I'd add and say, allow yourself to have fun when learning, if you decide that you're in control of your life and you're having fun while at it, you can achieve great things.
Not to rain on the parade but..... Just "allowing" yourself to have fun and actually having fun are two different things :P Sure after you grind through something you may actually come to enjoy it. But the thought of I may have fun picking up trash never translates into having fun picking up trash :P
@@ekr990011 true, only a sith deals with absolutes :D My point is I've also failed many times in the past, doubting myself and stressing out to a point I didn't enjoy programming when I thought it was my passion, turns out I was over thinking and following a path that worked for others, not me. This advice might not resonate with everyone, but for me working on my well being as much as my studies made the difference.
@@ThePrimeagen yea I'm literally in the same boat I feel as you. I even tried drugs to increase my attention span for studying and suckes in school. Also like you, I can sit down and play video games from morning to night with no issue. This was a great video.
As a 35 year old person with ADHD…I 100% agree. The ramp up is much harder than a neurotypical person but on the back end you can learn almost anything. Also one thing that helped me was learning that ADHD isn’t an attention disorder, it’s an executive function disorder. I was at the mercy of a smaller execution tank that takes stimuli to fill back up. This is why I could game for half a day without any issues. For me the solution was really simple…study or work in packets or projects instead of time based effort. For example if I was working on a coding project but wasn’t motivated, I would sit down to just get one thing done, if I wanted to stop after that I did. Sometimes it was 5 minutes and sometimes it was hours. Today, I have mastered this internal process so well I can code for 4-5 hours straight without any problems because I know when to take a break and when not to.
That's a fantastic way of putting it. I'm struggling to code and learn even though I really want to and have been looking for a way to do it without the sandpaper against my brain when I do it feeling. I'll have to try what you did.
@@dakotakeast59 I recommend coding specific projects start small and work up. Coding is building thousands of little skills and then combining them together like legos. Over time you’ll write the same functions so much that it will begin to feel like you’re playing an instrument where you don’t think it just flows. If you know nothing about the basic structures of coding (loops, conditionals, etc) then you need to learn all those. But once you know how to do those then build small projects and break down the project into small steps. If you can mentally piece together the code necessary to write a full program (pseudo code) then you can piece them all together and build bigger and bigger projects. I coded a JavaScript game this way from scratch in vanilla JavaScript and it only took me a month or two after a year of coding. Lastly, think of coding like martial arts or a musical instrument, practice the basics over and over and over and over and a deeper level of intuition will become so natural that coding becomes incredibly fun.
Your story is scary close to mine. All my life I've struggled with severe ADHD (24 right now), doing all kind of crazy things. I was also addicted to many things back then. My teacher actually told me that he did NOT understand how I could get through highschool due to my problems. I could never get the stuff he said into my head, I almost failed every test, and I skipped school 33% during all years in total. But the crazy part was that I did not feel "stupid", I just felt un-motivated and "under stimulated". When I was 18 years old I got a "summerjob" at this IT-company in my city where they taught me C# and SQL. After 3 month they hired me without any degree, I finally found something that was fun to do. 5 years later I've jumped from knowing nothing about code, to develop large scale systems at this company and my life have turned around completely. As soon as i look into a new framework, I just learn it in 2 days. This, was unheard of when I was younger, to all people I was just a kid with problems and will never do anything good in my life. A tip to all ADHD people out there. "Find something you love, eventually you will master it better & faster than anyone else, and then find a way to make it your job". We all ADHD people are extremely hyper-focused when it comes to thing we enjoy doing.
Yep, for all the struggles - as soon as I find something I'm passionate about and have an adequately supportive environment around, I pick that shit up so fast it's kinda shocking even to me.
Do you think you would do Masters? Structure isn't something that is suitable with ADHD, stuff like maths, useless assignments etc. Do you recommend it?
There are studies showing that unmedicated ADHD kids are much likely to "self medicate" using hardcore drugs as teenagers, which is sad. I am glad I fixed my ADHD at a psychiatrist and taking Concerta 36 mg/day, then I was able to hyperfocus in coding, not only games. I am glad you conquered it bro, there are cases that people can handle it just by aging and practicing. You directed hyperfocus from games to coding. Congratulations
I have ADHD and am prone to depression, makes for a bad and very unproductive life, I got medicated at age 32 and finally discovered my passion for coding about 6 mos after starting medication. I was on a path to no where before, now I have finished a very difficult SE program and am building a medium size application in Rails, and will start apply for jobs once it is finished. I don't see any way I could have gotten this far without medication.
Definitely agree, I had some bad experiences with medication and just kept smoking for the last 20 years.. finally found something that's working and am trying to quit smoking, but it ain't easy! Don't give up on meds, they're way better than drugs, and won't get you in as much trouble either!
Ya lately I’ve been thinking of my adhd as being a momentum based learner. The task switching/ starting is a deadly zone of distraction, but once I’m 4 hours into a leetcode problem I’ll cancel plans and skip meals to keep working on it. I also think adhd makes me get overwhelmed by too many options (like every restaurant menu) and that can make project setup or deciding which personal projects to start and stick with very challenging. Once I get the project up and running, I can start building up momentum. Love this video thank you for sharing some of your story!
Fellow "alternative brain configuration here." I started watching your videos bc I thought they were so entertaining and useful but man you are such an inspiration 👏👏👏
@@ThePrimeagen while I agree with him, and this was amazing bit of info wrapped up nicely. Yet I am obliged to tell you "FUCK YOU" and have AN AMAZING day!
I love the point about the asymmetry between success and failure: just a little bit of success can be more important than a whole lot of failure (and you can't have the former without the latter).
For me, i often *know* i enjoy something but i *cant* enjoy it when I need to... and it's impossible to learn. Need to get better at remembering i have ADHD and forgiving myself for those moments but often I feel like a failure and a looser because I can't read a chapter or get through 3 or 4 math problems. People would tell me "if you enjoyed something you would do it" and that would drive me crazy...
ADHD + perseverance is definitely a super power. I feel that it takes literally years of effort to understand that as Mr. Prime is talking about in this vid. Like many I experimented with adderrall and whatnot, it did help but I felt hindered on it. Like I unlocked that superpower but it was only while depending on a drug, I was also way to irritable and suffered from TERRIBLE headaches. Only years into software development and after finding ways to motivate myself and sleeping enough (no more late nights!) did I realize I was able to really dig in and finish something complicated at a high level. Situations where my peers struggle and I was able to see the bigger picture. ADHD fam we run the world.
@@ardasevinc4 for me it was a mix of getting away from screens in my off hours, working out and learning that I enjoy putting forward my best work (not necessarily 'the' work at times!). I struggled getting uninteresting work done for a long time due to motivation / distractions. I realized that I felt the uninteresting work was "beneath" me. When I thought of some peers I look up to they didn't seem to have this problem, they seemed to thrive making simple changes really elegantly and clean. They seemed to enjoy any change they made. Truly masters of their craft. This shift in my mindset was probably one of the most important moments in my life. I'm struggling to fully communicate what it is that motivates me personally, so i'm going to attempt to visualize it for all of you. Let's all think of a master carpenter, someone who truly makes incredible things out of boring old wood. Maybe today it's a cabinet. Maybe tomorrow it is a desk. The master does not care, the master crafts. There are a lot of carpenters. Most just 'make' cabinets and desks. But then there are those folks who truly enjoy what they do and somehow make that cabinet or that desk **really** shine. Realizing that I enjoyed the craft of engineering as a creative endeavor and not necessarily the act of engineering as a job was truly what did it for me. Let me be clear, it was no silver bullet. I still struggle at times as we all do. But I find I struggle most when I havn't taken care of my basic needs like moving my body, sleeping, and socializing.
@@camerondeere9752 Not the OP, but I'm using Adderall for habituation and am halfway through coming off of it (4 days on, 3 days off). There are two things that are working extremely well for me: - Only do things you want to reinforce when you're on the medication, especially when it starts hitting you. Meds will make things stick easier than normal, so use them to build the habits you want to stick. Don't just do things that you would normally do, and definitely don't do things that are easily enjoyable dopamine factories like games or social media. I made sure to always be working on hard things in the morning when the first dose hit me. Now it feels weird to not program in the mornings, even on weekends. - Meditate. A few months after starting meds, they seemed to start wearing off easier. I started meditating every day for 15 minutes, and the focus I get from them is now stronger than when I started. On days where I don't take meds, the meditation still gives me around 4-5 hours of focus that's almost as good as being on Adderall. I also started building the habit of shorter meditation throughout the day, like spending 15 seconds quieting my mind if I realized I went down some distraction rabbit hole. This has made it way easier to start tasks and focus without meds, though it only seems to work well if I did the 15 minute session in the morning. This also gives you a very easy way to break out of hyperfocus states if you need to, but it's something you need to practice daily and won't work that well at first.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that's responsible for overriding impulses and doing the hard thing instead. It it is not fully developed until the age of ~25. My guess is that what you are describing is the effect of the prefrontal cortex developing fully, which feels like maturing.
Search for 'Robert Sapolsky - Frontal cortex'. You'll find a 13 minute video of this stanford professor who has this series on neurobiology on youtube.
Thank you for talking about this. As someone with ADHD and BPD, it was so incredibly easy for me to just feel like a victim and just wallow in self pity for far too long. It took some absolutely horrible incidents in my life for me to start trying to control my impulses and to get my life in order. I feel like if there's one thing that pops into mind when I think of you, it's just the love you have for everything you seem to do on stream, and it's absolutely infectious, so watching you really helps when my own reserves are running dry. Love you, man.
One of the biggest things I can recommend is taking time to seriously contemplate your values and your life purpose. Once you truly feel like you know what you need to be doing, it's easier to stay focused and not dabble.
I really understand and feel what you are saying bro. I am going through this for the past decade and a half. It is a constant struggle. Only for the past month have I gotten some amount of hold on my severe ADHD. I haven't been officially diagnosed but I know it quite well that I do have ADHD. I used to spend countless hours playing CSGO at one point. This went on for 3 full years. I effing bunked my end semester exams to play CS 1.6 in my college days. Had to retake the entire semester. Couple gaming with smoking weed, and being in introvert, is all an guy like me needs to totally destroy myself. Every time I gave up an addiction, I took on another addiction. The only positive about it was that I kept taking on less harmful addiction compared to the last. My other big issue is that I am a Knowledge seeker which has been my steady addiction for past 8 years or so. I just can't stop myself from reading stuff, pouring over hundreds of TH-cam videos every single day. I have opinions ranging from politics, philosophy, religion, economics to which is the best straight razor to buy. I would argue and fight with random strangers in the comments section of TH-cam. For hours. I was drowning in my addiction. Have always been my entire life. It only changed last month when I decided to control myself. This last month has been so effing productive. Finally building software that I am proud of. I am happy but scared at the same time. Because I don't want to relapse. I don't know for how long this streak will continue. You and Theo have helped me a lot in this. Your energy/enthusiasm and Theo's opinions (even if I don't agree with some of them) have inspired me to keep myself focused. Because if you guys can I can. I still have a lot of issues that I need to sort out. But this is a great start! Took a lot for me to admit this. Hope no one reads it. But feels good to get it off my chest!
It's pretty wild how similar your approach was to mine. I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but what you just explained was my exact reasoning and how I changed. I would spend 24 hours straight in a video game and wouldn't bat an eye, yet when it came to doing something I didn't like it felt like my brain literally couldn't do it. I would fall asleep in a chair while doing something I wasn't interested in like 30 minutes because I couldn't pay attention no matter how hard I tried. (So I thought) Next I just started grinding through that state all day every day. I would get tired and set an alarm for 15 minutes, fall asleep get back up and try that task again. I wouldn't ever do anything other than sleep and that task because I knew I wouldn't go back to the task. Now people say there is no way I could have ADHD because I can force myself to focus on a task for insane periods of time. I feel like while I learned to code I spent the first year learning how to learn.
