10th of March, 2021 (nearly wrote 2012, god I wish)

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It is 6am and I was supposed to go to bed over six hours ago, and it's been like an hour since I said goodnight to Cammy. He's offline now so I guess he went to bed himself, which means someone who is five hours behind me has now gotten to bed before me. This is not the first time this has happened. But that's fine, because I'm a pro at all-nighters now, I've done many. Plus I have something I wanna talk about and, relevant to today's topic, I won't do if I don't start now.

So, concentration, I'm sure a lot of us have dealt with losing a lot of that this past year. Staying indoors, permanently stuck in front of a screen isn't good for concentration, funnily enough! And I've certainly been hit by that. A huge chunk of my time is spent doing absolutely nothing of use, scrolling through Twitter or watching 30 seconds clips on Youtube because ten minute long videos are too much to concentrate on. My ability to concentrate on my art, my site, my life, are all down. Not that I had much ability to do that in the first place.

I've always lacked concentration. From the minute I was introduced to a daycare, this became apparent. And it just became more and more of an issue the further into school I got. My main memories of early school life consist of being told I was in the wrong place by teachers, and this giant hourglass full of blue beads that they'd put on my desk to show me how much time I had left to work on something. It didn't work, I mostly just ended up staring at the falling beads instead of writing or colouring in or whatever. Further into school was just a mess of unfinished homework and essays taking twice the time they should. If it didn't interest me, I couldn't get myself to focus on it. And my brain was never interested in anything useful. Ever.

I'm also forgetful, it's like my brain doesn't bother taking information in because it takes too long. I've already forgotten what in specific I wanted to write about, but I'll continue anyway while I still have the gist of it. Ever notice that teachers never believe you when you tell them that you forgot there was homework? Story of my life. No matter how important something is, no matter how much I *need* to remember it, I can still forget it. I can't remember a single thing taught to me in school. I once forgot I had a maths exam and almost missed it. Passing said maths exam decided whether or not I had to redo that year. Luckily they let me start late. And that continues to this day, just a whole lot of forgetting basic stuff like leaving food in the microwave for hours because I wandered off during a two minute timer and then forgot I was making myself lunch, forgetting to take my washing downstairs until I have a sizeable pile of it in the middle of my floor.

Most of my examples here have been school-based, but it affects my day to day, too. Like how there's usually about 5-6 hours between me going "I should shower" and me actually showering. Sometimes I forget to change my clothes and just wear the same outfit two days in a row. Don't need to change into pyjamas if you don't go to bed, after all.

But I'm sort of used to this, I expect it. I try to be better and I'm definitely better now than I was, but it's not a surprise. What's annoying me at the moment is my growing inability to concentrate on stuff that I enjoy. Stuff that I used to be able to do for hours with no issue. I have spent several days in the past few weeks flicking between playing Skyrim, watching Youtube videos, chatting to friends, painting on one canvas on Clip Studio and making pixel art for a Stardew mod in another, simultaniously. I get absolutely nothing done this way. It's like my brain is desperately searching for stimulation and isn't satisfied with any of it. And that's when I start drawing, which is invariably at 1am after I've done nothing but walk in and out of my room all day.

Which is another thing, bizarre, useless patterns? Getting in and out of bed over and over, or walking in and out of my room, up and down the stairs. Just repetitive weirdness. I don't really know why I do that either.

Now, I never considered ADHD, and I still don't particularly feel confident in that. Took me long enough to get diagnosed with autism, I'm not touching that whole mess again. But a few months back my mother told me that she's wondering if my youngest brother has ADHD and is considering getting that checked out at the doctors. This made me curious, so I looked it up on the NHS website and had a read through the symptoms. They had a list for symptoms in childhood, and then a separate list for symptoms in adulthood. And the symptoms in childhood? That was me, every single point. I went through it with my dad and he agreed with me. Even has connections to autism, which I have. So maybe that's my answer here. Not that it makes much of a difference, seeing that meds are always a bad idea for me, they never work as intended. Just an interesting thought. Might just be autism though. Or my own fuckery.

But yeah, beyond that, it's absolutely the lockdown. I've been cooped up inside for a year now, on and off, and it's driving me a bit nuts. The mental stimulation I used to get from going to college or the supermarket or on daytrips with my family is all gone, and it's driving my brain haywire. Though, to end on a high note, it should be getting warmer in the coming months, which will hopefully give me the drive to go outside more often. Because of course, my inability to focus also affects my ability to leave the house. Beyond that, my dad's getting his first dose of the vaccine on the 15th, so with any luck we'll start having lives again this year.

And more art and ~content~ is happening! Just slowly. Hehe

Excuse me while I go pace in circles while I make toast because toasters take too long...