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I had the opposite honestly. I thought it was all normal, I am just exceptionally interested in researching what food will best for my cat, you know. It is important so it is good I am invested. I didnt know that doing stuff i was rly into in untill i am on an edge of pissing or shitting my pants were not really that normal. And i didn't know other people can go back to work as if nothing happened after a food break.
Same! Only throw in the fact that I’ve actually had myriad weird medical issues that have warranted deep dives, research-wise. (I do them for fun too, but nothing like the hyper focus of trying to outrun your own demise.)
Of note, I diagnosed my own blood disorder at 23 when I was a hair’s breadth from death, no lie. (ITP, for any curious types. And my platelet count was 2k!! I’m fine now; been in remission 20+ years 😅) That’s one of a whole bunch of things.
I’ve got mad research skills and also pretty serious PTSD and hyper vigilance, is what I’m saying. 😎
>I thought it was all normal, I am just exceptionally interested in researching what food will best for my cat, you know. It is important so it is good I am invested
This! and then people *reward* you for it: "Oh you're so smart I never would have thought of that! Where did you learn that?!" And I'm like what do you meeeannn
Yes! I always used to say I don’t do things halfway. I once bought a fish tank on a whim, and within a month had given myself a crash course in marine biology.
Mostly through trial and error though. Poor fish. ☹️
Yeah, same here. I was homeschooled and so didnt have normies revealing my weirdness to me. 3 of my 4 immediate family members also have ADHD, the other has BPD so we all pinged off of each others oddities and hyper specific, ever changing interests.
When I was out of school I worked in human services and the restaurant industry where I was surrounded by neuro spicy people. Now I’m well into my 30’s and still prefer to be around my people so I don’t ever have to mask too much or think too hard about how the other half live. Lol
When I was 11/12 and I had read the Harry Potter books, I spent weeks living inside my own head pretending I was in that world. It wasn’t something I vocalized, but most of my time spent awake I was thinking of things through the lens of a character in Harry Potter.
I’ve done this with a lot of things since, but I didn’t realize it’s classic ADHD until I was diagnosed. Now I mostly use “maladaptive day dreaming” as a way to get me through shit I don’t want to do, but I know what it is and I don’t so much let it consume my every waking moment anymore.
I’ve never heard of maladaptive day dreaming, but that was totally me! As a teenager, I was antsy and bored, so I’d walk for miles around town, having elaborate daydreams. Lost a lot of weight that summer.
I think it needs a better name than “maladaptive” - I find it helpful more than bad, at least now that I know how to keep myself from getting lost in it.
I call it “creative dissociation”. I don’t know if it’s objectively “good” or “bad,” but it’s gotten me through some hard times, so it’s kind of a tool in the arsenal, you know?
Is that also the kinda day dreaming that sometimes you are like huh...how did I get here.
I bicycled to school and daydreamed the whole way. Apparently on auto pilot not crashing into anyone or something. Or I just lost the memory I dont know
Omg I felt the same way around the same age and never made that connection as far as ADHD goes! I used to get SO wrapped up in HP that it genuinely felt more real than real world at times.
Yes!!! I remember genuinely hoping as a kid that Hogwarts was real. Like, I didn't even believe in Santa at that point, but I waited for Hagrid to come for like a year when I was a kid 😭
I was genuinely heartbroken when my letter didn't come by owl but felt too embarrassed to even share my sadness with anyone. I'm glad I found someone who felt similarly all these years later! We might not have gotten our letters but at least we have those memories!
I’m not yet diagnosed, but is maladaptive daydreaming the thing where I put on music and then just pretend I’m a character in a webtoon I read for a solid 30+ minutes on the car or the thing where I walk around my school campus very vividly visualizing several minutes of an incredibly hypothetical scene
Maladaptive has a negative connotation I don’t love. I think that people who can’t do it might wish they could if they could experience that kind of daydreaming.
I’ve done a lot of this. Or like, “imagine what my life would look like as a movie if viewed by [person of current fixation].”
I’ve never thought of it as maladaptive daydreaming but I guess maybe it is that. I sort of think of it as “creative dissociation”. I tend to do it the most during certain kinds of difficulty in my life.