Hyper-focus is a well known trait of ADHD, most people just think ADHD = super hyper distracted by anything and everything all the time. Its actually just a dopamine imbalance.
That's crazy. That's also how I do it! Bro.. Literally, I will not do anything else but programming and sleeping because I know that's how I will stay focused on it. I grinded through that state of mind for years until I broke it.
@@simbadlemarin1815 I'm starting to wonder if I have ADHD lol... I remember my new boss saying to me that nobody can code from 9 to 5 without breaks. I just nodded and changed the topic. I'd coded from 8am to 8pm the previous day without a break, had dinner and then went back to coding until 2am. Other times, I feel I can't concentrate on anything even for 5 minutes. At uni I literally cried one time because I was "studying" for the whole day and every 2-3 minutes my mind would just wander and I couldn't get it to focus on what I needed it to focus on no matter how hard I tried. I didn't know what was wrong with me... I felt like such a failure and I was so angry at myself. I had the same with my dissertation where I felt I couldn't do anything for weeks at a time and I'd bring myself to the point of tears. But then every now and then I'd have a few days where I'd be able to push through that and once I did I'd reach this hyper focused state where I felt like I could just be operating at 110% without breaks for 10+ hours at a time. Now that I'm writing this stuff down, I realise I can think of dozens of examples like this 🤔
@@udemyaccount4082 Dude, I feel you, but don't give up on meds. They will help and there's others out there that aren't so harsh. I seriously understand, but I wish I'd have found the meds I'm on now years ago instead of smoking my lungs out the last 20 years for my dopamine fix... If your doc only wants to throw hard stuff at you, find another doctor!
Wow, we've gone through virtually the same exact thing. Just got diagnosed with ADHD last year and my life has improved dramatically since becoming medicated. Thanks, this video was motivating.
I procrastinated off getting diagnosed with ADHD for the longest time. Now I have a diagnosis, I've been putting off getting treatment for the longest time. I swear to god I'll book an appointment soon. Shit I was gonna do that tonight. It's too late now I'll do it tomorrow.
@@DragonNZG Aww thanks for asking, yes! After a five month trip on the waiting list I got my psych appointment and was put on dexamphetamine. I believe my life is better for it and I'm certainly much more productive and I feel like I waste less of my time. I have my first followup in a week !! I still struggle with many things most principally time management and getting ready to leave for things but it's been good. I think my university results show as well.
I'm not diagnosed yet, but pretty sure I have it. 'ADHD + maturity' that feels right, practising this is harder and a constant effort than just to say it or know it. Will come back to this comment when I'll have my share of wins (so far in life ,none btw)
I have 20 exams in the next month and I'm about to fail my year for the third time. My ADHD has been killing me so badly in the last couple of years, but I'm not gonna drop out because I know I'm not the only one who suffered through these problems. Seeing you overcome these hurdles and climbing from the bottom to the top keeps me going. You're such an inspiration prime, you trully make my day better.
I failed my year twice and was about to fail again. I didn't know what to do and didn't see a future for me. It was the worst time of my life. I removed my pc, phone and everything distracting from my desk and managed to baerly pass the tests. With hard work my grades got a bit better and in the end I graduated. Now I'm about to get my Master's degree in university. Don't give up, you can accomplish so much more than you think. There will be a better future, however it might look like. I wish you all the best -Daniel
Make sure you are getting enough sleep and eat well and stay hydrated! Ask for help from family to help make u food, if needed. All the best of lucks!!!!
I have ADD, Autism and mild OCD, and the 2nd order conditions that these bring. I wish it was so easy to see them as "super powers", but it isn't. While Autism gives me an intense ability to learn just about any programming language, easily, ADD will force me to be unable to complete anything, even if I really want to. The roll-off of interest and ability to focus on it, very quickly intensifies as a lot of features either get added or are completed, while paths of completion become overwhelming numerous and hard to see. It's easy to suggest ideas, like using tools to organise my thoughts and processes, but even that becomes another 'feature' that needs to be managed, and while it works at my employer, it has a team to manage it. But this doesn't work in my own personal projects as I'm a developer of one.
prime, the more i hear about your life, the more impressed by you and your skills i become you are in my kind the best tech guy to follow keep being a real one ♥️♥️♥️
I love real talk like this. Like when you tell stories of rough stuff you faced, and how you overcame some (or all) of it but some of it still may linger on. Those are the stories that are filled to the brim with real lifeness and authenticity
Thank you so much for sharing this Primeagen, I appreciate hearing of another dev who is completely honest on just how much they sucked until they didn't. I'm a software dev now but the educational system tried its best to gatekeep me from becoming a dev. Got my Computer Science bachelors but it took me 6 years with the lowest GPA in my graduating class. 3 of those years were community college where I was doing nothing but remedial math just to get to Calculus I which most CS majors start with in freshman year. I failed Precalculus twice, but the third time taught me something you learned too, Primeagen: I wasn't gonna get through this college thing until I sit my ass in that seat in the library from 3:00pm - 10:00pm and get the homework done that took other kids an hour. One thing I don't agree with you is that there's no silver bullet. For me, it turns out there was a silver bullet: proper diagnosis & medication. The month before I graduated, a friend of mine from CS (also with ADHD) told me that I almost certainly have ADHD and I should get checked out for it, and so I did. I quickly got a diagnosis since I checked off basically all the boxes. Then, when I got diagnosed, I then got treatment. Medication immediately gave me the ability to sit down and do what I wanted to be doing. I got the diagnosis too late to do well in school but early enough that I was able to get an internship, crush the internship, and get a full-time software engineer offer at that internship all in the span of 2 months. I quickly came up to speed with the modern UI & React stack (SoyBoy JS dev and proud tyvm) and within half a year after graduating college as the worst student in my graduating class was owning most UI tickets for my team. I wouldn't have been able to do this without the medication; I wish I hit that "maturity epiphany" that you hit during your third attempt at college! Today, I strongly advocate for anyone to get themselves checked out if they have ADHD. Medication works better than any other method of managing ADHD and isn't something to be ashamed of! For anyone looking for more info about ADHD I absolutely recommend checking out "How to ADHD" on TH-cam (th-cam.com/users/HowtoADHD), Jessica is an inspiration and has a huge amount of knowledge and content to share!
Your video made me realize that this is true, the gaming and studying part is very relatable. Am now reinforced that my ADHD is actually a gift and proud to have it.
Oops, my bad! I got so pumped up and jumped right into the comments without fully soaking in your awesome advice. But don't worry, I did give it a thumbs up to show some love!
I would say there are a lot of us who have the same path. Personally, I found your stream about 3 years ago when I was just starting to get that feeling of wanting to be better in my heart. Now, The startup is reforming actual degenerates into ones with good intentions for the world and the people around them. I’ll remember this journey forever. Thanks for everything Prime, you’re truly a legend to us all
I totally feel you ! It's like concentration is a muscle and with ADHD you need to train harder to get results, but once your training is complete, you unlock the hyperfocus ability and you're able to go deeper and crush problems. I'm also convinced it's all about maturity, as you said. The hardest part for me was to be able to remain calm when someone interrupts. Sometimes I still want to bite :D
I have ADHD and a fear of people so when speaking with (oters than familly) i can't focus on what they'r talking about and 100% of the time, instantly forgot the critical parts of the discutions. That is for me the worst part of ADHD, you struggle to listen and to understand, you'r mind is away from the action then at the end of the day you feel like you must do 200% more than "normal" people to just grab 50% of the information, it is really exhausting ... I feel like i'm in an infinite loop of redo same things ever and ever, and never learn the leason :D Btw nice vidéo MARIA
I have struggled with mental illness and my mental health since I was a kid. Before I even knew what those terms were. After years of ADHD, depression, anxiety, and even an attempt to take my life, I never thought I would be able to live without SSRIs medications. I clung to them because it was the only thing that made my mind quiet, but it also made me a zombie. Microdosing has given me control of my mental health for the first time, and they essentially gave me my life back.
I’ve been researching on psychedelics and it’s benefits to individuals dealing with Anxiety, Depression, ADHD and from my findings, they really work and I’ve been eager to get some for a while but its been difficult to get my hands on them.
The Trips I've been having really helped me a lot. I’m now able to meditate and I finally feel in control of my emotions and my future and things that used to be mundane to me now seem incredible and full of nuance on top of that I'm way less driven by my ego and I have alot more empathy as well
@ohmakure4716 I feel the same way too. I put too much on my plate and it definitely affects my stress and anxiety levels. I am also glad to be a part of this community.
Damn, it's like you got my own story and spit it in my face. I've always looked at my ADHD as a 'extra hard' mode on-top of the game of life; like an additional preset that I just have to learn to work with until it helps me. In my scenario it was much similar to where I had to learn my own method to utilizing it, for me personally I've found that I have to lure myself into any and every subject mentally and at-least pretend it's interesting. Once I establish that first little adrenaline spike of "Oh this is fun", I go absolutely mental on the topic and learn everything about it ( I joke with my friends that it's starting the engine ). Amazing video, made my day.
Bro. You just spoke directly to me. I pretty much made terrible grades, strictly because of focus. Every teacher since elementary school would claim I “wasn’t trying.” Yet, I would literally be sitting in class, reminding myself to focus, so much so that telling myself to focus was distracting. Literally took me 9 years to get my undergraduate degree (also skipped a lot). However, since I was 12, if I had a guitar I could literally sit there for hours, and nothing could distract me. My parent would literally have to take it away from me. It’s an interesting dilemma.
ADHD is like double edged sword, if you enjoy doing what you are doing, then you can hyperfocus on it, but if you don't, then you will focus on anything except what you are supposed to be doing.
i'm watching this again to get pumped to study but before that just want to drop this thank you note. something about the advice in this video just really resonated with me. after watching it i had the best study session i've had in recent memory by just being mindful of my adhd. when i feel the distraction creeping in i just reengage by looking at the problem from another way. i guess it's like my mind is moving quickly on the problem and getting "bored" with it, so the new angle is the new stimulation to keep me engaged? i dont really know. but the point is i actually learned an "advanced" level CS concept in just an hour yesterday by doing this. i had been in a spot recently where i can spend days studying but not absorbing anything, so this is huge for me. now that i feel like i'm actually on a path to being able to harness my adhd, as opposed to being controlled by it, i feel like i'm going to become the best version of myself, LFG! btw i also dropped out twice, but just finished a masters, worked in big tech and now starting a PhD. it can be done Thanks prime!
Your life story videos resonate very well me with. Maturity did the most for me. Continues improvement is the key. If there is a silver bullet the answer is, let it take time.
same, I was never a good student. I couldn't pass the univ exam that I want to go to (I take the exam 3 times), I had to drop 2 different univ, it was a fcking tough time. I still belive it feels like a curse but it's curse that if you "find a way to use it" you're just broken. For those who play Dota, it feels like the Q of bloodseeker as a passive, you can stay and don't do anything and just lose health each tick or constantly roam each lane and pock everything you see. Finally after 25yo I got my first diploma at videogame programming, after failing a lot in Peru, now I'm in Canada (also I had to take a whole year more because fail courses at the end). But I guess it's all worth it when I will able to stay at home and said from now own I just can do whatever I want whenever I want without get worried about something else. How do I even know if I will reach my goal? honestly I have no idea, I guess I'm just gambling and I'm putting all my money, time and mentality on "goal reached"
This is so relatable. I failed class twice in school and could never focus on anything. As an adult I somehow manage to code for 10 hours as if it was a video game. Even studying for a whole day is possible for me now. Personally, it feels like ADHD is overclocking my brain and I see it as a gift.
