For the longest time, I've had an issue with regulating interest levels and executive function, and so often I fall into a cycle that I call destructive hyperfocus:

My brain really isn't good at prioritising tasks. To give you an example, the first draft of this blog post is from march 2023, 8 months ago.

Anyway, as a result of my ADHD, autism, and perfectionism (which is probably related to trauma caused by the capitalist idea that a person is only as valuable as their "work output"), I really struggle to just finish anything. Sometimes I won't even start a simple project because I get so overwhelmed thinking about it.

Naturally, what do I do? I hyperfocus

Perpetual blur...

If I want something done, and I want to do it fast, my brain will pull itself into this haze of working. I'll spend every waking moment thinking about the project, working on it in the back of my head, never properly resting because my dreams are infested with it.

And that's when it becomes destructive...

I end up socially isolating myself, I become obsessive and dissociated from reality. I become a lost soul, until eventually I burn out on the project or something else snaps me back to reality. So many months of my life have been sacrificed to this mental state and I'm not proud of it.

My winchester project is a particularly ironic example of this phenomenon.

Breaking the cycle

For now I've been having mixed results with simply spending less time on projects, and instead focusing more on my social life and friends. It seems like a large part of my motivation for creating things is the social aspect, and if that's fulfilled in healthier ways it reduces the risk of me getting stuck here.

Less time on projects also forces me to think about how I want to allocate my time, which isn't perfect because I miss out on trying some things, but I seem to be creating and publishing at an ok rate.

So yep, still figuring this one out. I'll let you know when I solve it for good :)