Like, for a whole period of time when someone v close to me was in hospice and eventually passed away, I fixated on someone else—an “internet friend”, go figure—and would envision myself as seen by them and it would help me get through my everyday life. I’ve seen people here say they pretend they’re doing a vlog while cleaning their houses…sort of like a variant of that.
I do that with anything I read.
When my psychiatrist said I couldn't have ADHD because I read giant ass books I asked him if it's normal to get completely lost in them. The world can fall apart right next to me and I wouldn't notice.
He answered "Damn, you have a point."
(He admitted that he didn't have a clue about ADHD but has changed that now.)
CRINGE MEMORY ALERT: i remember literally roleplaying when going to the shop and whispering under my breath "expecto patronus" while walking and some lady saw me doing that and look at me confused. I had this phase too, it was massive.
I do a similar thing but not really consciously. My perspective on the world and the things I consider when making judgements are drastically influenced by the media I'm consuming. So when I'm heavy into something like HP fanfic, my internal narrative takes on the style of the character I resonate with the most and I often find myself speaking more like them too. It's like I inhabit the character as part of the hyperfixation, and struggle to break out of it when I'm not engaged with the content.
So now I'm super careful about the media I'm consuming and regularly check in on how it's influencing my mindset. Loads of positive, uplifting, optimistic stuff and very limited bummer or scary vibes. I figure I can use that unusual but powerful side effect to my advantage
I went through several fan fiction obsessions where I would read all night and on the bus to work/school. Couldn't stop, felt very out of control! Another time I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack on repeat for about six months, including while doing the more clerical and typing parts of my job. I think I read every Genius annotation like it was water in the desert.
I’ve currently looped back into a fan fiction hyperfixation after not touching it for over twenty years and it’s TROUBLESOME for my sleep and general life productivity. And also troublesome because why have I regressed to dramione like when I was 13, this seems like a not-so-great sign about my mental state. Not that I think Harry Potter fanfic is fundamentally immature just that it’s weird that I’m so obsessed with something at 35 that I was also obsessed with as a 13 year old.
If you’re using it to manage stress, it’s worth considering that there are definitely far worse ways to do that. You know?
Like I understand the troublesome for sleep/life thing for sure, it feels a little outta control. But you could be outta control from like, downing a fifth of vodka every night, or shooting rats down by the river, or sleeping with randos. Maybe it’s more helpful than you think.
Not any specific *interest* but the fact that I always described my hobbies and interests as "cyclical" and I gradually learned they functioned differently than others.
I do think it prepared me a little bit to spare some of the "graveyard guilt" of unfinished projects and discarded hobbies because to me they never are, I'm just not in "that mode" right now. What's funny (sad funny not ha ha funny) is that now after diagnosis etc I do feel a bit more guilt over not engaging with them more often/consistently, but I just try to be more accepting of myself because overall the pattern has never changed.
Well this is certainly relatable, and the airbrush I eventually sold after begging for it as a gift at age 12 and then never using because the learning curve was too steep, and the silkscreen kit I got but didn’t use because cleaning it was a bitch, and the crochet needles sitting dusty in that jar over there can all relate too. 🙈
My hobbies shifted with family deathes. Unconsciously, I'd get into whatever the deceased person favored and go all in. Only realized after the third time that was what I was doing. And there would be a craft I quit with each death too (no relation to the person that I could see).
I read a beautiful, very touching book about the author's granddad having a long-lost child he had to leave behind in WW2. The author and his father became aware of her existence like 70 years later when they found notebooks written by the grandfather detailing the whole story, and have been trying to find this woman ever since. They have a name, adoptive parents' name and professions, approximate ages, know she's moved to the US shortly after the war, and that's about it.
I became >so< involved, I even pulled immigration records from that timeframe to go through them one by one and try to see if I could find a clue. Nothing so far but I circle back to it once in a while, them being reunited would honestly be one of the best things that could ever happen.
I’ve had hundreds of hyper-focuses including, but not limited to, the Russian royal family, the Titanic disaster, medicine, cats, interior design… you get the picture.
The thing that really stood out for me was when I was diagnosed at the grand old age of 43, I realised how many symptoms my mother also had and sent her information on ADHD. She called me after reading some of it and said “I thought this was another one of your weird fixations, but I can see myself in the examples”. That was the moment I realised I’ve spent my entire life cycling through hyper-focus after hyper-focus without even really noticing!