Damn thats so similar to how I dealt with my ADHD, except the going to college part. Was stuck in a deadend entry level job just wasting my time playing this one game, even at the office, for 2 whole years. I don't know if I can call it a lucky break, but that intense focus you get when you're into something, I somehow got that with programming and I did the equivalent of 3 years of learning in just one year. That feeling has worn off by now, but just the fact that I pushed through it has made the ride smooth sailing now. Feels like I'm chasing that focus for coding again, but its almost impossible. But I got a lot of motivation from this video : )
Right now I'm chasing machine learning... I recommend. A lot to learn and super interesting and cool thing you can do. Also it has a pretty steep learning curve so probably a good career move
It is incredibly motivating to know someone suffering from same disease can overcome all the shit and be a Faang software engineer developing blazingly fast code. Thank you
I have adhd, used medication heavily but recently stopped. I graduated high school with a 2.2 went to community College, transferred to UCI, got an internship at NASA JPL (while at cc) and was there for 7 years after graduating from UCI. Software development and problem solving is the only thing I can focus on without help. I still deal with imposter syndrome and have to fight my urges to overcompensate by studying and learning everything I can so I don't end up feeling like the dumbest person in the room. I forget to do laundry, and chores, schedule a dentist appt etc, but if need to learn a language or a new framework, I will go as hard as I can. Medication helps with somethings but it honestly hurts me in the long run. The only thing I truly love to do is develop software and solve problems.
Cheers. Diagnosed from childbirth. Programmer for 23 years. I already had the "I think this guy also has ADHD" by looking from another of your videos. Keep strong and clean. Good Luck !!!
I’m 22, and a few months ago I was diagnosed with ADD(without the hyperactivity), and for a long time I thought that everyone was like me, had the same difficulties on focusing, so I kind of tried to outcome it with maturity and strategies. Strategies like, making lists, keeping things that could distract me out of reach, etc. Took me YEAAAARSSS to start being able to focus on one thing for more than a half hour, it’s hard people, and I agree with Prime, ADHD + maturity is such a blessing, I remember that one time I studied a calculus textbook for 4 hours straight, I didn’t even see the time passing. But, not everyone have time the time to train yourself to focus, so, if you feel like you have ADD/ADHD, try to schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist/neuropsychiatrist, those professional will help you, at the beginning taking daily meds(for example Vyvanse), and with time, you will only take it on a really troubled day. ADHD don’t have a cure, but with the correct treatment you are able to minimize the symptoms.
@@bosmer3836 finding enjoyment in what you are doing. If you are doing it because you think you should do it or someone else told you to, then you won't be able to focus whatsoever. Only if the task at hand was sparked by your own imagination can you truly start to understand what focus means to you.
Feels like one of those videos where you hyper focus on the success as oppose to understanding the failings. The most important thing to understand is that doing nothing brings your opportunity down to zero. However so long as you are trying you still have a chance. That is better than nothing. Also understand that people in higher positions and reached their goals have had extreme amounts of luck and sometimes even money to keep them afloat through the painful stuff. Risk within your own means. Make sure youre happy but also dont give up. Live isnt worth hurting yourself in hopes for something that "may" happen. You'll have to learn to do it for yourself. Dont give up and youre better off than you were yesterday.
This is along the lines of what my mom used to say to encourage me, look at my ADHD as a gift, and focus on what interested me. My grades would soar when it came to subjects I had a genuine interest in. True story, in highschool I took Programming and excelled at it until it got tedious. I hated that it didn't look like what does in the movies (hands frantic on the keyboard) and lost interest. Grades went from As to Fs. Fast forward to many years later, that knowledge helped me excel at tech support, leading to QA. And then I met a dev who used Vim and asked, "yo, wtf is that?!" My ADHD brain was so excited and stimulated by Vim that it reignited my interest in programming and still fuels my thirst for knowledge 5+ years later.
Dyslexia, ADHD developer here! I only had my "diagnosis" later in life, I struggled to know what was the issue for me. Having the Diagnosis made me able to reflect on the past and know how to operate in the present and the future. Thanks for the story you're sharing.
It takes a lot to admit the things you've admitted in this and other videos. Thank you for your honesty. You're such a good role model in our community.
your perspective is very uniquely catered to me that this speaks to me, especially where i am in my life. i’ve overcome my impulse to like almost no youtube videos (because i cannot like them all) to like this video.
Something that I've always struggled with, and still do, is saying no to myself. My ability to laser focus on things, combined with low self discipline, can make me get really addicted to things that are massive time sinks. And then I hate myself for it. Thank you for helping me rationalize it.
So I was subbed for Fireship and stumbled upon a video of your collaboartion with him. I also was diagnosed with ADHD 2 weeks ago and I'm currently trying my best to go from UX-design to Data Engineering. So I just opened this video and shocked about the timing of it. I also had a call with my mom today where I explained ADHD to her and she told me to treat it like a gift not a curse. This is what I needed. ADHD struggle is real and I'm glad to hear motivation from you. Thanks.
As a fellow engineer with ADHD I 100% agree - I always got distracted in school, but my ADHD brain LOVES code and all the different problem solving opportunities that stem from it. It really is a super power
Thank you, I studied back in 2009 but couln't cope with getting nothing, I strayed from the path and became a translator, document analyst, then comex assistant, i just came back 2-3 years ago, i've learning so much, can't even game anymore because i want to keep learning, what you said about taking control of adhd when it just about time, its just so real, 33 years of pure gaming, never readed a book, and now i'm trying my best to keep reading and learning what i can, i feel that i'm so behind everyone but it doesn't matter, i'll get there eventually
Ive never been formally diagnosed with ADHD, but I relate to this video to a rediculous degree. Our early lives had a lot of similarities, at least from what you have shared in this video. Thank you for sharing your story and for the encouragement :)
@@fakezpred I think it would be interesting to discuss with my doctor. Whatever it is that makes me a bit odd has become more manageable as Ive gotten older. I definitely dont want to go the medication route, but it would be helpful to get a formal diagnosis (or lack thereof) so I am better informed as to how to manage my mental health. Thank you for the advise 🙏
it's actually super refreshing to hear this, as a college student currently who can relate to much of your story it's so nice hearing it put as a positive versus a negative.
This is one of the best advices Ive heard. I dont know which mental "Superpower" I have but it's bad. I think I can relate to you the most, even though I dont know 99% of your story and your advice is what will probably help me become a better person. Thank you.
I have been consuming content ABOUT learning to code, and constantly tell myself today is the day I actually sit down and do it, but getting myself home from my 10 hour work days to code (instead of spending time with my gf, son and puppy) is really fucking daunting. I’m able to pick up a game for 1-2 hours but never start coding because it feels “too big to start now”. My ADHD has hindered my ability to focus so much and I really just wish I had someone to help me along. I know the internet is my friend but having an actual friend who can code/mentor me and hold me accountable to the coding goals I set for myself would be so nice. I’m very happy I have a support system in my family, as I am 2 years clean off heroin/meth. I really want to overcome my past addiction and become someone who followed their passion for gaming into success. I’m just afraid to try and find out I’m shit at it. (I know everyone is shit at first) I am glad I found your channel, and I accumulate all kinds of motivation when I do watch these videos at work, I wrote ideas into my notes app, im constantly brainstorming game design philosophies and ideas but I never sit down and put in the work. I find it very challenging to take that first step and make progress. I’m always “just about to start” and never do.
Man this is exactly how I felt. I taught English for years after failing through high school and graduating by the skin of my teeth, and decided to go to a coding bootcamp that placed me at a job. It was a great bootcamp but going into e-commerce I felt like I knew NOTHING. There was no training, and I was completely thrown to the wolves. I was looking at their codebase and learning more about PHP, and it was just not sticking. I was working as hard as I possibly could and I was just not able to get my mind to focus on or absorb anything. But after a certain point of doing enough small things and incrementally absorbing knowledge little by little, I can put forth focused attention on coding for hours at a time. It took six months of basically 60-70 hours of total work + studying at home, with a lot of patience from my girlfriend, but I finally got here and god damn it feels good to enjoy what I do.
My problem was people never thought I had ADHD because I was always able to find ways to deal with my stuff. That lead to me being on a quest of self destructive behaviour which impacted my teenage and early adult live a lot in a mostly bad way. For example I started setting alarms at 4 am when I was like 11 years old to do homework because without that added pressure I was not able to do them. I never slept more than 5 hours since that time. That lead to my grades dropping to average. I never gave my parents invitations to parent teacher conferences bc I never wanted them to bother me with that. I always tried to find ways of motivating me, and when I was able to do it my grades always improved, but that was just super rare. I always felt like I could to better, but I was just unable to do it. I had issued in college because my ways of doing everything last minute just wont work when you have more than one deadline. It took me several years but after switching my major to Computer Science (after unsuccessfully trying Social Sciences and Engineering) it just clicked because the instant rewards you get from programming just gave me such a boost, and for the first time I felt like it just worked out for me 😄 That was also when I first started to think that I might have ADHD. It took almost 2 years of waiting until I got my diagnosis and It was such a relieve. I am taking medicine and It really improved my live. I feel more relaxed and at ease, my self esteem improved and staying on one topic is so much easier. ADHD is definitely still a big part of my daily live, it is just a easier to deal with it. The skills I had to learn to cope with my undiagnosed ADHD definitely help me a lot in various aspects of my adult life now, but It was also a fucking nightmare and drained a lot of energy out of me. And it still is extremely hard now. I just never felt confident in myself, and was never really happy, and always felt exhausted and tired because everything was just too much, I never opened up about anything because I always felt wrong and out of place, and felt ashamed about myself and my feelings. I started peeling all those layers of self doubt and being aware that ADHD is part of me helped me to understand a lot about myself and my behaviours. My parents still doubt that I have ADHD which is hurtful in itself, because It just made me realise how little of my daily sufferings they saw, but I am happy that I found help for myself. It is important to listen to yourself, and try to get help, because it is fucking hard and you deserve to exit the endless loop to find the rewards you are seeking for without being the self destructive human beings we tend to be. Love you all, thanks prime for speaking about the personal stuff, you are definitely a motivation and I am happy I found your videos ❤️
Programming is honestly one of the only things that can hold my attention for more than 5 minutes. Even playing video games, I get bored so fast and just stop doing it. But I can get lost in code for hours. Only problem now is just sticking to one project at a time, haha.
Some moments in early life are so defining, that trying to change them decades later could literally kill you (or make you miserable for longer and worse). For this body, seemingly immutably, wants to continue on living, the best way to play your cards is on the right table, and by chance with the right people. Always make the difference between the table of survivors and the table of victims.
Dude, 100% agree and almost the same story (took me 6 years and a lot of money before I dropped out though). I too somehow found the trick to focus the power of my ADHD (pun intended) and am now a 2.4 highschool GPA, college drop out, Senior Software Engineer at a multinational company. If anyone here has ADHD, keep at it! The prescriptions might help a bit, but you gotta look inside, study yourself and migrate your habits. If you can succeed in that, then you have a super power. Nobody can stop you!
I only liked it at the end of the video because you saying like it first set off some demand avoidance. YOU'RE NOT MY BOSS MR REVERSE PSYCH! This felt so soothing to watch. I'm just in my 30s and it feels like something is changing in my head and it's still a struggle but I can follow through on things. I know I can achieve almost anything I set my mind to but I've never had any control over what my mind sets to... but something is changing. It took me five years to do a four year course and I came out of the other end feeling like I'd got nothing to show for it except a worthless piece of paper but now dipping a toe back into the things I couldn't possibly push myself to engage with without extreme cognitive agony... so much of it feels fresh and familiar but without the pain.
