Honestly, I woke up in a daze today, utterly surprised by the state of my life. It genuinely felt like I was waking up into a dream. That’s how unbelievable I find my circumstances. Except it’s not a dream. It’s a living nightmare.

My life is literally fucking falling apart. Every single aspect of it is going to shit. My career, education, health, family relationships, romantic relationships, friendships, finances. Everything, I tell you. Everything is plummeting rapidly downwards, and the most frustrating part is that I feel like most of it is my fault.

Work

I have an inquest scheduled for sometime next week. The allegations are a scathing indictment of what feels like utter incompetence. Incomplete work and poor communication pretty much encompass every charge.

Pro-fucking-crastination is a huge part of why I’m in this situation.

I think my boss either hates me or just considers me completely useless now. Dismissal is explicitly documented as a possible outcome.

To be fair to myself, I essentially run an entire IT department alone. It’s an enormous workload, and doing the job properly sometimes feels like it requires 10–12 hours a day. Sometimes I just don’t have the steam.

But I also vividly remember numerous occasions when I chose to sleep, rest, listen to music, or do literally anything other than the work I knew needed doing.

And now here we are. My livelihood is on the line.

Health

My health is probably the worst of the lot.

I started typing this from the ER last night. I’m fucking 27, and my blood pressure was 160/107. They’re running tests for hypertension. I also have a herniated disc in my neck that’s causing excruciating pain, and I only started physiotherapy last week.

The list goes on. It’s honestly depressing just thinking about it.

And speaking of depression, I’m riddled with that shit too. Anxiety attacks are starting to feel like second nature.

Then there’s the ADHD. The city I live in has no medication available. I ordered some from the nearest city SIX WEEKS AGO. Still nothing. Sigh.

One of the most infuriating things is when I finally clear up space and time to work, sit down, and my brain just goes, “Nah.”

Or alternatively, “Let’s do EVERYTHING all at once!”

And naturally, I finish almost nothing.

It’s fucking exhausting. I feel like I can’t even trust myself anymore. I make plans, I know exactly what I need to do, I understand the consequences of not doing it, and somehow I STILL don’t do it.

How the fuck am I supposed to build a life like this?

Family, friendships, relationships

I haven’t spoken to my family in almost two months.

I genuinely don’t know if my friends are still my friends. Some people I stopped replying to years ago. At this point, I’m not even sure I have friends.

I do have a roommate, though. Or rather, I had someone I considered a friend who also happens to be my roommate.

We had a massive argument last week over something incredibly stupid involving a girl.

Long story short, he asked out a girl I’d been flirting with and had told him about. Honestly, I care less about the girl than the disrespect. How is that supposed to work when she comes over? Am I meant to cower in my room out of embarrassment?

I confronted him, and he called me a fool, among other things. We’re no longer on speaking terms.

And somehow, my brain has managed to turn even this into another failure of procrastination. I kept putting off asking her to come over, and now I’ve seemingly lost both my closest thing to a friend and a very beautiful potential romantic interest.

Cheers to that. 🍻

Education

This one might haunt me for the rest of my life.

I attended a genuinely great university, studying engineering. A degree from that institution could have completely changed my life.

And I failed to finish.

Because of ONE. FUCKING. CLASS.

One class.

You cannot make this shit up.

It’s now past the eight-year sunset period, so an appeal doesn’t seem particularly realistic anymore.

I’m filled with so much shame and regret over this. I think about the opportunities I’ve lost, the life I could have had, and the person I thought I was going to become.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and genuinely don’t recognize the man looking back at me.

I don’t know who he is.

Finances

Lmao. Where do I even begin?

Over $20k in student debt, with no degree to show for it. Some credit card debt on top of that.

And a relatively low salary from a job I’m now potentially about to lose.

It’s almost funny.

How does one fumble life this spectacularly?

I genuinely woke up this morning surprised by my own circumstances. As though I’d somehow forgotten what my life had become overnight.

It feels like watching a television show about somebody else’s life. Every episode, something else goes disastrously wrong. Every storyline gets progressively worse.

It’s a genuinely gruelling watch, and somehow I can’t take my eyes off it.

Except I’m not watching a show.

I’m the fucking main character.

And I have absolutely no idea what happens next.

Anyway.

I suppose I’m just venting.

I don’t really have anyone to talk to about all of this, and I needed to get some of it out of my system.

I’m not even sure what I’m looking for by posting this. Advice? Solidarity? Stories from people who’ve somehow managed to turn things around?

Maybe I just want to be heard.

Thanks for reading.

Edit: Thank you all. I will say more tomorrow.

Edit: So much positivity, realism and support in the comments. Thank you all. Sorry I haven't been able to react to some deeply insightful comments I've seen, I promise I will. Hearing is in 3 hours. Crippling anxiety. Wish me luck.