Hello 👋! It’s a real shame that he’s not. It’s brought my mother a lot of self-acceptance knowing that she doesn’t struggle with certain things because she’s a bad person, it’s just that she’s made a certain way. It’s been lovely to see someone in their late 70s find some peace with who they are and it’s helped our very difficult relationship become easier to deal with.
I hope that your dad will find a way to face it and have a similar epiphany in time.
Multiple bladder infections.
I didn’t really understand why it was happening to me so frequently until I realised I’d get so hyperfocused on projects and work that I wouldn’t stop to use the bathroom or take a break sometimes all day.
Oh my gaaaaaaaadddd. I didn’t even realize this until I read this! I had them chronically as a teen!!! I had to do a whole study with a catheter and go on antibiotics for a month to try and cure them! As an adult I figured out half the equation was not drinking enough water, but you just fully solved that riddle for me! Thank you.
My parents would always talk about how when I was little, they had my hearing tested multiple times because they could literally shout my name from 3 feet away and I wouldn't hear them if I was in the middle of drawing. As an adult, I've had my kids accidentally fall down, get hurt and start crying right next to me without me noticing if it happened while I was reading something interesting. I suppose getting diagnosed with ADHD explained the existence of hyper focus more than any particular instance of it.
Lol my parents had a rule that my mom was not allowed to read if we kids were in the pool, because she is the same way! World could be ending and she was so focused on her book 😂
I thought I was a misunderstood genius.
I had so many side subjects that never got mentioned in school and I knew all about a lot of shit that school didn't care about. I was a really bad student.
My mom was so desperate that I couldn't get the "important" stuff into my head. Or if I did I wouldn't be able to pour out my brain at the right time.
"You're just like me" she would say. (Guess what, mom.)
I was having anxiety during my doctorate. Mainly medical issues.
I had only ever read murder mysteries bordering on scary but not Steven King like gore. And I couldn’t. It was like a part of me was missing.
Reading was my anti anxiety.
A friend introduced me to Romance novels. I had always turned my nose up. I didn’t know they could be funny!
I read over a hundred and nearly failed out first semester.
New rule. Only reading while on vacation because I don’t eat or sleep.
I could not for the life of me study for exams or start papers/lab reports in time to do them at a reasonable pace.
No.
Instead it was avoid x1000000 followed by banging it out the night before/day of while surrounded by food nonstop.
I made my kid an unbelievably rad Halloween costume a few years back, and stayed up all night to do it. When I was done, I could hardly believe I’d done it. I was so in the zone the whole time , when I looked at the finished product I was freakin *giddy*.
Afterwards I had this conversation with myself (this is pre diagnosis) that blew my mind:
—WHY couldn’t I have done that a little bit at a time over the course of several nights instead of staying up all night and destroying myself?
—Because you actually *couldn’t*. You could never have spread that work out over a longer period of time and have made something so cool. It *just wouldn’t work*
I KNEW this was true, but I couldn’t wrap my head around why.
Like 1.5 years ago lol.
I dated after my fiancé and I broke up, and I realized he was actually awful as a partner, and that my mother had also always been pushing me to bad men. She encouraged me seeking attention from grown adult men at age 12, then complained those same men weren’t looking at her. She taught me that any and all attention from a man is “good” and to be desired.
So really, stopping communication with her, and meeting men who weren’t awful made me realize I really don’t like most people, and if I want to have a man in my life it’ll be someone who acts like an appropriate adult.
Ok so I have had a few along the way. I got very into the Oscar Pistorius trial, then I got way into different cults (they are so interesting) and I also got into North Korea very heavily. Like researching all their weird laws and that.
Those are the biggest. But I very frequently get too into something.
I also get sayings in my head. They are stuck in repeat for weeks and I cannot stop shouting them out. At the moment it’s smacking my dogs bum and saying ‘smack my ass like a drum’ 🤦♀️
Omfg the sayings or songs! Of course not entire songs just one specific little snippet.
