stop and start again and just throw your emotions into greater chaos. Most likely, you are using the weed to self-treat depression/anxiety. Unfortunately, it does became habit forming, as much as pro-weed folks want to think it doesn't. So it's probably now causing some depression/anxiety which will get worse if you stop. What I recommend, from experience, is to start to play a game of finding the smallest dose that still works for what you're using it for. Try skipping a whole day once a week, then every few days, etc. and pay attention to how you feel on days you use and days you don't use, as well as the days after. I bet you'll feel great after a week of no using. It may also help to use and don't do anything else, just sit and be high, and perceive what it is about being high that you actually enjoy.

Best fortunes to you on your journey.

Re: Ask HN: I'm in a rut. How did you get out of yours?

#80

Post by eurasiantiger »

gedy wrote: post #33
nicoburns wrote: post #5

> All I really look forward to these days is getting high and playing video games or watching Seinfeld reruns each weekend Not saying it's the only cause of your problems, but you shouldn't underestimate the affect that getting high can have on how you feel when you're not high (especially if it's an every day or most days thing). Consider a (say 3-6 month) detox.

Yeah it's interesting to me how little this gets talked about now days, but back in the 80s teenagers called it "antimotivational syndrome"[0] to describe what happens to stoners. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amotivational_syndrome

Yeah that’s now called undiagnosed ADHD, because that’s what it is.
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