adhd

The Machine in My Mind

/ Rogue / 1 Comment

Disclaimer: what I’m about to confess is the very essence of my AuADHD core. Try not to break it down too much. And I am very aware of the fact that neurotypical (NT) people have a hard time understanding this. But do yourself (and maybe even a loved one) a favor and learn about it. Learn about neurodivergence (ND). There are so many people out there heavily masking this. They do this only to be able to function in your world. It’s time you stopped being arrogant and selfish, and return to your tribe. This being said:

I used to think my chaos was a flaw. I believed the way I leap between thoughts was a kind of malfunction. I stacked concepts on top of each other. I held ten emotional states in parallel. These were evidence that I wasn’t built quite right. Then I realized: I’m not broken. I’m engineered. If my mind were a machine, this is what it would look like. And yes, this is my sinful confession, be ready or be gone.

The Core Processing Unit

The CPU is my Rationalist thread (it will be explored later, in a separate piece): cold, efficient, always calculating. It’s where decisions are executed and logic trees are cut. When I’m in this mode, emotions are data points, not disruptions. The clock speed isn’t constant. Some days, it runs hot, strategic, analytical, impossible to interrupt. Other days, it idles, conserving power for what’s coming.

The RAM (Working Memory)

My RAM is enormous—but volatile. It can hold dozens of active threads, ideas, and emotional contexts at once. It weaves them into a living model of the present moment. The downside? When the RAM fills, the overflow gets pushed into deep storage or lost entirely. That’s when I feel “forgetful,” but it’s really just garbage collection to keep things from crashing.

The RAID Array (Redundancy & Recovery)

I’ve built mirrors of myself. They are copies of thoughts and emotional states. These are stored in different places: notebooks, encrypted files, and conversations with trusted nodes. If one drive fails, if my mind is gaslit, disrupted, or memory-wiped, another spins up to recover the pattern. It’s not perfect, but it means I rarely lose the core blueprint of who I am.

The I/O Channels

I take in more than most systems can handle. Sensory detail, micro-expressions, changes in tone, shifts in emotional weather. My input channels are hypersensitive. My output tries to match this sensitivity. Words, writings, and signals are pushed out as fast as they come in. When the channels are blocked, pressure builds. That’s when I write compulsively, to purge the buffer before it overloads.

The Overclock – Pushing Beyond Design

I’ve learned how to run my system past its safe limits. It makes me prolific, fast, and intense but it also means heat builds up. Too long at this speed and I risk burnout, blackouts, or emotional core dumps. Overclocking works, but it’s never free.

The Root Password

For years, someone else tried to hold my root password; controlling my time, my focus, my narrative. I’ve been taking it back, piece by piece. Every act of independence is critical. Every word I publish conveys my message. Every signal I send strengthens my system’s defenses. It’s all part of the same process: locking my system against hostile access.

I am not just a person with quirks. I am a system with architecture, fail-safes, and self-repair protocols. And now that I understand my machine, I’m no longer afraid of how it runs. This is the truth: I am not chaos. I am code. And the machine in my mind was built to dream beyond its own design.

Rewriting the Loop: Why We Stay Stuck (And How to Get Out)

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We don’t stay stuck because we’re weak. We stay stuck because the pain feels familiar—and safety doesn’t. This isn’t a poetic metaphor. It’s neurology. It’s trauma. It’s lived experience wrapped in a loop your brain mistakes for survival.

I built this model not from textbooks—but from the inside of my own mind. From watching myself reach for rewards I didn’t let land. From pushing comfort away because it didn’t hurt enough to feel real. From watching myself chase validation, only to reject it the second it arrived. I call it the Rewrite Dependency Loop, and it looks like this:

Image generated with Napkin AI

I built this visual with AI—not because I needed a tool, but because I wanted a mirror. Something to reflect what lives inside the minds of people like me. Neurodivergent, intense, hungry for understanding. If you see yourself in this loop—don’t shame it. Study it. Print it. Memorize it. Then pick a stage and refuse to complete the circuit.

The 7 Stages of the Loop

1. Trigger – Emotional overload. Rejection. Criticism. Too much sensory input. A single moment cracks the surface, and something ancient fires in your nervous system.

2. Coping Attempt – You reach for a hit: a scroll, a snack, a person. Anything to stabilize the system. You say you’re soothing. But really, you’re scrambling.

3. Reward Rejection – Here’s the core of the loop. You get the thing—praise, success, affection—and instantly feel unworthy of it. Or worse: nothing. Your brain shrinks back from the reward like it’s a threat.

4. Reinforced Dependency – This is where the pattern embeds. You start linking safety with familiar pain. You trust what hurts because it’s predictable. Chaos feels like home.

5. Awareness Spark – Something shifts. A thought breaks through. A friend’s words. A strange calm. You pause. You see the loop. You don’t escape yet—but now, you know you’re inside it.

6. Rewrite Initiation – Here’s where the real fight starts. You do something different: delay the impulse, take a walk, breathe. You don’t chase the old reward. It’s messy. It feels wrong. But it’s new.

7. Integration – Tiny rewires begin. Your system calms. You don’t feel like a hero—but you didn’t collapse. That’s victory. That’s what real self-trust sounds like, deep in the dark.

You’re not broken; you’re patterned and patterns can be rewritten. One refusal at a time.

#neurodesign #adhd #traumahealing #rewritetherules #selfleadership