This is great man I can attest to this exact thing. 28 and diagnosed with ADHD most of my life. I always knew there were certain times I couldn't stop learning certain things but only in the last couple of years have I really started to apply it. I've grown massively and still have more room to grow but this message is a fantastic reminder. Thanks man.
Damn, I feel you so much, your story matches with mine almost perfectly (I never dropout college) but in my case, at some time I started to use the ADHD meds to get my first job as a Web Developer and then slowly get off all the shits I was doing, now I work as a Full Stack Developer (tbh it's mainly FE) and it's amazing, I really feel like those meds combined with a mature mindset made me a good dev.
glad to find this video, I also could learn a tremendous amount of info but not when I needed it, it's like delaying the most important tasks, I guess working maturely and taking accountability is the only way to unlock the superpower
Lord... I appreciate your candidness about this. I have had, and still have similar struggles. It's so great to hear someone who's overcome it talk about it
I have adhd too and managed to land a job in a big e-commerce company. And that brought me to my current job where I’m building a startup from the ground up. Adhd is no curse! It’s a blessing, but you have to recognize you weaknesses and strengths.
It's actually amazing how I literally watched like 3 random of your videos and thought "He is one of us. I wonder if he knows". Glad I was right and glad that you know :D
How do you drum up that effort is my question, because that’s what is killing me. Failed so much I’ve lost trust in myself, even lost my job, my interest to buckle down, and it has opened an identity crisis. I don’t even know what I’m good at or should be chasing, let alone trust I could run with a direction. That is the curse of adhd, along with the lack of a savings account, nearly 30 without much career advancement, it’s taking a toll on physical health, and I’ve spent a year and a half feeling like I’m on the edge of change but in reality, nothing has changed (for the better, getting fired is great), and I don’t even try things anymore. I say lack of direction but I am here for a good reason, I am technically inclined, a god at help desk tasks, but beyond that, master of none. Things like code or networking are too, much for me to even start on, I struggle with math and I don’t even know if I am cut out for them, but there is an allure mixed with lack of motivation. Consistency, focus, learning, it’s overwhelming to think about, and my lack of self trust makes school seem like a financial mistake of an option. I wish I knew how to access this super power part, but it’s truly detrimental to other areas of life, and I say this while attending therapy and having dialed in my meds. Sorry for the wall of text, it’s just a constant battle day to day, I feel like I’ve lost part of myself, my enthusiasm, my drive, and what I even want in life.
I think the biggest influence towards my own growth/maturation was Overwatch. I was really sick with Ulcerative Colitis at the time, and playing Overwatch competitively 8-12 hours a day was a really effective escape. Taking it seriously and learning how to not get tilted, communicate effectively, doing VOD reviews, etc. it legitimately went a long way in teaching me how to fail repeatedly, how to deal with it and improve, and there's still elements of it that help me with my professional work. Now that I think about it, I also think major part of the "drive to succeed" was that, in order to know what I needed to "succeed" it was a really straightforward calculation. Like I need 200 wins to get to a rank I want (which would be a rank where I start playing with streamers :P), and at a 52% winrate, I just need to play 5000 games. That sort of grind is not ideal of course, but numbers like that helps put the objective in the realm of possibility for me. I don't necessarily know or think I have ADHD, but I would say that the worst part of getting distracted is not reaching the point where you really start deconstructing a problem to it's smaller bite-sized components and find a "mentally tangible" goal post to shoot for.
I never could control my ADHD I grinned for a year and it lead me to burnout on top of my depression, ADHD and my family problems and I still didn't recover (after 3 years) All I'm saying you can't generalize your experience to all people Love your content BTW great energy
yeah. A lot of other things have to be in exactly the right place to be able to just sort of 'psyche yourself out of negative symptoms'. Not that he didn't earn everything he has going for him, but I feel like his life is kind of charmed.
@@homelessrobot not really. you have to expect to put up with the worst and still find your way into returning to the consistency you were once capable of maintaining. I've had major depressive syndrome for about a 3rd of my life and even when I have days/weeks of complete burnout and no motivation, I still remain compassionate and tell myself I'll get back to grinding as soon as I'm able to and I'll see that the goal I created for myself will eventually be reached. It will always be a matter of perseverance through adversity. That's how anyone becomes great after all
I agree with you 100% I also struggled for years with this. I started to excel when I found the right friend group and we all pushed each other to do better. As a result a lot of us are actually doing pretty well.
I'm right there with you, I got dismissed from my college about a year and a half ago after two semesters where I basically didn't do any work. It hurt a lot. After taking some time to learn about ADHD and about myself what helped me was accepting that I had a disability that would negatively affect me. I learned to be kind to myself when I failed but also to use my failures to find ways to improve myself so they wouldn't happen again. It has taken an immense amount of hard work and I still struggle daily but I'm back in school and doing well for myself. There is power in acceptance because then you can make it your own and work with it. Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
Sometimes you just gotta buckle down, have time in the saddle, and try to prime your environment to have as few distractions as possible. March on brother. Thanks for sharing your story primeagen.
youre right. i recently got a job as a IT/Network Tech, and it wouldnt have happened without the maturity i have built up over the past year or two. i will use this in the future to grow into a developer role. thank you
I had a similar situation during my masters: I hated writing my thesis so much I would spend literal days figuring out ways to make it more fun, namely setting up the whole LaTeX thing and making it play along nicely with Vim while running it all on my linux (arch btw) machine. I was neck deep in configs and I loved it. Who would have thought that programming was the right path for me, instead of doing management in IT masters... P.S.: The real question is, collab with the God Emperor of Rules and the Saint of the Clean Room J. Peterson when!? We need to show them woke VScoders the path of the terminal!
I had the exact same experience doing a PhD. I was obsessed with my LaTeX + emacs environment (RIP my hands and wrists, switched to Vim age 30), tiling window managers, everything. My thesis was a work of art, but ultimately I liked fiddling with software more than doing pure research .
I found that once I reached 29 and just now coming up on 30 that something within me just flipped. Many of the things I used to cope or escape with no longer did it for me or I didn't put as much importance on them as I once did. Some relationships I either had to let go or put on hold because I was fed up with putting myself in passenger seat trying to help others fulfill their hopes and dreams or get through whatever struggles they might have been going through. Sure I was beginning to seem like someone who didn't care for others time or needs, that was because I started wanting to live my life. I needed the same attention I was giving others directed to me from me. I'm a bit of a late bloomer but better late than never right? I started to tell myself that any sort of failure that cropped up on my path to where I wanted to be was worth it and ok, I was quite the sore loser when it came to failure because I always had the mindset of "If I can't do it perfectly on the first try then I wasn't meant to do it.". A terrible mindset to have for anything in life worth doing. Having ADHD I was always trying to strive for anything new that peaked my interests. But to make a long story short, anyone dealing with ADHD or other mind altering disorders the best advice I can give is be patient with yourself and don't allow outside forces misdirect you from your goals. Good luck with your journey and I hope you make it. :)
When you shared your hot take I was so surprised. Because I agree. Maturity is so important, but it so so easy to use the excuses when you fail. Keep pushing yourself towards the maturity and dont let the excuses control your mind. You can do it!
YOOOOO PPRIME! this is insane because ive been struggling with this and started taking adderall this week. I've always been told from the time that i was a genius-- had a 114 I.Q, above average reading level, etc in middle school but i stuggled getting good grades because i couldnt focus. Fast forward i ended up taking I.B (A.P on steroids) because i wanted to get into an Ivy-- all of them took interest and interviewed me, but my ADHD fucked that up. I was always focused on stuff outside of school like building "the next big thing etc." These days building projects /businesses is my life but i feel ADHD to still be a challenge. Non-theless thank you!
Thank you, I just got diagnosed today at 22. I have done really well academically all my life, through school and university which has made it hard for people to take what I say seriously regarding having ADHD but alas. I still don’t feel competent, or that I’m as good as I should be. But it’s nice to have you as an example, I’m going to keep working.
I don't know what to feel about this video. I want to slap you, I want to hug you. I want to refute everything you said and I want you to know that you're right about everything you said as well. I've been diagnosed last year, at 31. It's a mixture of relief for having a name and explanation for the struggles, and immense anger because of everything that could've been done differently. Maturity is something that eventually comes, but not at the same level for everyone. The pattern that I see on "successful" (whatever you quantify as succcess) people with ADHD, is studying or working/playing with things that are actually interesting to them, and not an obligation. The ADHD brain doesn't work by importance or urgency, but for interest. Take part of a software development sprint with a backlog full of various urgency and importance tasks, and choose what you'll do on your own without having someone overseeing it, and you'll see what I mean. So you definitely have to double down on accountability. The way forward is not excuses, nor justifying shortcomings with the diagnosis. Because at the end of the day, ADHD is just a small part of us, and it doesn't define us. Thank you for the honesty and your content. You're one of the good ones, and your videos are always uplifting to me.
Ty , ADHDeagen Damn bro... you got me in the feels 😢. Didn't expect the video to describe my life. This video though short, has helped me more than countless other videos.
I didn’t expect to hear “cross between Joel Osteen and Luke Smith” in this video, but I absolutely LOLed when I did! 😂 Seriously though, thank you for sharing your story so candidly. I do not have ADHD (that I know of), but I’ve known many people who do and am learning so much about how it is misunderstood.
I agree very much, from my childhood that I believe that being scattered and distracted, serves you to advance in roulette mode, in many subjects almost in parallel.
I only recently discovered your channels and only just now stumbled onto this video. Your story resonates heavily with me as it seems we've walked the same path. Thank you heaps for your content, it helps motivate and remind me where and what I as a dev.
Thanks for sharing your story, ig hits really close to home for me.. I am about 1 year out from getting help for my adhd at 33 after more than a decade of the "cursed" cycle and my life has gotten a lot better. I'm not where I want to be yet and lately I feel like I've hit a wall but seeing stuff like this inspires me to keep going. WAGMI
My general advice I'd give people when they struggle, be it with ADHD or anything else really is that you just have to 'fail yourself to success'. Be patient, keep working and consider failures to be just lessons that you had to learn and suddenly you'll become overnight success.
I'd add and say, allow yourself to have fun when learning, if you decide that you're in control of your life and you're having fun while at it, you can achieve great things.
Totally agree
Not to rain on the parade but.....
Just "allowing" yourself to have fun and actually having fun are two different things :P
Sure after you grind through something you may actually come to enjoy it. But the thought of I may have fun picking up trash never translates into having fun picking up trash :P
@@ekr990011 true, only a sith deals with absolutes :D
My point is I've also failed many times in the past, doubting myself and stressing out to a point I didn't enjoy programming when I thought it was my passion, turns out I was over thinking and following a path that worked for others, not me.
This advice might not resonate with everyone, but for me working on my well being as much as my studies made the difference.
@@__idan__ Haha fair enough. Glad you were able to find your own path that works, completely agree.
@@ThePrimeagen yea I'm literally in the same boat I feel as you. I even tried drugs to increase my attention span for studying and suckes in school. Also like you, I can sit down and play video games from morning to night with no issue. This was a great video.
As a 35 year old person with ADHD…I 100% agree. The ramp up is much harder than a neurotypical person but on the back end you can learn almost anything. Also one thing that helped me was learning that ADHD isn’t an attention disorder, it’s an executive function disorder. I was at the mercy of a smaller execution tank that takes stimuli to fill back up. This is why I could game for half a day without any issues. For me the solution was really simple…study or work in packets or projects instead of time based effort. For example if I was working on a coding project but wasn’t motivated, I would sit down to just get one thing done, if I wanted to stop after that I did. Sometimes it was 5 minutes and sometimes it was hours. Today, I have mastered this internal process so well I can code for 4-5 hours straight without any problems because I know when to take a break and when not to.
