#I'd like to take the class in person because ADHD brain needs a 'focus space' to go into study mode

[solradguy]

Sol I gotta ask, when you read japanese, are you at the level where you can read it casually, or does understanding it still take effort? Because even though I've got the basic gist of my second language down, I still would struggle with picking up a novel and consuming it, actively translating the text in my brain takes so much extra effort than skimming words in english 🥲

If it's baby level I can read it just fine haha but longer stuff is impossible without Yomitan because there are just so... many..... kanji......... Picking up a physical novel or newspaper and being able to understand 100% of it is still beyond my skill level, but I am probably at least to a point where I could give like a vague summary of what's happening.

I'm not sure how many kanji I have memorized exactly... When I started the Begin translation a few years back I probably knew maybe 200 (what was I doing translating books at just 200 kanji?!?) and I'd be surprised if I knew less than 800 now, which is nearly a third of the recommended number needed to fully understand a newspaper (~2200). That's just kanji though, my actual vocabulary is a lot higher than that lol

I'd love to take an actual Japanese class some day... Self study has gotten me REALLY far but, like you, there are a lot of times where I have to translate it into English before it clicks with my brain, and I think I would be a lot more efficient at translating in general too if I had more professional studying. Maybe some day!!

[clanoffelidae]

personal, but overall positive! just under a read more bc i have chronic 'cant shut up disease' lol, just about how learning that i have adhd has explained so much and where i am right now on my path to healing from it all

a big part of my life recently has been learning to accept that i dont have much to show for my time

that so many of my friends are doing things and have all these wonderful crafts and skills to show for it

and i have nothing

i have my voice, i have my love for them and encouragement, but i dont have much to hold up next to their work and say 'see, i can make things too!'

because i havent made much

and thats perfectly fine! no one HAS to make things. so long as youre content, thats all that matters

but it can be upsetting because i WANT to make things

i WANT to be able to hold up what ive done next to my friends stuff and say ive made my own things, just like them

ive always wanted to make things, and i still do

but lately ive been having to come to terms with the fact that i havent, and that thats okay

because im still healing

because i went my whole life being praised for being clever and smart and advanced, for getting good grades and earning outstanding scholarships based solely on my academic abilities

and then crying because i couldnt focus on the material for the exam i had in half an hour and that no matter how much i physically forced myself to pay attention to it and tried to read it out loud to myself my brain was refusing to process the information and it was slipping through my fingers like sand

and dealing with this for years, never understanding how everyone else could just hang out and study regularly and i always had to beat my brain black and blue to get it to focus long enough to learn a single thing, thinking it was all my fault because clearly the problem was an inherent flaw in my personality and i was just a lazy and no good person who was immature and would never grow up and that i guess i didnt care because everyone was saying that if i cared id be working on it and i thought i cared an awful lot but they cant all be wrong so i guess i dont actually care about anything because nothing else makes sense...

that i was constantly running on pure adrenaline because that was the only way i was able to accomplish ANYTHING

there was no 'work on it slowly over time'

i'd be spaced out daydreaming, or listening to music while pacing the halls up and down and up and down and up and down for literal hours, from the moment i got off classes to a short break for dinner to right back to it until i forced myself to go to bed

just walking and walking and pacing and pacing and listening to music and daydreaming bc that was the only thing my brain was happy with

and looking back now, my god, i was acting like a tiger whose entire enclosure is a small concrete box three times its body length and so all it can do is pace back and forth and back and forth and back and forth

and by the time i graduated college i was so broken the mere thought of more schooling filled me with sheer dread, where i was so tired and worn down i barely even understood what i was doing anymore, i didnt want anyone to explain the 'why' or the 'how' of what it was they wanted me to do, i just wanted them to tell me what to do and leave me alone because even that was so close to more than i could handle

i couldnt take care of myself and had to be hassled at every turn to accomplish things i NEEDED to do, because they were hard and i couldnt do them until i was practically yelled at

and the thing is that im still doing that

not to the same extent, god no. i actually manage to keep relatively on top of my chores now, ive gotten into the routine of brushing my teeth every day properly, making sure i take a shower and moisturize (to be fair thats mostly because my hands are dry as shit bc i work in a lab lol, so they need lotioning after my shower), taking my meds, forcing myself to always eat SOMETHING at every meal time even if i cant manage what i 'should' eat, and ive started cooking again

not much, and its rare that i even extend my reach from 'grilled cheese' to 'boxed foods that require like 20-30 minutes instead of 5', but im starting to make food again and feed myself properly instead of either buying premade meals or just hoping i dont drop dead from whatever im hastily scarfing down with no thought to the nutritional value of it

im working on getting medicated and slowly learning how to be a person again after crashing myself so hard i think the only reason i didnt contemplate something more extreme is because i nearly died in 2019 and will never take one moment for granted

but my primary free time activity is still pacing and listening to music, lost in my own head and wearing a path into my apartment's floor

(hey im getting my steps in lol)

but i understand why now, and i understand why it can be so hard for me to pull myself away from that and make myself do other things

(if i were an ancient being i think i would be the one who walks endlessly without rest while softly singing a neverending song)

and that its not my fault, its not something wrong with me as a person in terms of my own personality or maturity or how hard im trying, its not something i can really control

and that part of learning how to heal from the damage its caused me is learning how to forgive myself for it

and so no i dont have much to show for my time, no i dont have many hobbies or little crafts to show for how productive i am and all my thoughts and all the wonderful little things i can and want to make

im too busy healing and remembering what its like to be alive

if i get one or two little things done here and there over the course of a few months that i can hold up and say 'look!!! i made something!!!' then thats wonderful, if not, if i come out those months with nothing to show for it and all i can say is 'i fed myself and brushed my teeth and went to bed on time and did my chores' then by god that is so much more than i wouldve been able to say a year and a half ago

no im not much of a 'content creator', even if i have so many ideas and want to make so many things that i want to share with so many people

and thats okay

because ive got something else that needs my time and energy right now

me

edit: want to clarify that by 'not something i can control' i mean that while i can find tricks and ways to make things easier to work WITH my adhd rather than against it i cant help having it and i cant help the fact that my brain is now wired differently because of it and that i cant do things in the same way as everyone else as a result