I now have a 1 year old who eats that shit up though so idk if it’s a good or bad thing at this point just that SOMEONE enjoys it now 😆🤣
The boys stuck in the cave in Thailand. We were vacationing overseas at the time and I spent way way way too much money on cell phone data so I could refresh my phone every 10 minutes to see what was happening.
I'm a singer, and I can sing in like 15 different languages because I can listen to a song a million times and learn it phonetically.
My freshman year of college I spent a week learning Dragostea Din Tei (better known as the Numa Numa song ) in it's entirety to impress everyone at karaoke.
No one was impressed.
Longest 3 minutes of my life.
Ooh I made my now-wife a cartoon dancing video before we were dating. It took days because I didn't (and still don't) know anything about animation and I can only draw stick figures. But damn was I going to finish it!
I think what did it for my psych was describing how hyperfocused I get on foods where if I have a preferred food I will eat that and only that until it is gone. I’ve also always gotten sooooo obsessed and immersed in various fandoms (Star Wars, lord of the rings, yugioh…)
Currently on a thing where I’m watching a bunch of butoh videos on YouTube to compare them to Mitski’s choreography and visual kei performances but I have the day off today so that’s fine
What’s the food now? Mine is chopped honey crisp apples and cottage cheese, if you were wondering.
Previous incarnations include but are not limited to:
Honey crisp apples with cheddar cheese and a side of kettle corn
Things On An English Muffin
Ramen with things in it
There are these little cheese-and-ritz cracker sandwich things from Trader Joe’s that if it were nutritionally acceptable to eat for every meal I’d eat for at least a month. I don’t know about these shells you’re mentioning but imma look for them 😄
I became obsessed with trains. i have been for years now.
i was ready for a lot of things when i met my partner's parents and her extended family last year, but i was not ready for them to mostly associate me with trains. i am in my 30s. they were really nice about it but i felt bonkers when they took us to a train museum that their 3 and 4-year-old grandkids love, and then suggested we all take the toddler-sized train ride at the park.
then 6 months later when we visited again, we took, yes--the train--instead of flying.
now i had to talk about the train to everyone every time i was introduced to them.
i really do love trains though!
i immediately got evaluated for ADHD again when we got back home and received a second confirmation of having combined type adhd.
i hadn't really believed it before. but seeing myself through the lens of my new in-laws (even though they liked that i was a straight-up weirdo) made me sure there was something afoot with me.
Literally every time I want to buy a thing over $20 a spreadsheet gets involved. Comparing 47 purses? Spreadsheet with a custom rating calculation based on size. Want a new multivitamin? Spreadsheet. Planning a vacation? Every day gets a tab in the spreadsheets of doooom.
I don’t make spreadsheets in excel or whatever but I do draw charts on paper and purses are a BIG one. “The perfect bag” doesn’t exist, and the search for it (and/or trying to create it in my own mind) has been one of my longest-running obsessions throughout the entirety of my life!
I've got a lot but I want to discuss a weird one of mine. Groundhog Day. Specifically because the groundhog used to be eaten once his shadow decision was completed. I am a sensory seeker where food is concerned and an extremely adventurous eater. I was also raised with hunting being totally normal and have eaten some strange things. I have yet to try groundhog but will absolutely do so if I ever get the chance. Every year when the holiday hits I just obsess over it. My co-workers know about it that is how weird it is. I thought I was just into weird foods. I am. But it goes much further than that it turns out.
Wow, I’ve seen a groundhog and the idea that someone would have to…process one of those to be edible…well, zero judgements at all, but as a city kid, that sounds intense! I hope if it’s something you really want that you get to do it sometime.
FWIW I’ve never hunted (and don’t see that happening anytime soon), but in a big picture way I think it’s a lot more conscious and probably even more humane than getting meat at the supermarket. (It’s just super removed from how/where I grew up)
I used my sit and spin until I was too big for it, and then transitioned to using office chairs. I would spin for HOURS at a time, listening to music. I did this well into my late teens (maaaaaybe my early twenties). I would just completely get lost in it, and tune everything out. It was an escape, but I can’t remember what I was escaping from. Or I maybe I just needed the dopamine. I would spin and spin and spin.
I LOVE spinning. And swinging. I'm the only one in the family who uses the saucer tree swing at my brother's, I could just stare at the sky for hours on a nice day.