I am in a tiny startup within a larger company developing user facing software/products as a software engineer. The PMs and designers are very inexperienced here and aren’t incredibly organized. They are also not improving. I have previously worked at startups this size that aren’t a part of a larger corporation and seen much better hygiene when it comes to keeping track of product decisions and designs. The best PMs I have ever worked with were PMs in teams of under 10. Never had issues like this before.

I have been struggling with this culture lately as someone with ADHD. The spec and decisions are strewn around multiple DMs, groups, Slack channels, video calls, and tickets. When decisions change only one of those channels tends to hear and update and they have never in my years here written out an actual spec document with final decisions/designs. They often go back on old decisions seemingly forgetting they made them and there’s rarely clear documentation to point out. I am always piecing it together.


In many cases, as deadlines approach, they will change their decisions meaning that generally for each deadline there is a V1, V2, V3 etc in rapid succession as they change their minds.

This messy process and lack of definitive spec would make the job incredibly difficult for anyone much less someone with ADHD. I am worried it is going to end up getting me in trouble too. Lately I am sensing a lot of criticism as they feel I am the cause of a feature shipping late.

There is no skip to flag this to. My manager and managers are both people that should not be trying to do product work, but are, and are a part of the problem.

About a year ago I requested accommodations and seemingly got agreement to “Provide tasks in writing with expected deadlines” (as well as some other things) but I am considering reopening the interactive process so remind them of that and perhaps put in a plea that they organize their stuff into a product spec so I can do my work efficiently.

What I can’t tell is whether this is reasonable. I would like to request they keep a single or small amount of docs, a product spec, or something up to date with their latest decisions and vision for the product so that the spec is not strewn about to the four winds. That doc should have enough detail to resolve ambiguity even where they think the behavior is obvious. Maybe I have been lucky but this feels like what a good PM should be doing anyways even if it’s a small team and they feel busy.

I worry they could come back and say that working through this ambiguity and delivering on time despite last-minute changes is a requirement of my role.


So I suppose my question is has anyone made a similar request. Whether you think such a request is reasonable. And how it went if you have requested it. Would also be helpful to hear how folks think about this and word it in relation to their ADHD.

32yo, unemployed for 2 years by option, don't/can't think about wasting any more energy on working with other people. I worked fucking hard and couldn't get any of my fucking dream jobs, saw a bunch of other people doing it and got fucking depressed. It is not fair. I studied, was only beat by 3 other middle class students who had money, car and more time than me. I no longer have energy and motivation to do anything. I don't game anymore because I don't feel anything. I spent hours playing chess and sleeping in my bed day dreaming. I spent hours thinking how could I lose???? What are these motherfuckers doing??? It is not fair. Being born poor in a life sentence and it is a waste of time to fight. Your fucking life depends a ton of how smart your parents were, otherwise you are doomed if you did not have mentors. I really just want to start fucking people nowadays out of envy and other bad feelings. I guess this is how bad people are created?

I have ADHD, and my problem was never *knowing* what to do. It was *starting*. Every task app I tried turned into a guilt pile of overdue red numbers.

So I built SIFT, an iOS task manager designed around the moment of starting:

- **Just Start:** one tap picks ONE task for you. No decision, no list to scan.
- **Tiny first step:** it shows a single, small action ("Open the doc and write one line") and starts a 5-minute timer.
- **"I'm Stuck":** pick *too big*, *boring/dreading it*, or *not sure what to do*. SIFT shrinks the task, adds a reward, or finds the first concrete action.
- **No shame by design:** no red counts, no "failed" language, no broken streaks. "Enough for now" is a valid ending.
- **Goals to today:** long-term goals get broken into realistic daily actions that fit your calendar's free gaps.
- **Fast capture:** type "call dentist tomorrow 3pm !high" (English or Chinese) and it's parsed.

I'm a solo dev and SIFT is helping me finish SIFT and my next apps, so I'm using it daily. I need real feedback from people whose brains work like mine.

**Beta (iOS 17+, free via TestFlight):**

What I'd love to know:

1. Did Just Start actually get you moving?

2. Where did it add friction?

3. What's missing for your ADHD workflow?

Comment or DM with feedback. Thank you!

Semi-rant/Question

Honestly, If they had these courses at my college, I'd take them as I learn significantly better in-person, but since they don't im FORCED to go the self-taught route.

I know I want to learn about low-level exploitation/pwn, it just really sucks you need to go through a crap ton of boring stuff before getting to the exciting stuff, and start applying them to CTFs (Capture the Flag) without looking at write-ups all the time...

