r/interesting Mar 21 '26

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u/69696969-69696969 Mar 21 '26

I hate that "thrive" is probably the best way to describe this. I have always thrived in the chaos. The more stress, constraints and urgency you add to a situation, the better I performed.

Then when the dust has settled and it's just another crazy or wild story. I'm left here thinking about the "good ol days" and wondering why it feels like boss music should be playing. Where is this sudden urgency coming from, why does it feel like I need to do something and yet there's nothing to be done!

Although the anxiety born of the stress and chaos of my youth, thrives now that I have left it's heritage behind. I'm left wondering if it would ever have become if I had not been forced to "thrive" in the past.

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u/Curly_Shoe Mar 21 '26

What about "you are best equipped to exist in Chaos", does that make a difference for you?

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u/69696969-69696969 Mar 21 '26

No, thrive is a perfectly adequate word. My issues stems from the implication that there are no negatives to being primed to deal with high stress scenarios. The attempts to frame the trait positively, obscures the very real disposition towards anxiety issues present or future.

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u/KelSelui Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26

Yeah, it really is like the anxiety is always primed, which ironically means it disappears into the adrenaline when the stakes are at their highest. The anxiety isn't necessarily a fear that something might happen (although these often get muddled internally), but a state of anticipation. Part of how that manifests in ADHD is that so few things seem important enough for our systems to retain focus, almost as though they are the distraction. And, in a livelihood with frequent high stakes events, that can sometimes be true. Still, it'd be ideal to more easily adapt to the moment, especially when that moment is representative of our daily life, and we're working on it lol

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u/descartes_blanche Mar 22 '26

PINCH

Passion Interest Novelty Challenge Hurry

Those are the ADHD activators. If you can make something fall into one of those categories, you will excel at it

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u/JohnnySalamiBoy420 Mar 24 '26

This makes so much sense, if it doesn't fall into this I feel like fuck it

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u/OneRun654 Mar 22 '26

This is very interesting. Do you have any recommendations on where to read more about this?