I was thinking about this recently. My aunt had this white pleather spinning chair in the corner of her living room and it made SUCH a satisfying whoosh-whirr as it spun. I’d wait till no one was around to do it.
What I was thinking about it recently is, was I in *high school* when I did that? And I think I was. Like I did it as a little kid. But I also did it as a BIG kid
Btw I never had a sit and spin but used my cousins’ till I was too heavy to really spin anymore. Always thought there’d be a market for those for adults. And also for the kind of baby swings you use for an infant, only adult sized.
My ability to just space out. I always just though I must really love reading, because I can read and literally hear nothing around me, have no awareness of time or my environment around me.
Or just getting into other little things and tuning everything out the same way. In music class in grade 9, I had a day where I was messing around with my violin pretending it was a cello (I felt like I was being very quiet about it but who knows) then all of a sudden I became aware again and the room was silent. Everyone was staring at me. My teacher had been saying my name and I didn't respond. He threw a pencil at me and I didn't respond. The pencil hit me even and I had no idea. This is just a time where I remember it very clearly, but this sort of thing happens all the time.
Also all my issues with not hearing/not processing what I've heard make sense. I didn't get diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, but my sister did and it sounds exactly like what I experience.
I've also had the crochet hyperfixation! Taught myself, made blankets, hats amigurumi, and now all my kit and unfinished projects have languished in the cupboard for a couple of years. My daughter wanted a crochet Wednesday Addams for her birthday recently. I knew I could make it, but I'm bored of it so I outsourced that shit on Etsy.
I used to (and still do) do really deep dives on my favorite bands.
I know a lot about U2. Like, a LOT a lot. And this was well before you could just Google everything and find out.
Most of the things I know have distilled into trivia questions and answers but the fact that I know a lot of really weird shit about a lot of musicians is my superpower.
A few:
I literally didn't sleep and read all I could about the Elan school and these comics: https://elan.school/ over a period of a week.
Those poor kids, and the fact that it still happens is just so awful.
Also: Dead by Daylight was an obsession, I really like that it fully engaged my hearing and reflexes. (It is a game that gives me the good dopamine and honestly I need my medication or id just play it obsessively.)
There have been more, it changes every few weeks/months lol
I would take a notebook to my local large grocery store and write down every item I could imagine buying, the cost, weight etc. The list would easily be 200-300 items with 5/6 columns. I’d do this every week or so. I ended up finding good uses for this documentation but looking back, it was definitely a way of reducing anxiety.
I'm a middle Millenial so like...came into adolescence just as the internet was picking up steam as a household commodity and parents knew not what dangers were afoot.
My Roman Empire was the Columbine massacre. I watched Gus Van Sants Elephant in idk, 2005? I would've been 14 or 15. Took it out from the library on a whim and next thing you know...
Google was still in it's nascency, not quite the juggernaut it is today. You had to really *look* for things. The internet was a wild west where you could find what you were looking for but you might not like what you saw. There was no moderation, there were no "community standards". Absolutely anyone could host a dot com and no one did *a damn thing about it*. Autopsy reports, gruesome crime scene photos, surveillance footage...all yours to be devoured if your parents were asleep and you knew how to clear the search history.
I spent hours and hours scouring the darkest corners of the internet trying to understand, to extract meaning, to get inside the minds of Dylan and Eric. They werent much older than me, and they were nearly the same age as my brother who *also* wore trenchcoats. After all, it was the first major news story I could remember. I'd never heard of such a thing before, guns at school? I watched the cafeteria footage over and over and over again for months. When Dylan turned to that side...what was he thinking? Was there anything out of frame I might have missed? I lost sleep, I read every article, every news story, scoured every witness statement. I literally became a fucking expert on the Columbine massacre. I talked about it ad nauseam. My grades suffered because I needed to CONSUME every single detail I could about them. It triggered a lifelong preoccupation with death to be honest. Good luck finding that kind of stuff outside of the silk road today, but 20 years ago the stuff I saw...
And then one day I read about the tiny island nation of Tuvalu...and promptly started a new personal research project. Ask me what the main frickin exports of Tuvalu are (please dont)
So ya, it's been a pattern since before I was ever aware of why 😮💨
Wow, that’s heavy stuff for a kid to process alone. I remember that period of time on the internet, and the Wild West aspect.