Same story here. I managed to focus by deciding on particular tasks instead of time based working/studying. I can't focus if I don't have an aim.
Will try to do that
That's a fantastic way of putting it. I'm struggling to code and learn even though I really want to and have been looking for a way to do it without the sandpaper against my brain when I do it feeling. I'll have to try what you did.
@@dakotakeast59 I recommend coding specific projects start small and work up. Coding is building thousands of little skills and then combining them together like legos. Over time you’ll write the same functions so much that it will begin to feel like you’re playing an instrument where you don’t think it just flows.
If you know nothing about the basic structures of coding (loops, conditionals, etc) then you need to learn all those. But once you know how to do those then build small projects and break down the project into small steps. If you can mentally piece together the code necessary to write a full program (pseudo code) then you can piece them all together and build bigger and bigger projects. I coded a JavaScript game this way from scratch in vanilla JavaScript and it only took me a month or two after a year of coding.
Lastly, think of coding like martial arts or a musical instrument, practice the basics over and over and over and over and a deeper level of intuition will become so natural that coding becomes incredibly fun.
What do you do if you hit a coding groove and it's 9pm?
Your story is scary close to mine. All my life I've struggled with severe ADHD (24 right now), doing all kind of crazy things. I was also addicted to many things back then. My teacher actually told me that he did NOT understand how I could get through highschool due to my problems. I could never get the stuff he said into my head, I almost failed every test, and I skipped school 33% during all years in total. But the crazy part was that I did not feel "stupid", I just felt un-motivated and "under stimulated". When I was 18 years old I got a "summerjob" at this IT-company in my city where they taught me C# and SQL. After 3 month they hired me without any degree, I finally found something that was fun to do. 5 years later I've jumped from knowing nothing about code, to develop large scale systems at this company and my life have turned around completely. As soon as i look into a new framework, I just learn it in 2 days. This, was unheard of when I was younger, to all people I was just a kid with problems and will never do anything good in my life.
A tip to all ADHD people out there. "Find something you love, eventually you will master it better & faster than anyone else, and then find a way to make it your job".
We all ADHD people are extremely hyper-focused when it comes to thing we enjoy doing.
Yep, for all the struggles - as soon as I find something I'm passionate about and have an adequately supportive environment around, I pick that shit up so fast it's kinda shocking even to me.
Do you think you would do Masters? Structure isn't something that is suitable with ADHD, stuff like maths, useless assignments etc. Do you recommend it?
This!!!
I hope this will be the same for me
“Just get hired with no experience” 🤡
There are studies showing that unmedicated ADHD kids are much likely to "self medicate" using hardcore drugs as teenagers, which is sad. I am glad I fixed my ADHD at a psychiatrist and taking Concerta 36 mg/day, then I was able to hyperfocus in coding, not only games. I am glad you conquered it bro, there are cases that people can handle it just by aging and practicing. You directed hyperfocus from games to coding. Congratulations
I have ADHD and am prone to depression, makes for a bad and very unproductive life, I got medicated at age 32 and finally discovered my passion for coding about 6 mos after starting medication. I was on a path to no where before, now I have finished a very difficult SE program and am building a medium size application in Rails, and will start apply for jobs once it is finished. I don't see any way I could have gotten this far without medication.
@@simbadlemarin1815 congratulations and stay strong !
Definitely agree, I had some bad experiences with medication and just kept smoking for the last 20 years.. finally found something that's working and am trying to quit smoking, but it ain't easy! Don't give up on meds, they're way better than drugs, and won't get you in as much trouble either!
@@thefekete there is no such thing as meds they are all drugs it's just just one is legal the others are not.
My psychiatrist says that self medicating is the most useful diagnostic tool for adhd literally bar only familial histrory.
Ya lately I’ve been thinking of my adhd as being a momentum based learner. The task switching/ starting is a deadly zone of distraction, but once I’m 4 hours into a leetcode problem I’ll cancel plans and skip meals to keep working on it.
I also think adhd makes me get overwhelmed by too many options (like every restaurant menu) and that can make project setup or deciding which personal projects to start and stick with very challenging. Once I get the project up and running, I can start building up momentum.
Love this video thank you for sharing some of your story!
Programming is fun though, I just can't get myself to focus for hours when it comes to studying something boring like maths
Fellow "alternative brain configuration here." I started watching your videos bc I thought they were so entertaining and useful but man you are such an inspiration 👏👏👏
Thanks bud :)
@@ThePrimeagen while I agree with him, and this was amazing bit of info wrapped up nicely. Yet I am obliged to tell you "FUCK YOU" and have AN AMAZING day!
This video was made with VScode. Love you dude!!
How did you know?
@@ThePrimeagen waaaaaaaaaat?? vscode? how can you 😔
I love the point about the asymmetry between success and failure: just a little bit of success can be more important than a whole lot of failure (and you can't have the former without the latter).
Fully on the same team there
as someone with adhd, I've found that i can focus better when i enjoy doing something
For me, i often *know* i enjoy something but i *cant* enjoy it when I need to... and it's impossible to learn. Need to get better at remembering i have ADHD and forgiving myself for those moments but often I feel like a failure and a looser because I can't read a chapter or get through 3 or 4 math problems.
People would tell me "if you enjoyed something you would do it" and that would drive me crazy...
ADHD + perseverance is definitely a super power. I feel that it takes literally years of effort to understand that as Mr. Prime is talking about in this vid. Like many I experimented with adderrall and whatnot, it did help but I felt hindered on it. Like I unlocked that superpower but it was only while depending on a drug, I was also way to irritable and suffered from TERRIBLE headaches.
Only years into software development and after finding ways to motivate myself and sleeping enough (no more late nights!) did I realize I was able to really dig in and finish something complicated at a high level. Situations where my peers struggle and I was able to see the bigger picture.
ADHD fam we run the world.
Can you give some examples for the ways you found to keep yourself motivated?
@@ardasevinc4 for me it was a mix of getting away from screens in my off hours, working out and learning that I enjoy putting forward my best work (not necessarily 'the' work at times!). I struggled getting uninteresting work done for a long time due to motivation / distractions. I realized that I felt the uninteresting work was "beneath" me. When I thought of some peers I look up to they didn't seem to have this problem, they seemed to thrive making simple changes really elegantly and clean. They seemed to enjoy any change they made. Truly masters of their craft. This shift in my mindset was probably one of the most important moments in my life.
I'm struggling to fully communicate what it is that motivates me personally, so i'm going to attempt to visualize it for all of you.
Let's all think of a master carpenter, someone who truly makes incredible things out of boring old wood. Maybe today it's a cabinet. Maybe tomorrow it is a desk. The master does not care, the master crafts. There are a lot of carpenters. Most just 'make' cabinets and desks. But then there are those folks who truly enjoy what they do and somehow make that cabinet or that desk **really** shine. Realizing that I enjoyed the craft of engineering as a creative endeavor and not necessarily the act of engineering as a job was truly what did it for me.
Let me be clear, it was no silver bullet. I still struggle at times as we all do. But I find I struggle most when I havn't taken care of my basic needs like moving my body, sleeping, and socializing.
@@twhiting That's really helpful. Thank you
damn this is me rn
@@camerondeere9752 Not the OP, but I'm using Adderall for habituation and am halfway through coming off of it (4 days on, 3 days off). There are two things that are working extremely well for me:
- Only do things you want to reinforce when you're on the medication, especially when it starts hitting you. Meds will make things stick easier than normal, so use them to build the habits you want to stick. Don't just do things that you would normally do, and definitely don't do things that are easily enjoyable dopamine factories like games or social media. I made sure to always be working on hard things in the morning when the first dose hit me. Now it feels weird to not program in the mornings, even on weekends.
- Meditate. A few months after starting meds, they seemed to start wearing off easier. I started meditating every day for 15 minutes, and the focus I get from them is now stronger than when I started. On days where I don't take meds, the meditation still gives me around 4-5 hours of focus that's almost as good as being on Adderall. I also started building the habit of shorter meditation throughout the day, like spending 15 seconds quieting my mind if I realized I went down some distraction rabbit hole. This has made it way easier to start tasks and focus without meds, though it only seems to work well if I did the 15 minute session in the morning. This also gives you a very easy way to break out of hyperfocus states if you need to, but it's something you need to practice daily and won't work that well at first.
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that's responsible for overriding impulses and doing the hard thing instead. It it is not fully developed until the age of ~25. My guess is that what you are describing is the effect of the prefrontal cortex developing fully, which feels like maturing.
Search for 'Robert Sapolsky - Frontal cortex'. You'll find a 13 minute video of this stanford professor who has this series on neurobiology on youtube.
Thank you for talking about this. As someone with ADHD and BPD, it was so incredibly easy for me to just feel like a victim and just wallow in self pity for far too long. It took some absolutely horrible incidents in my life for me to start trying to control my impulses and to get my life in order. I feel like if there's one thing that pops into mind when I think of you, it's just the love you have for everything you seem to do on stream, and it's absolutely infectious, so watching you really helps when my own reserves are running dry. Love you, man.
One of the biggest things I can recommend is taking time to seriously contemplate your values and your life purpose. Once you truly feel like you know what you need to be doing, it's easier to stay focused and not dabble.
I really understand and feel what you are saying bro. I am going through this for the past decade and a half. It is a constant struggle. Only for the past month have I gotten some amount of hold on my severe ADHD. I haven't been officially diagnosed but I know it quite well that I do have ADHD. I used to spend countless hours playing CSGO at one point. This went on for 3 full years. I effing bunked my end semester exams to play CS 1.6 in my college days. Had to retake the entire semester. Couple gaming with smoking weed, and being in introvert, is all an guy like me needs to totally destroy myself.
Every time I gave up an addiction, I took on another addiction. The only positive about it was that I kept taking on less harmful addiction compared to the last. My other big issue is that I am a Knowledge seeker which has been my steady addiction for past 8 years or so. I just can't stop myself from reading stuff, pouring over hundreds of TH-cam videos every single day. I have opinions ranging from politics, philosophy, religion, economics to which is the best straight razor to buy. I would argue and fight with random strangers in the comments section of TH-cam. For hours. I was drowning in my addiction. Have always been my entire life.
It only changed last month when I decided to control myself. This last month has been so effing productive. Finally building software that I am proud of. I am happy but scared at the same time. Because I don't want to relapse. I don't know for how long this streak will continue.
You and Theo have helped me a lot in this. Your energy/enthusiasm and Theo's opinions (even if I don't agree with some of them) have inspired me to keep myself focused. Because if you guys can I can. I still have a lot of issues that I need to sort out. But this is a great start!
Took a lot for me to admit this. Hope no one reads it. But feels good to get it off my chest!
It's pretty wild how similar your approach was to mine. I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but what you just explained was my exact reasoning and how I changed. I would spend 24 hours straight in a video game and wouldn't bat an eye, yet when it came to doing something I didn't like it felt like my brain literally couldn't do it. I would fall asleep in a chair while doing something I wasn't interested in like 30 minutes because I couldn't pay attention no matter how hard I tried. (So I thought) Next I just started grinding through that state all day every day. I would get tired and set an alarm for 15 minutes, fall asleep get back up and try that task again. I wouldn't ever do anything other than sleep and that task because I knew I wouldn't go back to the task. Now people say there is no way I could have ADHD because I can force myself to focus on a task for insane periods of time. I feel like while I learned to code I spent the first year learning how to learn.
Hyper-focus is a well known trait of ADHD, most people just think ADHD = super hyper distracted by anything and everything all the time. Its actually just a dopamine imbalance.