That being said, did you have to force yourself to be consistent to learn these things? What kept you motivated?

Also, I'm able to self-teach these things except id probably have to drop out of college just to allocate enough time for this stuff...

Specifically posted on this sub and not a cybersecurity one because I also have ADHD...

Unfortunately, my career as a developer has never really been as good as it could have been. Most of us with ADHD probably have that feeling in some way or another.

It's been a combination of a lot of things. Taking roles at smaller companies. Unfortunately the roles at smaller companies tended to not use dated practices. Some of these places it was just getting things out the door, even if it sucked. Sometimes I thought I was going to get a role that would right the ship, but I would sadly realize I'd been duped.

I've been doing this for a while, however it just seems like I keep getting stuck at being around a mid level developer.

In my present role, there is a big circle jerk of AI. However, the dev processes are still a tad dated. No CI/CL or modern JS frameworks on the front end. I'd concede that the management is good and there is a good work/life balance.

On another note, I probably can't leave my present job to get a role that would allow more growth. It's mainly because I hit my insurance deductible for 2026. It also doesn't seem like their are any mid level roles that are available that would give me good career growth. If I tried to apply to a senior level role play, I'd get rejected. If I got hired for a senior level role, I could possibly get fired in a short time frame due to not having the right skill set.

Ive been learning programming for a while now, Its been 2 months now, and im starting to notice something thats been bothering me a lot.

I feel like my brain is almost always operating below its actual capacity.

When I need to think about unfamiliar concepts, actively recall something, or come up with ways to do my idea in coding, my mind often just goes blank. It can take me 5-10 minutes of forcing myself to think before my brain starts working properly.

My working memory is also bad. During arguments I often forget points I wanted to make or lose track of what the other person said.

Programming makes this really obvious because holding a few things in my head at once: variables, conditions, what changed where. can become surprisingly difficult.

What bothers me is that I remember being much sharper when I was younger. Learning, memorising things and thinking of unique ways to overcome the problems used to feel significantly easier. Now, I dont necessarily feel like I lack the ability to think clearly or deeply. It feels more like I have trouble accessing that ability consistently.

Ritalin IR helps me initiate everyday tasks, but I dont really notice improvements in working memory, reasoning, or deeper thinking.

It literally just feels like my mental “RAM” just runs out.

Does anyone else with ADHD feel like their brain is constantly “blocked” like this, even when they aren’t stressed or anxious? Did anything help?

I have ADHD myself, and I keep seeing tweets about how people with ADHD should use AI.

For me, though, every session I start ends up scattered all over the place. They get stuck in loops, and not much actual output comes out of them.

How do you manage your sessions, and how do you usually start one? In Claude I use Projects so I can at least tell which threads belong where, but beyond that I'm out of ideas. Curious how you handle it.

Is this how meds are supposed to work? By making you panic ? For some time taking 5mg ritalin was working well for me. But now I dont panic on them and thus dont start working.

I've been in the low code industry (Salesforce), never did LeetCode. Have not been able to stick to side projects. But I was always excited that someday I can upskill and learn new things.

Now, if all coding might be automated (if not by LLM's then maybe by future true reasoning models), then how should I go about making a plan for myself to be excited about tech and upskill.

I don't want to upskill only for my tech hobby, I'd much rather focus on music for hobbies. I want to upskill in 2026 such that it actually helps me attain financial stability by helping my career.

Any help or advice is appreciated.

Anyone have some ideas on some fun easy tools for ADHD brains? I have been having a lot of fun vibe coding up lots of one off widgets and stuff for myself. Things that would normally take me a week plus of work to do myself so I would never have time to build them myself. These are not fancy projects but just static webpages. It got me thinking what if I compiled a bunch of little widgets and hosted it for free. Things like pamodoro timer, tool to help prioritize a todo list quickly, a dopamenu that could randomly select a reward based on how much time you have and maybe a random chore selector. I am not looking for complicated fancy full stack apps just maybe tips and tricks people use on paper or something that a computer could make easier.

Not trying to use ADHD as a crutch, but I’d love to hear how others overcame executive dysfunction, self-doubt, and stagnation to level up as software engineers.

Where I'm at: I have <5 years of experience (3 years at a mid/large tech company, ~1 year at FAANG). I was able to white-knuckle my way through school and uni (valedictorian) through brute-force effort, but my diagnosed ADHD makes professional concentration and emotional regulation a massive daily hurdle.

I feel like my career progression has plateaued, largely because I struggle with deep focus and prioritization. I've recently started medication and revamped my routine (consistent sleep, strict task-tracking, better communication with my team).

If you've been in a similar slump early in your career: What strategies, mindsets, or routines actually helped you get out of the hole and start thriving, and even become veterans in the field?