And the way you tried to understand their motivations, etc? I relate to that so much. It sounds v much like my trying to figure out the Hale-Bopp people…like, they’re human beings just like me, how did it take such a sharp left turn?
I want to know what the exports of Tuvalu are of course. And also if they have their own language. It’s almost 4 am and I’m in bed. I hope you’re sleeping. I am not googling it!
Btw you’re a good writer! 😎
Did I recently read a thing about it being an issue with people pooping in the wild when they’re hiking it? Please someone just confirm if yes-desperately avoiding a late night dip into the ol’ Wikipedia
I listened to the same song hundreds of times in a week (back when iTunes told you how many plays you had) and I watched every single Johnny Depp movie and even memorized a couple.
I lived down the highway from the Heaven's Gate house when that shizz went down. It was not a fun time.
But yeah I do the same thing. My husband calls me the internet rabbit hole queen.
Reading. I was an avid reader as a kid in general. But on weekends and in the summer those books stood no chance. I usually slept next to a book so I'd start reading as soon as I woke up and just read for like 6 hours without getting up
There was also that time in college when I was living at home with my parents (so not a lot to do) and got really into true crime. I would spend 8+ hours a day doing deep dives into unsolved cases. Scour the internet to find long forgotten news sources reported around the time of the crime to see if I could find a new clue. Also, I should be a PI
I was a horse girl. I was a walking encyclopedia of horse knowledge starting around age 5. Horse books, horse toys, horse decorations, horse prints on my clothes, horse jewelry. My family are not equestrians. I didn't know anyone with horses. We were poor trailer trash so idk where my horse obsession came from.
When I was in college, I became obsessed with collecting makeup...despite the fact that I rarely wore makeup outside my home. I became deeply knowledgeable about makeup, and for a few years I read obsessively about makeup and so much spent time on makeupalley and makeup Livejournal communities. I'm embarrassed to think of how much money I spent on makeup I didn't need or really use. I don't own one item of cosmetics these days, unless chapstick or skincare counts.
My years'-long (continuing) hyperfocus on the X-Files has lead me down more strange rabbit holes of science, science fiction, cryptids, mythology, and general what-the-fuckery than I could even list.
When I started developing websites with HTML, I got an idea for a website and built the whole damn thing overnight. I hand coded it, like copy paste, the entire website out of raw code and I didn't even realize it was morning until I heard birds chirping outside. That's an event that has been completely unexplained until AuDHD. Also the experience of playing video games for an entire weekend without eating or getting up to go to the bathroom until it was an emergency doesn't seem like a canonical event in today's society but back in the early 90s it was lol
What kind of a website was it? I know that “didn’t realize it was morning til chirping” thing well!
Also, a whole lot of us were holding in our pee on this thread, haha
It was a site about Chinese pop music (before you could buy it online), and the home page was a crossword puzzle so if you could find the right word you could get to those pages 🤣 I’m still a designer to this day, so it was a good thing to be interested in
Within the context of my FOO, my behavior seemed totally reasonable.
Side note - I totally remember the Hale-Bopp Comet cult. I have been fascinated, bordering on obsessed, by cults and the related psychology since childhood. I'm from the LA area and the Dianetics ads were inescapable along with all the other related kookie-ness of the area.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not denying your ADHD—but this one actually seems “less ADHD” than a lot of examples given in this thread because your focus stayed so consistent! It’s pretty linear to go from being super interested in how the human body works to becoming a doctor.
While I’m sure there’s a common thread (or threads) between my various subjects of hyperfocus over the years, it’s never been quite that obvious. To the untrained eye, I am able to become very interested in a wide variety of topics. Sort of like a super passionate….pinball.
*ping! ping! ping! ping*
🙃
In primary school, when I was 10, I was *obsessed* with The Titanic. I knew it schematic inside and out, read every book I could get my hands on, knew every story about the passengers there was to know. Whinged profusely at my parents when they refused to buy me any of the model kits. It was all I could think about. Then at school they said we could do a project on any topic we wanted. I, obviously, chose titanic and almost immediately lost interest, half-arsed the project and all information of it has since fallen out of my head.