That's crazy. That's also how I do it! Bro.. Literally, I will not do anything else but programming and sleeping because I know that's how I will stay focused on it. I grinded through that state of mind for years until I broke it.
@@simbadlemarin1815 I'm starting to wonder if I have ADHD lol... I remember my new boss saying to me that nobody can code from 9 to 5 without breaks. I just nodded and changed the topic. I'd coded from 8am to 8pm the previous day without a break, had dinner and then went back to coding until 2am. Other times, I feel I can't concentrate on anything even for 5 minutes. At uni I literally cried one time because I was "studying" for the whole day and every 2-3 minutes my mind would just wander and I couldn't get it to focus on what I needed it to focus on no matter how hard I tried. I didn't know what was wrong with me... I felt like such a failure and I was so angry at myself. I had the same with my dissertation where I felt I couldn't do anything for weeks at a time and I'd bring myself to the point of tears. But then every now and then I'd have a few days where I'd be able to push through that and once I did I'd reach this hyper focused state where I felt like I could just be operating at 110% without breaks for 10+ hours at a time. Now that I'm writing this stuff down, I realise I can think of dozens of examples like this 🤔
@@udemyaccount4082 Dude, I feel you, but don't give up on meds. They will help and there's others out there that aren't so harsh. I seriously understand, but I wish I'd have found the meds I'm on now years ago instead of smoking my lungs out the last 20 years for my dopamine fix... If your doc only wants to throw hard stuff at you, find another doctor!
Same story
Wow, we've gone through virtually the same exact thing. Just got diagnosed with ADHD last year and my life has improved dramatically since becoming medicated.
Thanks, this video was motivating.
I procrastinated off getting diagnosed with ADHD for the longest time. Now I have a diagnosis, I've been putting off getting treatment for the longest time. I swear to god I'll book an appointment soon. Shit I was gonna do that tonight. It's too late now I'll do it tomorrow.
So did you ever do it?@@minerscale
@@DragonNZG Aww thanks for asking, yes! After a five month trip on the waiting list I got my psych appointment and was put on dexamphetamine. I believe my life is better for it and I'm certainly much more productive and I feel like I waste less of my time. I have my first followup in a week !!
I still struggle with many things most principally time management and getting ready to leave for things but it's been good. I think my university results show as well.
dude, knowing we have both adhd and a similar story, I'M DROPPING THIS LIKE NOW, BLAZINGLY FAST
I'm not diagnosed yet, but pretty sure I have it. 'ADHD + maturity' that feels right, practising this is harder and a constant effort than just to say it or know it. Will come back to this comment when I'll have my share of wins (so far in life ,none btw)
I have 20 exams in the next month and I'm about to fail my year for the third time. My ADHD has been killing me so badly in the last couple of years, but I'm not gonna drop out because I know I'm not the only one who suffered through these problems. Seeing you overcome these hurdles and climbing from the bottom to the top keeps me going. You're such an inspiration prime, you trully make my day better.
I failed my year twice and was about to fail again. I didn't know what to do and didn't see a future for me. It was the worst time of my life.
I removed my pc, phone and everything distracting from my desk and managed to baerly pass the tests. With hard work my grades got a bit better and in the end I graduated. Now I'm about to get my Master's degree in university.
Don't give up, you can accomplish so much more than you think. There will be a better future, however it might look like.
I wish you all the best
-Daniel
Make sure you are getting enough sleep and eat well and stay hydrated! Ask for help from family to help make u food, if needed. All the best of lucks!!!!
So? How did it go?
I have ADD, Autism and mild OCD, and the 2nd order conditions that these bring. I wish it was so easy to see them as "super powers", but it isn't. While Autism gives me an intense ability to learn just about any programming language, easily, ADD will force me to be unable to complete anything, even if I really want to. The roll-off of interest and ability to focus on it, very quickly intensifies as a lot of features either get added or are completed, while paths of completion become overwhelming numerous and hard to see. It's easy to suggest ideas, like using tools to organise my thoughts and processes, but even that becomes another 'feature' that needs to be managed, and while it works at my employer, it has a team to manage it. But this doesn't work in my own personal projects as I'm a developer of one.
prime, the more i hear about your life, the more impressed by you and your skills i become
you are in my kind the best tech guy to follow
keep being a real one ♥️♥️♥️
That's incredible. You're a very strong man for being able to persist for as long as you did despite all the unfortunate circumstances you had.
I love real talk like this. Like when you tell stories of rough stuff you faced, and how you overcame some (or all) of it but some of it still may linger on. Those are the stories that are filled to the brim with real lifeness and authenticity
Thank you so much for sharing this Primeagen, I appreciate hearing of another dev who is completely honest on just how much they sucked until they didn't. I'm a software dev now but the educational system tried its best to gatekeep me from becoming a dev. Got my Computer Science bachelors but it took me 6 years with the lowest GPA in my graduating class. 3 of those years were community college where I was doing nothing but remedial math just to get to Calculus I which most CS majors start with in freshman year. I failed Precalculus twice, but the third time taught me something you learned too, Primeagen: I wasn't gonna get through this college thing until I sit my ass in that seat in the library from 3:00pm - 10:00pm and get the homework done that took other kids an hour.
One thing I don't agree with you is that there's no silver bullet. For me, it turns out there was a silver bullet: proper diagnosis & medication. The month before I graduated, a friend of mine from CS (also with ADHD) told me that I almost certainly have ADHD and I should get checked out for it, and so I did. I quickly got a diagnosis since I checked off basically all the boxes. Then, when I got diagnosed, I then got treatment. Medication immediately gave me the ability to sit down and do what I wanted to be doing. I got the diagnosis too late to do well in school but early enough that I was able to get an internship, crush the internship, and get a full-time software engineer offer at that internship all in the span of 2 months. I quickly came up to speed with the modern UI & React stack (SoyBoy JS dev and proud tyvm) and within half a year after graduating college as the worst student in my graduating class was owning most UI tickets for my team. I wouldn't have been able to do this without the medication; I wish I hit that "maturity epiphany" that you hit during your third attempt at college!
Today, I strongly advocate for anyone to get themselves checked out if they have ADHD. Medication works better than any other method of managing ADHD and isn't something to be ashamed of! For anyone looking for more info about ADHD I absolutely recommend checking out "How to ADHD" on TH-cam (th-cam.com/users/HowtoADHD), Jessica is an inspiration and has a huge amount of knowledge and content to share!
Your video made me realize that this is true, the gaming and studying part is very relatable. Am now reinforced that my ADHD is actually a gift and proud to have it.
Oops, my bad! I got so pumped up and jumped right into the comments without fully soaking in your awesome advice. But don't worry, I did give it a thumbs up to show some love!
I would say there are a lot of us who have the same path. Personally, I found your stream about 3 years ago when I was just starting to get that feeling of wanting to be better in my heart.
Now, The startup is reforming actual degenerates into ones with good intentions for the world and the people around them.
I’ll remember this journey forever. Thanks for everything Prime, you’re truly a legend to us all
Holy shit, man, from vid to vid you're covering all the problems i face and fight right now! I'm appreciating so much those vids!
I totally feel you ! It's like concentration is a muscle and with ADHD you need to train harder to get results, but once your training is complete, you unlock the hyperfocus ability and you're able to go deeper and crush problems.
I'm also convinced it's all about maturity, as you said. The hardest part for me was to be able to remain calm when someone interrupts. Sometimes I still want to bite :D
I have ADHD and a fear of people so when speaking with (oters than familly) i can't focus on what they'r talking about
and 100% of the time, instantly forgot the critical parts of the discutions.
That is for me the worst part of ADHD, you struggle to listen and to understand, you'r mind is away from the action then at the end of the day you feel like you must do 200% more than "normal" people to just grab 50% of the information, it is really exhausting ... I feel like i'm in an infinite loop of redo same things ever and ever, and never learn the leason :D
Btw nice vidéo MARIA
I have struggled with mental illness and my mental health since I was a kid. Before I even knew what those terms were. After years of ADHD, depression, anxiety, and even an attempt to take my life, I never thought I would be able to live without SSRIs medications. I clung to them because it was the only thing that made my mind quiet, but it also made me a zombie. Microdosing has given me control of my mental health for the first time, and they essentially gave me my life back.
I’ve been researching on psychedelics and it’s benefits to individuals dealing with Anxiety, Depression, ADHD and from my findings, they really work and I’ve been eager to get some for a while but its been difficult to get my hands on them.
The Trips I've been having really helped me a lot. I’m now able to meditate and I finally feel in control of my emotions and my future and things that used to be mundane to me now seem incredible and full of nuance on top of that I'm way less driven by my ego and I have alot more empathy as well
I was having this constant, unbearable anxiety due to work stress. Not until I came across a very intelligent mycologist. He saved my life honestly
His name is *DR Adolf Petter*
@ohmakure4716
I feel the same way too. I put too much on my plate and it definitely affects my stress and anxiety levels. I am also glad to be a part of this community.
Damn, it's like you got my own story and spit it in my face. I've always looked at my ADHD as a 'extra hard' mode on-top of the game of life; like an additional preset that I just have to learn to work with until it helps me. In my scenario it was much similar to where I had to learn my own method to utilizing it, for me personally I've found that I have to lure myself into any and every subject mentally and at-least pretend it's interesting. Once I establish that first little adrenaline spike of "Oh this is fun", I go absolutely mental on the topic and learn everything about it ( I joke with my friends that it's starting the engine ). Amazing video, made my day.
Bro. You just spoke directly to me. I pretty much made terrible grades, strictly because of focus. Every teacher since elementary school would claim I “wasn’t trying.” Yet, I would literally be sitting in class, reminding myself to focus, so much so that telling myself to focus was distracting. Literally took me 9 years to get my undergraduate degree (also skipped a lot). However, since I was 12, if I had a guitar I could literally sit there for hours, and nothing could distract me. My parent would literally have to take it away from me. It’s an interesting dilemma.
*The realest thing he said is, "I would almost study for 8 hours straight but get nothing out of it" That's the stage i'm at right now.*
I almost dropped out of school too. I'm glad I fell on this video. It was really inspiring.
ADHD is like double edged sword, if you enjoy doing what you are doing, then you can hyperfocus on it, but if you don't, then you will focus on anything except what you are supposed to be doing.
i'm watching this again to get pumped to study but before that just want to drop this thank you note. something about the advice in this video just really resonated with me. after watching it i had the best study session i've had in recent memory by just being mindful of my adhd. when i feel the distraction creeping in i just reengage by looking at the problem from another way. i guess it's like my mind is moving quickly on the problem and getting "bored" with it, so the new angle is the new stimulation to keep me engaged? i dont really know. but the point is i actually learned an "advanced" level CS concept in just an hour yesterday by doing this. i had been in a spot recently where i can spend days studying but not absorbing anything, so this is huge for me. now that i feel like i'm actually on a path to being able to harness my adhd, as opposed to being controlled by it, i feel like i'm going to become the best version of myself, LFG! btw i also dropped out twice, but just finished a masters, worked in big tech and now starting a PhD. it can be done
Thanks prime!
Your life story videos resonate very well me with. Maturity did the most for me. Continues improvement is the key. If there is a silver bullet the answer is, let it take time.
The like button glow at 3:30 when you ask to like the video : What an awesome website we got there !
same, I was never a good student. I couldn't pass the univ exam that I want to go to (I take the exam 3 times), I had to drop 2 different univ, it was a fcking tough time. I still belive it feels like a curse but it's curse that if you "find a way to use it" you're just broken. For those who play Dota, it feels like the Q of bloodseeker as a passive, you can stay and don't do anything and just lose health each tick or constantly roam each lane and pock everything you see. Finally after 25yo I got my first diploma at videogame programming, after failing a lot in Peru, now I'm in Canada (also I had to take a whole year more because fail courses at the end). But I guess it's all worth it when I will able to stay at home and said from now own I just can do whatever I want whenever I want without get worried about something else. How do I even know if I will reach my goal? honestly I have no idea, I guess I'm just gambling and I'm putting all my money, time and mentality on "goal reached"
Dota fries your brain, I am glad I quit that game (and multis in general) during my CS college days and pivoted to single player RPGs instead
This is so relatable.
