Choices.

Insatiable curiosity about everything and a keen awareness of my limited lifespan.

Disliking big tech and corporate social media isn’t a personality… that’s not you. That’s just shit you don’t like. There are tons of people that are nothing like you that dislike the same shit.

ADHD dictates so much of my persobality

it's hard to tell whether it's autism or severe childhood social neglect. I think it's both.

Autism & being lonely

16 years of child abuse 🤪

growing up in a poor shitty down full of assholes, and being smart and driven enough to get myself out of there.

and now i am middle aged and while in my 20s and early 30s people thought what I did was positive, now people I meet hold it against me in the worst way. It's so fucking weird, but I guess as people age they basically revert to being judgemental weirdos who think your family/birthplace is the single determining factor of who you are. the amount of nastiness people direct towards me when they find out how I grew up is shocking and disgusting and vile.

I also went to a famous university and the whiplash you get from how people react to that vs my birthplace is just... well basically it makes you a total misanthrope because people are so awful about it. It's very rare I meet anyone who doesn't give a shit about either of those things about me, and those are the people I actually enjoy interacting with.

personally i thought i lived the american dream, but man other people are very very hostile to you, especially because I guess I went from rags to merely middle class, not riches.

Found computers very interesting. Broke them. Watched how to fix them. Broke them again. Fixed them myself. Rinse and repeat.

Most of the choices I've made in life have been in reaction to what I don't want, rather than what I do want.

I don't want to burn myself out in high school, so I stop taking dual-credit classes my senior year. Then, I don't want to take on student loan debt, so I forget about college entirely. Trade school, it is. But thanks to some physical handicaps, I don't have the body for most blue-collar work. But I can drive a truck. And after bouncing around from one trucking company to another, I learn I don't like hauling reefers or flatbeds. I don't like being "over the road", living in a truck full-time. But I don't care for "local" trucking either, not with how far I have to commute into the big city.

That's just one path, one example. I've got others.

Sometimes it's hard, figuring out the things in life I do want, beyond short-term crap, like what toppings I want on my pizza. I like writing. I love driving, in nearly all its forms, especially racing. I've always got music playing, the cab of my truck doubles as a karaoke booth. The coworker who watches my dashcam videos says I'm not a bad singer. Whether I do anything with this other information, it's anyone's guess.

SNRIs

mmmm. I mean I don't feel like I have changed much in my life and I think compared to most people I know. Well I don't exactly get people saming I am exactly the same but its rare that someone is unsure if im the person they knew years ago. Part of that is the look I grew into in high school has stayed pretty consistant but also my walk and way I am I think. Honestly I think its just mainly wanting an equal society. And no I don't mean everyone being 100% the same. I mean that everyone can live and have the basics and enough discretionary resources to get or improve things that are important to them. I really can't be happy without at the very least feel we are moving towards that. So I have kinda been unhappy most of my life but especially so now.

Determination to be a better parent than my parents forced me to process a lot, started an arc returning to my true self.

Being lied to

My dad sketched while I was a kid and I liked how it looked so I tried to copy it. Ever since then, I've been drawing and I love it

A lifetime of neglect surrounded by people who told me they were only neglecting me because that was the kind of love that I needed.

Severe ADHD, undiagnosed until age 30.

Probably undiagnosed mental illness. I spent 30+ years as a round peg trying to fit in a square hole, until I realized one day that the way I like to be is fine and I should enjoy an existence that fits me.

Trauma 🙂

The abuse, neglect i got from my immature parents, and the exclusion from social life due to my neurodivergence.

Hate and spite if used right is a great source of "motivation"

I was born with an opinion of right and wrong.

Loving parents and growing up in a small town, a 10 year failed marriage that resulted in 3 kids I love to the moon of which 2 of them are on the spectrum. Many failed relationships.

I'm proud of the man I've become at 49 years old.

Education, martial arts training, books, and video games.

I jerk off and smoke weed way to much

School trauma by the guidance counselors and therapists.

Never liked big tech, but I liked it less and less as time goes on.

Crippling fear of climate change.

It's two-sided.

On one hand, I was raised by a forest ranger to hunt and fish and camp, spent my childhood in the boy scouts learning all that stuff, and brought up in strict, yet community-oriented religion.

On the other hand, I spent every other waking moment on the computer. I was essentially raised by the web circa 1995-2004. I was exposed to so many different viewpoints then. The web wasn't nearly as insular then as it is now. You'd have forums where everyone spoke to each other. I learned to question my religion and eventually found my way out. I rejected all the right-leaning beliefs I was raised to have.

And yet, I wouldn't trade that first part of my childhood, because it was genuinely a nice childhood. I saw what real community can be, something that I now lack. I picked up a thing or two about how to be a moral and capable person along the way. And gained lifelong friendships.

Shitty childhood. On the upside I learned a lot of useful skills, namely how to tell when someone's getting ready to hit someone. Comes in handy in my line of work. There's been plenty of times where the patient starts screaming and my coworkers are like "oh no what do we do!?" And I'm like "wait 30 more minutes for the haldol I gave them 30 minutes ago to hit. They can holler until then if they need to." Sometimes I just look at the way someone's pacing and how hard and fast their steps are and my brain just goes "hell naw" and usually if I catch it then the person still has enough sense to take a pill for it.