“I have no response to that.”

Thank you for typing this all out. It was lovely and inspiring to read.

Thinking one step further: Even if I somehow got into MENSA (unlikely), I can’t imagine ever saying, “I see you have a MENSA discount…” ugh.

Don’t forget racists. Plenty of those are drawn to the Mensa labels, too.

This is worth the entire post and more. I’m chuckling while my kid gives me weird looks from the other room.

10 years ago I wouldn’t have imagined this, but this is me every time I have to use Windows (e.g., occasionally for work) or help someone else with it.

According to almost every photo I take, about 3 degrees off.

Pretty sure this is a psychophysics question, though I don’t know that field well enough to know what’s there.

If it helps, you’re not alone. I’ve spent decades of my life pursuing a career, and in the past five or so years I’ve come to realize I will never accomplish the things I used to dream about, like making an impact in my little field, etc. It’s a really, really unpleasant realization. The only silver lining I can find for myself (and it is helpful) is that I can let go of the “must excel” and “must go above and beyond” mentalities. It frees up time and mental resources.

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The phrase “based off of.” It’s always been stupid. I’m still ahead of the curve because many people still think it’s OK. It’s not.

I can’t say for sure, but it certainly seems like the people believing these things speak in ways reminiscent of people with delusion disorders (e.g., schizophrenia). The patterns of how they use words and concepts just feels very delusiony to me.

Depends on where in Canada. Toronto? Vancouver? Montreal? Oy, insane real estate prices. Bumfuck, Alberta? Manitoba? Rural anywhere? Much cheaper.

And regardless of the price I could afford the utility and maintenance on a condo or apartment in a major city in Canada (if I could ever afford one) much more easily than on a castle in France. Not a great comparison.

My kid would like to still have a dad. One who is, ideally, not in prison or dead.

I’ve taught statistics for over 20 years. I flipflop on this constantly, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Even more disturbing: I don’t have a consistent position, at least grammatically, on whether it’s singular or plural.

Well, this is fucking horrifying, and it won’t make the news because of the other, louder apocalypses currently happening.

I absolutely would not trust myself, but I also feel deeply that I should be allowed to test this hypothesis with lived experience.

Speak for yourself.

Feeling this very hard. It took me a few decades to find a partner like that. Very happy you have one.

Kids with ADHD often have days and weeks and months and years in which almost every interaction with a parent or teacher is mostly negative. It doesn’t take long for this conditioning to make kids feel bad about themselves–e.g., see themselves as stupid and lazy–and feel bad about the parents and teachers. They often become secretive or otherwise avoid the people they’ve had thousands of bad experiences with.

If there’s any way to shift that balance, it will be powerful for your daughter and for your relationship with her later. Sometimes this means just letting go of certain things. Sometimes it means letting her get away with stuff. If she has siblings, it probably means looking like you’re treating your kids unfairly. Sometimes it might mean reaching out with love and kindness when there seems to be no chance that will be received well. You can potentially be one of the best things in her life, but the path of least resistance–and the path that “normal” parenting leads to–is a world where you are an agent of unpleasantness or punishment for her more often than of happiness and comfort.

As she grows up she will learn lots of things adults need to know; some quickly, some very slowly. She’ll need help at a lot of points, and if you can be a person she asks for help, her life will be better. When she’s 20 or 30 she’ll be independent and living a life, no matter what your parenting style was. At that point, the relationship she has with you depends a lot on her accumulated memory and gut-level conditioning from years of being around you.

I’m choking up as I write this because I have a daughter and I know I’m not a perfect dad. I want very much to have a good relationship with her as she grows up, and I know I don’t always make that easy. It’s a huge challenge. I say this because what I wrote sounds really preachy; I’m preaching to myself as much as to anyone else.

I think ADHD often does to us sort of what some other conditions do to others: beats us down. By the time we reach adulthood, we’ve learned from millions of experiences not to bother with certain things. At the same time, many adults I know with ADHD are much more anxious, especially in social or work situations, than they appear.