I failed class twice in school and could never focus on anything. As an adult I somehow manage to code for 10 hours as if it was a video game. Even studying for a whole day is possible for me now.
Personally, it feels like ADHD is overclocking my brain and I see it as a gift.
Damn thats so similar to how I dealt with my ADHD, except the going to college part. Was stuck in a deadend entry level job just wasting my time playing this one game, even at the office, for 2 whole years.
I don't know if I can call it a lucky break, but that intense focus you get when you're into something, I somehow got that with programming and I did the equivalent of 3 years of learning in just one year. That feeling has worn off by now, but just the fact that I pushed through it has made the ride smooth sailing now.
Feels like I'm chasing that focus for coding again, but its almost impossible. But I got a lot of motivation from this video : )
Right now I'm chasing machine learning... I recommend. A lot to learn and super interesting and cool thing you can do. Also it has a pretty steep learning curve so probably a good career move
It is incredibly motivating to know someone suffering from same disease can overcome all the shit and be a Faang software engineer developing blazingly fast code. Thank you
Prim. You are an inspiration for me. And I always feel like I won't give up because of what you accomplished and went thru in your life
hits hard. thanks for being vulnerable. exact thing i'm going through night now.
I have adhd, used medication heavily but recently stopped. I graduated high school with a 2.2 went to community College, transferred to UCI, got an internship at NASA JPL (while at cc) and was there for 7 years after graduating from UCI. Software development and problem solving is the only thing I can focus on without help.
I still deal with imposter syndrome and have to fight my urges to overcompensate by studying and learning everything I can so I don't end up feeling like the dumbest person in the room.
I forget to do laundry, and chores, schedule a dentist appt etc, but if need to learn a language or a new framework, I will go as hard as I can.
Medication helps with somethings but it honestly hurts me in the long run. The only thing I truly love to do is develop software and solve problems.
Cheers. Diagnosed from childbirth. Programmer for 23 years. I already had the "I think this guy also has ADHD" by looking from another of your videos. Keep strong and clean. Good Luck !!!
I’m 22, and a few months ago I was diagnosed with ADD(without the hyperactivity), and for a long time I thought that everyone was like me, had the same difficulties on focusing, so I kind of tried to outcome it with maturity and strategies. Strategies like, making lists, keeping things that could distract me out of reach, etc.
Took me YEAAAARSSS to start being able to focus on one thing for more than a half hour, it’s hard people, and I agree with Prime, ADHD + maturity is such a blessing, I remember that one time I studied a calculus textbook for 4 hours straight, I didn’t even see the time passing.
But, not everyone have time the time to train yourself to focus, so, if you feel like you have ADD/ADHD, try to schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist/neuropsychiatrist, those professional will help you, at the beginning taking daily meds(for example Vyvanse), and with time, you will only take it on a really troubled day.
ADHD don’t have a cure, but with the correct treatment you are able to minimize the symptoms.
but what i dont understand is how you get to that point of being able to focus!
@@bosmer3836 finding enjoyment in what you are doing. If you are doing it because you think you should do it or someone else told you to, then you won't be able to focus whatsoever. Only if the task at hand was sparked by your own imagination can you truly start to understand what focus means to you.
My ADHD won't allow me read all of this😢
Feels like one of those videos where you hyper focus on the success as oppose to understanding the failings.
The most important thing to understand is that doing nothing brings your opportunity down to zero. However so long as you are trying you still have a chance. That is better than nothing.
Also understand that people in higher positions and reached their goals have had extreme amounts of luck and sometimes even money to keep them afloat through the painful stuff. Risk within your own means. Make sure youre happy but also dont give up. Live isnt worth hurting yourself in hopes for something that "may" happen. You'll have to learn to do it for yourself. Dont give up and youre better off than you were yesterday.
This is along the lines of what my mom used to say to encourage me, look at my ADHD as a gift, and focus on what interested me. My grades would soar when it came to subjects I had a genuine interest in.
True story, in highschool I took Programming and excelled at it until it got tedious. I hated that it didn't look like what does in the movies (hands frantic on the keyboard) and lost interest. Grades went from As to Fs. Fast forward to many years later, that knowledge helped me excel at tech support, leading to QA. And then I met a dev who used Vim and asked, "yo, wtf is that?!" My ADHD brain was so excited and stimulated by Vim that it reignited my interest in programming and still fuels my thirst for knowledge 5+ years later.
Dyslexia, ADHD developer here! I only had my "diagnosis" later in life, I struggled to know what was the issue for me. Having the Diagnosis made me able to reflect on the past and know how to operate in the present and the future. Thanks for the story you're sharing.
It takes a lot to admit the things you've admitted in this and other videos. Thank you for your honesty. You're such a good role model in our community.
your perspective is very uniquely catered to me that this speaks to me, especially where i am in my life. i’ve overcome my impulse to like almost no youtube videos (because i cannot like them all) to like this video.
Something that I've always struggled with, and still do, is saying no to myself.
My ability to laser focus on things, combined with low self discipline, can make me get really addicted to things that are massive time sinks. And then I hate myself for it.
Thank you for helping me rationalize it.
So I was subbed for Fireship and stumbled upon a video of your collaboartion with him. I also was diagnosed with ADHD 2 weeks ago and I'm currently trying my best to go from UX-design to Data Engineering. So I just opened this video and shocked about the timing of it. I also had a call with my mom today where I explained ADHD to her and she told me to treat it like a gift not a curse. This is what I needed. ADHD struggle is real and I'm glad to hear motivation from you. Thanks.
As a fellow engineer with ADHD I 100% agree - I always got distracted in school, but my ADHD brain LOVES code and all the different problem solving opportunities that stem from it. It really is a super power
Thank you, I studied back in 2009 but couln't cope with getting nothing, I strayed from the path and became a translator, document analyst, then comex assistant, i just came back 2-3 years ago, i've learning so much, can't even game anymore because i want to keep learning, what you said about taking control of adhd when it just about time, its just so real, 33 years of pure gaming, never readed a book, and now i'm trying my best to keep reading and learning what i can, i feel that i'm so behind everyone but it doesn't matter, i'll get there eventually
Ive never been formally diagnosed with ADHD, but I relate to this video to a rediculous degree. Our early lives had a lot of similarities, at least from what you have shared in this video. Thank you for sharing your story and for the encouragement :)
Definitely consider looking into a formal diagnosis if you would like treatment (medication or not) and accommodations if necessary
@@fakezpred I think it would be interesting to discuss with my doctor. Whatever it is that makes me a bit odd has become more manageable as Ive gotten older. I definitely dont want to go the medication route, but it would be helpful to get a formal diagnosis (or lack thereof) so I am better informed as to how to manage my mental health. Thank you for the advise 🙏
it's actually super refreshing to hear this, as a college student currently who can relate to much of your story it's so nice hearing it put as a positive versus a negative.
This is one of the best advices Ive heard. I dont know which mental "Superpower" I have but it's bad. I think I can relate to you the most, even though I dont know 99% of your story and your advice is what will probably help me become a better person. Thank you.
I have been consuming content ABOUT learning to code, and constantly tell myself today is the day I actually sit down and do it, but getting myself home from my 10 hour work days to code (instead of spending time with my gf, son and puppy) is really fucking daunting. I’m able to pick up a game for 1-2 hours but never start coding because it feels “too big to start now”. My ADHD has hindered my ability to focus so much and I really just wish I had someone to help me along. I know the internet is my friend but having an actual friend who can code/mentor me and hold me accountable to the coding goals I set for myself would be so nice. I’m very happy I have a support system in my family, as I am 2 years clean off heroin/meth. I really want to overcome my past addiction and become someone who followed their passion for gaming into success. I’m just afraid to try and find out I’m shit at it. (I know everyone is shit at first)
I am glad I found your channel, and I accumulate all kinds of motivation when I do watch these videos at work, I wrote ideas into my notes app, im constantly brainstorming game design philosophies and ideas but I never sit down and put in the work. I find it very challenging to take that first step and make progress. I’m always “just about to start” and never do.
Man this is exactly how I felt. I taught English for years after failing through high school and graduating by the skin of my teeth, and decided to go to a coding bootcamp that placed me at a job. It was a great bootcamp but going into e-commerce I felt like I knew NOTHING. There was no training, and I was completely thrown to the wolves. I was looking at their codebase and learning more about PHP, and it was just not sticking. I was working as hard as I possibly could and I was just not able to get my mind to focus on or absorb anything. But after a certain point of doing enough small things and incrementally absorbing knowledge little by little, I can put forth focused attention on coding for hours at a time. It took six months of basically 60-70 hours of total work + studying at home, with a lot of patience from my girlfriend, but I finally got here and god damn it feels good to enjoy what I do.
My problem was people never thought I had ADHD because I was always able to find ways to deal with my stuff. That lead to me being on a quest of self destructive behaviour which impacted my teenage and early adult live a lot in a mostly bad way.
For example I started setting alarms at 4 am when I was like 11 years old to do homework because without that added pressure I was not able to do them. I never slept more than 5 hours since that time. That lead to my grades dropping to average. I never gave my parents invitations to parent teacher conferences bc I never wanted them to bother me with that. I always tried to find ways of motivating me, and when I was able to do it my grades always improved, but that was just super rare. I always felt like I could to better, but I was just unable to do it.
I had issued in college because my ways of doing everything last minute just wont work when you have more than one deadline. It took me several years but after switching my major to Computer Science (after unsuccessfully trying Social Sciences and Engineering) it just clicked because the instant rewards you get from programming just gave me such a boost, and for the first time I felt like it just worked out for me 😄 That was also when I first started to think that I might have ADHD. It took almost 2 years of waiting until I got my diagnosis and It was such a relieve. I am taking medicine and It really improved my live. I feel more relaxed and at ease, my self esteem improved and staying on one topic is so much easier. ADHD is definitely still a big part of my daily live, it is just a easier to deal with it.
The skills I had to learn to cope with my undiagnosed ADHD definitely help me a lot in various aspects of my adult life now, but It was also a fucking nightmare and drained a lot of energy out of me. And it still is extremely hard now. I just never felt confident in myself, and was never really happy, and always felt exhausted and tired because everything was just too much, I never opened up about anything because I always felt wrong and out of place, and felt ashamed about myself and my feelings. I started peeling all those layers of self doubt and being aware that ADHD is part of me helped me to understand a lot about myself and my behaviours.
My parents still doubt that I have ADHD which is hurtful in itself, because It just made me realise how little of my daily sufferings they saw, but I am happy that I found help for myself. It is important to listen to yourself, and try to get help, because it is fucking hard and you deserve to exit the endless loop to find the rewards you are seeking for without being the self destructive human beings we tend to be.
Love you all, thanks prime for speaking about the personal stuff, you are definitely a motivation and I am happy I found your videos ❤️
Congrats on 100k!!!
Programming is honestly one of the only things that can hold my attention for more than 5 minutes. Even playing video games, I get bored so fast and just stop doing it. But I can get lost in code for hours. Only problem now is just sticking to one project at a time, haha.
Some moments in early life are so defining, that trying to change them decades later could literally kill you (or make you miserable for longer and worse). For this body, seemingly immutably, wants to continue on living, the best way to play your cards is on the right table, and by chance with the right people.
