Fidget toys sell well for a reason
this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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I have an amazing steel cube that infinitely folds and it does wonders
Ended up calling my girlfriend and she convinced me to go to the gym bc rhat usually works but I had forgotten that was an option.
I am at the gym now and it does in fact work lmao
Drink alcohol usually
Real
I started wearing earplugs because I started riding motorcycles, now I just try to keep a pair in my pocket because they're fuckin great. They should be required for most concerts, they're great for any noisy situation, I find myself leaving them in while I"m doing metal stuff running various power tools, and I'll end up just sitting down with them in having a drink enjoying the peaceful muted quiet. I wish I started using earplugs when I was a kid, I would probably not have tinnitus now if I had.
edit: also in-ear monitors also work for this, I've had a pair of Shure se215s for about a decade that I just replaced. They're not cheap but they last a long time and they really work to mute outside sounds, I use them both on the motorcycle as well as under earmuffs when running tools or shooting. You can get them in bluetooth flavor too.
I like to clean or get outside. Fresh air is good to have, and cleaning is something productive that I can get sucked into after I start. I have many other things that I do, but when faced with understimulation, I tend to fall on one of those two things (unless I'm at my understimulating and mentally draining job).
It's expensive as balls but I buy leftover addy from a few kids living in the college dorms across the street from my place lmao
I ran out of my meds and haven't put together the executive function get more
but there is nothing I want to do.
This is your root problem.
Weed or alcohol or any fidgets are just going to distort your sense of anything happening, without addressing the craving that you're having.
Rx- dopamine detox, or as they used to call it back in the day, "meditation". Or, alternately, "flooding" yourself with understimulation. Turn off as many connections to the outside world as you can, and observe yourself. Keep observing yourself and your brain and your mind either until you get some insight, or until you can't stand it anymore and decide that there's at least 1 accessible activity that you'd much rather be doing... then do that thing.
Wild that the solution to understimulation is being so understimulated that you decide to not be understimulated
Meditation is something I have been considered though tbh
That's why I mentioned the phrase "dopamine detox". The phrase is kind of a fad, but it really does describe that state of mind of wanting something stimulating and not being able to get anything suitable, while oscillating between quick fixes. It's like building up a "tolerance" to stimulation.
You're looking for something to take up all your attention, probably because you've been offered stuff to expand to fill the whole gap all the time, instead of being able to take stock of your situation and reflect.
We have lots of loud music and eye candy and talking heads and sweet and salty foods and drugs that all serve to obscure how out of touch we are with ourselves. Anything, anything to drown out that nagging voice of "what even is this existence, who am I, what's really going on here".
Anything, to drown out that nagging voice of "what even is this existence, who am I, what's really going on here".
Yeah...
long vent
Reading philosophy has helped with those sorts of questions but I think what I actually need is to go outside and engage with my community and politics. Volunteer work and the like. I am unfortunately well aware that I am seeking a quick fix over long term solutions and there's a lot of guilt tied into that. I struggle with knowing that I engage in the spectacle daily simply as a way to cope with the status quo.
On days where I am really struggling with those thoughts I will turn to learning about marxism and history because it gives the illusion of action but I am still intellectual aware that, while I am improving myself, I am also using these ultimately entertaining forms of education as a medicine for a disease only real praxis can cure.
Yet I am still unable to make that leap. I always have some excuse, some reason I just don't have the time or energy to act. I feel as though I need to train myself to have the patience for the long term reward. Perhaps meditation could be useful to this end.
Maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself though. Growing up in a society that prioritizes the short term will do this even to someone who is neurotypical and self hate hasn't worked as a great motivator thus far.
I should definitely spend less time thinking and more time doing. I just really struggle with starting the doing.
Sorry if this is unrelated or doesn't really have a line of reasoning. I just needed to say words
I always have some excuse, some reason I just don't have the time or energy to act.
Maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself though.
I should definitely spend less time thinking and more time doing. I just really struggle with starting the doing.
Me too, bud. Me too for all of this. As a slower-witted and aloof ND person, I feel like I've been stumbling through life and only making it through with lucky breaks. And yet things are going well and smoothly enough that I could at least say I'm flopping myself down the road in a certain direction.
You are diligently pursuing college coursework, you have a close personal relationship, you have enough patience to tackle deeper literature, you're well into the habit of working out, and you express yourself well. Most importantly, you care, and have the ability to adapt. There's a whole lot going for you.
I always stim on the smooth tags on my clothes by rubbing the smoothness together. Any type of satin-y material works. The best stim, constantly available and covert so you can stim in situations where it's not safe to stim.
I have a bit of yarn that I play with
my real actual answer is also weed and burning incense but making paper cranes is pretty solid for a non-meme answer. not terribly hard to learn, fine to make out of cheap paper squares, good luck if you crank through 1000, more interesting than a piece of plastic.
Paper cranes doesn't sound bad at all. Thanks :)
I go "man I need to get some adderall" until the black market comes through a few weeks after I want it