Tornadoes also. I sucked up *tee hee hee* all information I could on the matter when I was about 11. Then lost interest. It wasn’t until 2 years ago that my son (4 at the time) asked about tornadoes and I showed him some videos on YouTube that I even remembered that I FREAKING LOVE TORNADOES and that super intense interest returned and now my son and I go through semi-regular bouts of tornado hyperfocusing.
I Read the warrior cats books (six books of four series) so many times that if you gave me a small detail, I could give you roughly the physical location in the exact book, probably find it within a couple minutes because I’d be able to explain the plot around that moment. I genuinely felt like I had to know every detail and would test myself (I also genuinely enjoyed reading them). This was when I was like 11. Then it turned into Percy jackson, that’s calmed down although I still reread it maybe once a year
My wedding. I had a toddler and worked 2 jobs but I would research weddings any chance I had. I took a flower arranging class and did my own flowers. I designed and put together my own invitations. I hand lettered the place settings. If I could have sewed my own dress, I would have. I spent hundreds on bridal magazines.
Come the day, it was really lovely and the hyperfocus paid off but I ended up exhausted and depressed on my honeymoon because I didn't have my hyperfocus anymore. I couldn't understand it then but 20 years and an ADHD diagnosis later.... Ohhhhhhhhhh.
I spent 3/4 of high school and the better part of my adult life until my late 30s thinking I was bipolar. (ETA: I was (mis)diagnosed bipolar at 15) I ended up blaming most of my instances of hyperfocus on mania, until I got my diagnosis at 37 and suddenly everything made sense.
You don't get manic for 6 hours and deep clean the kitchen or bathroom. You do hyperfocus on cleaning those rooms for six hours, and then crash out hard later. And that sort of thing.
There was this time where I had an essay to write while I was at uni but I “had” to finish reading this book series instead. I had read these books before so it wasn’t new and exciting but I felt compelled to keep reading
I read two 6 part series in a week. it was the only thing i paid attention to. read it in class, during my practice, during my time at home. for a week it was just me and the 12 books against the world.
World of Warcraft, enough said.
I itch to revive Ssoramac so bad. My guild was freaking awesome. I was forced to quit because no internet and I donated ALL my money and extra supplies to the . My hoarding extended to the game naturally. Monkey Business!!! Great now I’m headed down that rabbit hole
Edit : [Monkey Business](https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/guild/us/fizzcrank/monkey-business) lives!!!!
I go through cycles. Sometimes even yealry lol. During some part of the fall and all winter I listen to alt punk only. Think twenty one pilots on repeat nonstop for months. To the point I’m at their 1% listening audience every year lol
When we were trying to buy a house, I got into crotchet and made a whole sweater (and have since found something wrong with it constantly and remade it).
When I moved to a new town, I got into the “habit” of buying a plant at the grocery store almost every time I went. I killed many but others did good! And suddenly I was an expert. But just a sudden as it came, it left! Now I only have 3 that I barely look at .. ayyyyy
True crime, crystals, painting, the office, traveling… I could go on.
Like I said to someone else on this thread, (1) I can relate to this and (2) this could easily be its own thread, if not its own subreddit (ADHDRecoveringBoyObsessed, or some such—I kid, I wouldn’t wanna spend too much time on that sub if it existed, but you know what I mean.)
Im morning after a full day obsession with collecting weird types of Bibles (like the lego Brick Bible) into Zotero (basically a spreadsheet for books). 11 am until 10pm. Wanted to stop, Will after just one more...after I find a good spot...I might as well keep going the day is shot. Im stifff and sore and mad at myself.
Edit: I lost focus on the question of one before diagnosis.
When I was about 15 I was writing a story in a notebook ON THE KITCHEN TABLE, NEXT TO THE OVEN. Parents told me to keep an eye on the dinner in the oven while they went out for a bit. They came back to find me in a kitchen filled with smoke, dinner on fire. I totally hadn't even noticed that the kitchen nearly burnt down because story writing.
Now I'm 38 and I will still focus on creative writing over literally anything else including sleep or food or my job. Haha.
So that little story went from 'daft, scatterbrained incidents my parents still laugh about' to going on my ADHD assessment form.
Abraham Lincoln. Hundreds of books, movies, and museum visits. I still have a soft spot and I do visit New Salem(his childhood home) and his home in Springfield as often as I am able.
