Ask HN: Experienced software engineer – but unable to consistently work

> Programming is the only thing I can do - and the only thing that makes me enough money to survive.

I think you may want to re-evaluate this. Some people with ADHD do better in environments where they are on their feet, actively doing work, rather than sitting at a computer screen. It sounds like you need a job that you can still do even when you are not at your mental/emotional best, and where minimum focus is mandatory but not hard to achieve. Programming may just not be that job, or not all the time.

There are now lots of "gig economy" jobs that you can do whenever you want to do them. They're not always the highest-paying, but in exchange for that you get a ton of flexibility. Maybe you could parley some of those into a hybrid approach - work in food-service or as an Uber driver or something else that is lower-paying during your downturns, and do short-term contract work during your upswings.

Plus, if you feel like a failure - and it kinda reads like you do now - having some small successes in another field could help you turn that feeling around.

for self 'therapy' I highly highly recommend the book Focusing by Eugene Gendlin, it is the unlock key for all other self-help. Jump to ch3 and read a dialogue example, it's figuring out the inside forces, underneath the words and 'theories'.

You can do it by yourself (I use a stuffed animal) and there's a pdf on library genesis.

(Honestly better than pay-a-person therapy for me, where i just wasted time trying to out-smart my therapist with insightful theories, intellectualization is a defense mechanism, as is self-pity i realized of late)

A huge amount of 'distraction' is just emotional flinching in my experience.

the order i would do things

--Get the magnesium and the all the b vitamins (get the methyl b12 and methyl folate b9 if u can, they are the superior forms and cheaper than genetic testing),

--get on animal meat and fat keto or the carnivore diet, with fasting when the food is too boring. The high animal fat/ meat version is a must try for anyone with any hint of mental issues. Plus just eating one thing (meat) is easy, no planning, no distractions. If vegans don't like that, feel free to stay sick i say, it's your life...

--read the Gendlin book and do the process every week, instead of 'meditating on your breath' and other stuff that takes ten years to get anywhere. Focusing will bring up lots of dark emotions, good thing no one can see you sobbing so it does not matter

--Quit all caffeine, all my anxiety disappeared after a month.

These are all the interventions that legit helped me, take it or leave it

good luck

I thought I am an extremely lazy person who hates to work for 25 years. That it's ADHD was suggested to me a year ago and it was confirmed on EEG scans, by psychological evaluation and by taking medication that actually worked - however it also made me paranoid (extremely, pushing me out of normal reality) and I have other (physical) medical condition that made it unsustainable.

Yes, my code is in production and people (users as well as other devs) love it. Future maintainers always praise it for its readability and simple extensibility. I co-founded a startup (niche CRM/ERP kind of app) and got it working within a month and we got customers actually using the app and investors thanks to that. However the investors pushed me out when they found out I am not working for extended periods of time. I got some small amount of money but was forced to leave my stake.

Indeed, I am not comfortable with failing anymore. Now it's so bad I just can't have interviews anymore, I start shaking and can't think at all - a decade ago I used to have very high self esteem and didn't have this kind of problems, it's indeed a developed condition.

I'm not paying for my medical services. I pay mandatory health insurance which is priced by the state based on a minimum and/or a percentage of my income.

Academia/school is torture because the fuckers were screaming at me all the time for not completing homework, because I always shut down when I had to do something on the blackboard in front of the classroom, etc. I guess university might be different but I'd have to complete the 3 remaining years of high school to get there. Anyways from what my Gf experienced at the university it's terrible there too so I'm not really motivated to go this way, doesn't seem like a solution.

It's not like I am playing video games instead of doing the stuff I need to do. I really truly want to do it. I am sitting in front of it, I don't browse internet or whatever. I have the work in front of me, but my brain is shut down, unable to have a single thought. I am sitting like this for hours, wishing with all of my willpower to just do the thing, but can't have an intelligent thought.