Black Cat Blog

Thoughts, Stories, and Ideas

Continued Frustration With Learning

I am facing some continued frustration with learning web development. The topic is so broad that it is difficult to know where to start and I am finding myself skim reading instead of carefully delving into the subject matter. It seems like I am all over the place in 360 different directions. I am going from one place to another and not buckling down and getting anything accomplished. I am now back to considering The Odin Project as a way of learning because it is clearly the best and most organized. I just need to slow down and actually read the material carefully.

I definitely think I have ADHD in addition to being autistic and I think what I’ve mentioned above confirms my suspicion. I really need to get formally evaluated for it and I think my psychiatric physicians assistant will get that workup done for me. Hopefully I can get started on a non-amphetamine medication regimen for it that will allow me to focus better. In the mean time, I may actually have to force myself to slow down, pick a direction, and go with it. So I am going to give Odin yet another shot and I will read the material carefully, i.e. not skim, and I will complete all of the lessons, even if they seem tedious and boring.

I also have to remember that learning to become a developer requires far more structured learning whereas in learning to become a sysadmin, you can venture off into the areas that interest you. While I was teaching myself Linux and BSD, I simply ventured off into the topics that fascinated me like networks, DNS, how web servers worked, etc. I just googled questions of personal fascination and moved forward from there. Programming cannot be approached this way as it is very sequential and linear.

I guess I need to learn more about how I learn. I have tried to learn programming and coding before with not much success. I don’t know if it was because I gave up too easily or if I did not have the right material or even if I am just ADHD. They say anyone can learn to code so I am frustrated as to why I struggle so much. I have already been told that I have above average intelligence so I get angry with myself for not grasping this. There are people that have literally used The Odin Project to become full stack developers. I cannot help thinking that if they can do it, I should be able to do it as well. Well, here goes nothing. I am starting over from scratch yet again.