So, like all of you diagnosed later in life, I am constantly looking back in amazement that a) I made it this far and am actually quite successful in a relative sense and b) I didn't put all this shit together sooner.

The part I can't understand the MOST is this: I always always always always have felt this compulsion to only do things when I "felt" like it. I didn't know what this meant but it doesn't feel particularly good. I figured everyone was this way to a great extent - why do things you're not excited about? Isn't that what people crow on about passion and stuff?

But... Because it seems kinda like what lazy people say out loud, I always thought I was a lazy POS. Many many family members and coworkers and colleagues definitely expressed their feelings to me across my lifetime that I am a lazy POS.

But the thing is I am not lazy, not really. What I meant by not "feeling" like doing a thing was that I had to be dopamine-ready for it. Not getting a dopamine hit meant my overall motivation to initiate a task was super low. I could be fucking phenomenal at it once I started, but I had to feel in the moment ready to bring that brilliance to the thing or it felt uninspired and bleh.

Like I will never forget when I was working on my vet school application many moons ago and my Mom was up my bootyhole about it (as if I didn't have plenty of pressure going already) and I told her that I was waiting for "inspiration to strike" about writing my personal statement. She lost her shit about that convo, and was off the deep end that I wouldn't just do it as soon as possible ans assume it would be fine. The NT's will just never understand that's not how it works. And here I was thinking I was defective forever, when really I was just a neurodiverse and interest-based dopamine monster.