Always make the difference between the table of survivors and the table of victims.
Dude, 100% agree and almost the same story (took me 6 years and a lot of money before I dropped out though). I too somehow found the trick to focus the power of my ADHD (pun intended) and am now a 2.4 highschool GPA, college drop out, Senior Software Engineer at a multinational company.
If anyone here has ADHD, keep at it! The prescriptions might help a bit, but you gotta look inside, study yourself and migrate your habits. If you can succeed in that, then you have a super power. Nobody can stop you!
I only liked it at the end of the video because you saying like it first set off some demand avoidance.
YOU'RE NOT MY BOSS MR REVERSE PSYCH!
This felt so soothing to watch. I'm just in my 30s and it feels like something is changing in my head and it's still a struggle but I can follow through on things. I know I can achieve almost anything I set my mind to but I've never had any control over what my mind sets to... but something is changing. It took me five years to do a four year course and I came out of the other end feeling like I'd got nothing to show for it except a worthless piece of paper but now dipping a toe back into the things I couldn't possibly push myself to engage with without extreme cognitive agony... so much of it feels fresh and familiar but without the pain.
This is great man I can attest to this exact thing. 28 and diagnosed with ADHD most of my life. I always knew there were certain times I couldn't stop learning certain things but only in the last couple of years have I really started to apply it. I've grown massively and still have more room to grow but this message is a fantastic reminder. Thanks man.
Damn, I feel you so much, your story matches with mine almost perfectly (I never dropout college) but in my case, at some time I started to use the ADHD meds to get my first job as a Web Developer and then slowly get off all the shits I was doing, now I work as a Full Stack Developer (tbh it's mainly FE) and it's amazing, I really feel like those meds combined with a mature mindset made me a good dev.
glad to find this video, I also could learn a tremendous amount of info but not when I needed it, it's like delaying the most important tasks, I guess working maturely and taking accountability is the only way to unlock the superpower
Love this video. Found it relatable and inspiring as a fellow ADHDer. Keep the videos coming.
Lord... I appreciate your candidness about this. I have had, and still have similar struggles. It's so great to hear someone who's overcome it talk about it
I have adhd too and managed to land a job in a big e-commerce company. And that brought me to my current job where I’m building a startup from the ground up.
Adhd is no curse! It’s a blessing, but you have to recognize you weaknesses and strengths.
It's actually amazing how I literally watched like 3 random of your videos and thought "He is one of us. I wonder if he knows". Glad I was right and glad that you know :D
How do you drum up that effort is my question, because that’s what is killing me. Failed so much I’ve lost trust in myself, even lost my job, my interest to buckle down, and it has opened an identity crisis.
I don’t even know what I’m good at or should be chasing, let alone trust I could run with a direction.
That is the curse of adhd, along with the lack of a savings account, nearly 30 without much career advancement, it’s taking a toll on physical health, and I’ve spent a year and a half feeling like I’m on the edge of change but in reality, nothing has changed (for the better, getting fired is great), and I don’t even try things anymore.
I say lack of direction but I am here for a good reason, I am technically inclined, a god at help desk tasks, but beyond that, master of none. Things like code or networking are too, much for me to even start on, I struggle with math and I don’t even know if I am cut out for them, but there is an allure mixed with lack of motivation.
Consistency, focus, learning, it’s overwhelming to think about, and my lack of self trust makes school seem like a financial mistake of an option.
I wish I knew how to access this super power part, but it’s truly detrimental to other areas of life, and I say this while attending therapy and having dialed in my meds.
Sorry for the wall of text, it’s just a constant battle day to day, I feel like I’ve lost part of myself, my enthusiasm, my drive, and what I even want in life.
I think the biggest influence towards my own growth/maturation was Overwatch. I was really sick with Ulcerative Colitis at the time, and playing Overwatch competitively 8-12 hours a day was a really effective escape. Taking it seriously and learning how to not get tilted, communicate effectively, doing VOD reviews, etc. it legitimately went a long way in teaching me how to fail repeatedly, how to deal with it and improve, and there's still elements of it that help me with my professional work.
Now that I think about it, I also think major part of the "drive to succeed" was that, in order to know what I needed to "succeed" it was a really straightforward calculation. Like I need 200 wins to get to a rank I want (which would be a rank where I start playing with streamers :P), and at a 52% winrate, I just need to play 5000 games. That sort of grind is not ideal of course, but numbers like that helps put the objective in the realm of possibility for me. I don't necessarily know or think I have ADHD, but I would say that the worst part of getting distracted is not reaching the point where you really start deconstructing a problem to it's smaller bite-sized components and find a "mentally tangible" goal post to shoot for.
I appreciate your vulnerability and encouragement. The book Smart but Scattered helped me a lot but I still have a long way to go.
I never could control my ADHD I grinned for a year and it lead me to burnout on top of my depression, ADHD and my family problems and I still didn't recover (after 3 years)
All I'm saying you can't generalize your experience to all people
Love your content BTW great energy
yeah. A lot of other things have to be in exactly the right place to be able to just sort of 'psyche yourself out of negative symptoms'. Not that he didn't earn everything he has going for him, but I feel like his life is kind of charmed.
@@homelessrobot not really. you have to expect to put up with the worst and still find your way into returning to the consistency you were once capable of maintaining. I've had major depressive syndrome for about a 3rd of my life and even when I have days/weeks of complete burnout and no motivation, I still remain compassionate and tell myself I'll get back to grinding as soon as I'm able to and I'll see that the goal I created for myself will eventually be reached. It will always be a matter of perseverance through adversity. That's how anyone becomes great after all
I agree with you 100% I also struggled for years with this. I started to excel when I found the right friend group and we all pushed each other to do better. As a result a lot of us are actually doing pretty well.
I'm right there with you, I got dismissed from my college about a year and a half ago after two semesters where I basically didn't do any work. It hurt a lot. After taking some time to learn about ADHD and about myself what helped me was accepting that I had a disability that would negatively affect me. I learned to be kind to myself when I failed but also to use my failures to find ways to improve myself so they wouldn't happen again. It has taken an immense amount of hard work and I still struggle daily but I'm back in school and doing well for myself. There is power in acceptance because then you can make it your own and work with it. Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
Sometimes you just gotta buckle down, have time in the saddle, and try to prime your environment to have as few distractions as possible. March on brother. Thanks for sharing your story primeagen.
youre right. i recently got a job as a IT/Network Tech, and it wouldnt have happened without the maturity i have built up over the past year or two. i will use this in the future to grow into a developer role. thank you
I had a similar situation during my masters: I hated writing my thesis so much I would spend literal days figuring out ways to make it more fun, namely setting up the whole LaTeX thing and making it play along nicely with Vim while running it all on my linux (arch btw) machine. I was neck deep in configs and I loved it. Who would have thought that programming was the right path for me, instead of doing management in IT masters...
P.S.: The real question is, collab with the God Emperor of Rules and the Saint of the Clean Room J. Peterson when!? We need to show them woke VScoders the path of the terminal!
I had the exact same experience doing a PhD. I was obsessed with my LaTeX + emacs environment (RIP my hands and wrists, switched to Vim age 30), tiling window managers, everything. My thesis was a work of art, but ultimately I liked fiddling with software more than doing pure research .
I found that once I reached 29 and just now coming up on 30 that something within me just flipped. Many of the things I used to cope or escape with no longer did it for me or I didn't put as much importance on them as I once did. Some relationships I either had to let go or put on hold because I was fed up with putting myself in passenger seat trying to help others fulfill their hopes and dreams or get through whatever struggles they might have been going through. Sure I was beginning to seem like someone who didn't care for others time or needs, that was because I started wanting to live my life. I needed the same attention I was giving others directed to me from me. I'm a bit of a late bloomer but better late than never right? I started to tell myself that any sort of failure that cropped up on my path to where I wanted to be was worth it and ok, I was quite the sore loser when it came to failure because I always had the mindset of "If I can't do it perfectly on the first try then I wasn't meant to do it.". A terrible mindset to have for anything in life worth doing. Having ADHD I was always trying to strive for anything new that peaked my interests. But to make a long story short, anyone dealing with ADHD or other mind altering disorders the best advice I can give is be patient with yourself and don't allow outside forces misdirect you from your goals. Good luck with your journey and I hope you make it. :)
Thank you for being so real in this video. Crazy how similar our experience has been yet I thought I was alone
When you shared your hot take I was so surprised. Because I agree. Maturity is so important, but it so so easy to use the excuses when you fail. Keep pushing yourself towards the maturity and dont let the excuses control your mind. You can do it!
YOOOOO PPRIME! this is insane because ive been struggling with this and started taking adderall this week. I've always been told from the time that i was a genius-- had a 114 I.Q, above average reading level, etc in middle school but i stuggled getting good grades because i couldnt focus. Fast forward i ended up taking I.B (A.P on steroids) because i wanted to get into an Ivy-- all of them took interest and interviewed me, but my ADHD fucked that up. I was always focused on stuff outside of school like building "the next big thing etc." These days building projects /businesses is my life but i feel ADHD to still be a challenge. Non-theless thank you!
You don't know how much I needed this. Thank you!
Love you dude. Thanks for being open!
Love the straight talking content too prime always got a good story
Thank you, I just got diagnosed today at 22. I have done really well academically all my life, through school and university which has made it hard for people to take what I say seriously regarding having ADHD but alas. I still don’t feel competent, or that I’m as good as I should be. But it’s nice to have you as an example, I’m going to keep working.
I don't know what to feel about this video. I want to slap you, I want to hug you. I want to refute everything you said and I want you to know that you're right about everything you said as well.
I've been diagnosed last year, at 31. It's a mixture of relief for having a name and explanation for the struggles, and immense anger because of everything that could've been done differently.
Maturity is something that eventually comes, but not at the same level for everyone.
The pattern that I see on "successful" (whatever you quantify as succcess) people with ADHD, is studying or working/playing with things that are actually interesting to them, and not an obligation.
The ADHD brain doesn't work by importance or urgency, but for interest. Take part of a software development sprint with a backlog full of various urgency and importance tasks, and choose what you'll do on your own without having someone overseeing it, and you'll see what I mean.
So you definitely have to double down on accountability. The way forward is not excuses, nor justifying shortcomings with the diagnosis. Because at the end of the day, ADHD is just a small part of us, and it doesn't define us.
Thank you for the honesty and your content. You're one of the good ones, and your videos are always uplifting to me.
Ty , ADHDeagen
Damn bro... you got me in the feels 😢. Didn't expect the video to describe my life. This video though short, has helped me more than countless other videos.
I didn’t expect to hear “cross between Joel Osteen and Luke Smith” in this video, but I absolutely LOLed when I did! 😂
Seriously though, thank you for sharing your story so candidly. I do not have ADHD (that I know of), but I’ve known many people who do and am learning so much about how it is misunderstood.
I agree very much, from my childhood that I believe that being scattered and distracted, serves you to advance in roulette mode, in many subjects almost in parallel.
I only recently discovered your channels and only just now stumbled onto this video. Your story resonates heavily with me as it seems we've walked the same path. Thank you heaps for your content, it helps motivate and remind me where and what I as a dev.
Thanks for sharing your story, ig hits really close to home for me.. I am about 1 year out from getting help for my adhd at 33 after more than a decade of the "cursed" cycle and my life has gotten a lot better. I'm not where I want to be yet and lately I feel like I've hit a wall but seeing stuff like this inspires me to keep going. WAGMI
Thank you legend, this was beautiful and reassuring to hear.
My general advice I'd give people when they struggle, be it with ADHD or anything else really is that you just have to 'fail yourself to success'. Be patient, keep working and consider failures to be just lessons that you had to learn and suddenly you'll become overnight success.