Merry Quinn

Marionette

A prescription note for Atomoxetine

I used to be a puppet, and now I'm an automaton.

For the longest of time, I felt like life was just happening to me. I was going with the flow. Not because I wanted to drift, but because I had no other option. I never had any hobbies because everything felt like too much effort. I know... what a cliché, but if you read any of my other posts about ADHD (or if you have ADHD yourself), you understand exactly what I mean. Sure, I played video games all day, but I wouldn't call that a hobby. It was more of a necessary escape. It was either that or some much, much worse coping mechanism.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking about high school late at night. Not because I have any fond memories. Quite the opposite. I keep thinking about my "hardcore self-improvement era" I had when the Covid pandemic was in full force. We were stuck at home with distance learning. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to stay inside and play video games most of the day with my classmates. But I realized how much this school sucked in terms of the quality of the education. I knew that I should use this period of life to learn something. Anything, really.

I won't forget the time when our teacher for programming class said some dumb shit like, "Oh, don't worry about those errors in the console. That's just the compiler trying to confuse you".

Around 2020/2021 is when I was exposed to the RedPill hustle culture and Andrew Tate. My friend at the time and I were hooked on that sort of motivation. We wanted to do something with our lives while we had time and energy on our side.

Fast-forward to 2 weeks ago, when my classmate messaged me on LinkedIn, of all places. My personal grudges against him aside, I agreed to go out with him. Surprisingly, when we met again, we picked up at where we left off. Almost as if nothing happened between us. On one hand, it felt nice to see him again, but on the other hand... it was brutal for my psyche.

One because he completely disregarded the betrayal which led to me cutting him out of my life. And two because I learned how different and better his life is since we graduated.

He has everything I want. A girlfriend, new car, a good paying part-time job, nice connections he made in said job, and soon he's moving out of a college dormitory into his own place with his girlfriend. He even built a nice SaaS prototype he plans to monetise. Sure, it's all vibe-coded, and he uses some... really questionable and ineffective practices on the backend of that project, but still. He had the capacity to make something to call his own.

I'm not saying he got lucky. I know him, he was always a hard worker. Likewise, I'm not saying I'm envious of his success, but I'm saying that I'm envious of him having the capacity. Having the capacity to do all of this. Having the ability to continuously pour effort into something that paid off. Having the option of following through your plans and keeping your promises.

I feel left out. I feel like I missed my chance. I feel like I'm so behind in life in comparison to him. And it's not just him, it's all the people I see around myself. It genuinely hurts when I see groups of friends/classmates out in the city. It hurts when I see happy couples holding hands passing by. It hurts that I couldn't attend college because I didn't feel I'd last more than a single semester. Frankly, I still don't understand how I managed to graduate high school. Everything required such disproportional amount of energy and effort from me. I could study for a maths exam for 3 fucking hours just to get a D- anyway. It didn't matter how much effort or time I poured into anything in my life. The result was always shit and extremely demotivating.

Automaton

Atomoxetine gave me cognitive functions which were the default for everyone else. I now have the capacity and ability to do the things I always wanted, but frankly I lost the motivation to do so. I feel like I have to catch up in so many ways. It feels extremely demotivating because... why should I? Why should I even try when all the experiences and opportunities are already lost. Why should I work now even harder to "catch up"? Why should I have the things in the future when I can't have them now?

Don't get me wrong, I still try to make up for the time I wasn't in the driver's seat. I'm putting time into learning to code, to learn Linux and its system administration. I still do the "right" things for the future me, but it all feels extremely hollow. I'm doing everything automatically. No longer there's that internal resistance of getting out of bed or doing the dishes. But it doesn't feel like me. I feel like I'm doing the things "I must" instead of mastering or refining the things I'd want.

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