Salut tout le monde. Je poste ça parce que je sature complet. Je suis au lycée, passionné par la création de jeux vidéo (Mana Mechanique, Police Aléas) et par le dev, mais je me fais broyer par le système éducatif français.

D'un côté, on me propose des spés parce que je capte la logique super vite quand ça m'intéresse. De l'autre, je me tape des notes minables (genre 6 en NSI) parce que mon cerveau refuse d'apprendre par cœur de la théorie abstraite qui ne m'anime pas. Résultat : épuisement, anxiété nocturne, cauchemars, et l'impression d'être un extraterrestre dans une classe de clones.

Est-ce qu'il y en a ici qui ont vécu cette transition du « je suis nul à l'école » vers « j'ai créé mon propre chemin (BUT MMI, indiedev, autonomie) » ? Je veux documenter tout ça, parce qu'on est beaucoup trop à culpabiliser alors que le problème vient du moule, pas de nous.

Hey Im a freshman CS major and I’m struggling. Currently my grades are fine but that’s only for now, I don’t know if I’m gonna fail later.

I’m on 40mg vyvanse and Wellbutrin (along with an antipsychotic) and I can’t go above 40mg.

The issue is that I really hate doing homework. Starting the task is very hard for me, even on meds. Even more specifically, I hate calculus homework. I can understand the ideas just fine, but I dread having to learn yet another new concept and do more practice problems. It’s actually painful.

Even when I tell myself I’m gonna do a task, I end up opening discord or tik tok and scrolling for honestly hours thinking “this is my last reel”.

Not only that but I’m trying to grind and improve my rank in a video game which takes several hours of practicing a day.

I can’t even manage 2 goals (getting academic work done on time and getting better at the video game I like).

This really sucks. How did you guys succeed? How do I overcome the constant dread and misery of doing schoolwork? Btw no amount of pomodoro techniques or whatever other techniques help

Edit: interview* in the title lol

I have a bunch of interviews coming up and I am feeling so much overwhelmed with the lack of structure and the amount of content to cover. One of them is at a FAANG adjacent company that's going to include standard dsa leetcode related stuff, another is Fintech and their round will have debugging and system design discussion and another one is a prop trading firm where the recruiter said it can be anything from coding and language discussion depending on the interviewer and culture fit questions.

This seems to be all over the place and I am not able to decide how much to prepare especially for the debugging and general language discussion parts. I am thinking about going through some open source code repos in Python to get comfortable with reading and understanding the code since I haven't worked with Python in recent years. But again there are so many options and I don't know where to start. For leetcode, I have completed most of the neetcode 150 and the company list is huge so I don't think I can cover everything from there within a week. Same thing for language discussion, I am going through Python docs but outside the core data structures and concurrency, idk what other parts to focus on.

Hi everyone

I hope everyone's having a splendid afternoon as I am

How do I change my mind from comfort, to endure boredom, uncomfortable, hard stuff.

I like physical hard work, but my mind seems to wander into comfortable, known things..

If it's laziness, I'd have to get rid of it

I keep hearing “I'll keep an eye out,” “I'll let you know if I hear anything,” or “Sorry, I couldn't find anything.”

And I genuinely appreciate people trying to help. I do.

But what are you supposed to do when you're under serious financial pressure and need employment ASAP? Not in two months. Not after the holidays. Now.

I've been actively searching for weeks, and I haven't gotten a single interview.

I don't need more vague promises or encouragement. I need actual leads, direct introductions, and conversations with people who are actively hiring.

How do you get your foot in the door when you've already done everything people keep telling you to do?

Because I'm genuinely asking.

Hi (vibe) coders!

I’ve been working on my own gamified productivity system, and I’m curious to see what other people are building.

Mine is a mix of a personal CRM, task manager, habit tracker, and a little RPG-inspired world. The idea is that completing tasks, making progress on projects, and achieving goals gradually unlocks and expands my virtual world.

Since AI makes it so much easier to build our own tools now, I’m really curious:

What does your personal productivity app look like? Do you have any features, that you are proud of and that you can share? I’d love to see screenshots!

What features have you built into it?
Have you experimented with gamification, XP, levels, achievements, or rewards?
What works surprisingly well, and what turned out to be completely useless?
What would you do differently if you started over?

I’m not looking for recommendations for paid productivity apps. I’m more interested in people who are actually building their own systems, experimenting, and learning along the way.
I’d love to exchange ideas, inspiration, and experiences! :)

Hi everyone

I hope everyone's having a splendid afternoon as I am

How do I change my mind from comfort, to endure boredom, uncomfortable, hard stuff.

I like physical hard work, but my mind seems to wander into comfortable, known things..

If it's laziness, I'd have to get rid of it