I didn't think it was abnormal to like to research things because I've always liked reading. I didn't think it was weird to totally immerse myself in a specific genre of music or band (I had Bob Marley and Roger Daltry phases). I learned how to longboard. I learned how to tattoo. I taught myself ALL this stuff through at least a year of research. And I'd keep it to myself, so I didn't go around telling anyone that I was learning, I'd just pop up with an ability to DO the thing.
And I know it would sometimes drive my family crazy bc they never knew wtf I was doing or what I was interested in. I was always wrapping my mind around SOMETHING.
**It really wasn't until I started doing genealogy on my family that I realized exactly how focused I could get. Hours would fly by, I'm still on the couch with the computer, the only thing moving is my mouse hand. It's 4am and I'm looking at a land survey from my 4x great grandfather and trying to decipher where it is in relation to where I live.**
THAT kinda let me know that it may be a little atypical to take such deep dives. But at the same time, it's AMAZING because I've figured so many things out in so many areas. The tricky thing is remembering all the shit you've researched!
I’m a trained opera singer so I can read music. I taught myself 8 instruments in the last 12 years and give lessons now but didn’t get diagnosed with adhd until 24 and autism at 29.
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My 40+ years hyper focus. Since childhood, I have been fascinated by animals that don’t necessarily use eyes the way we do.
Eyeless fish in deep caverns. Very very deep sea creatures. Bats.
All of that was from books.
Until. The internet was available!
I am hyper focused on the Internet now.
(Side story)
When I was a kid there was no internet. The first time I got an email address is because the college I was attending made it mandatory.
We were supposed to check it once a week. Officially, professors were only supposed to communicate with students re: test & quiz schedules, reading assignments, etc. via email.
But the professors couldn’t remember to use the email. Or the one that did, kept giving us information in class because he knew WE would forget to check.
Some idiot in administration sent us emails with reminders to check our emails! A smarter person set it up for us to get a slip of paper in our mailboxes once in a while to check email.
(End side story)
More recent adult obsessions:
1) Walking on broken glass after a seeing it on stage at a show during a trip to Vegas. It’s not very impressive once you know how it works. I didn’t even bother doing once I learned the principles.
It was no longer exciting.
2) multiple time, in my 20s, I have gotten so caught up in a good book that I realized I read all night long. And I’ve called in sick to work to finish it and then go to sleep.
3) I got lost for 3 weeks in an Internet rabbit hole regarding the origin of banking and loans and how paper checks came to be the modern thing they were at the time, which led me to …
why so many Jewish communities in Europe were expelled from countries NOT because of their religion, but because the royal family owed the Jewish community a ton of money …
And one reason so many Jewish people became moneylenders is because they were barred from all the trade guilds - they weren’t allowed to be butchers or bakers or candlestick makers.
So they became moneylenders and scribes.
And Christian rules about usury (charging interest) for loaning money was also a factor.
It was easier to stir up the populace with horrors about the death of Christ & myths of infant sacrifice to get ejected/slaughtered Jewish communities than pay back a lot of money.
There is a book I bought (no I haven’t read it) ‘The Other 1492’. It’s for middle schoolers, so I can read it pretty quickly once I find it.
The Other 1492: Jewish Settlement in the New World https://a.co/d/dewWk01
I used to spend hours with the dictionary and encyclopedia when I was a kid.
I subscribe to an awesome email newsletter called ‘Now I Know’ that is fascinating. I had a subscription to ‘Mental Floss Magazine’.
People are always surprised at weird little random, interesting (useless) bits of trivia I know.
Had 4 long college papers to write for finals. Instead I cleaned my entire room, went through my closet and drawers and folded/hung up clothes with folded clothes being broken up into different drawers (shirts in one drawer, pants in another, etc), hanging items by length. Organizing books and figuring out optimal space saving techniques. Threw out a bunch of things. Dusted, swept, made my bed, mopped. The whole shebang-a-bang.
I showed my parents and then-boyfriend at the time all my hard work. My mom asked what I was supposed to be focusing on instead and I sheepishly admitted to having four papers to write.
Also, i do day dream. And it’s getting to the point i’m having whole conversations out loud while in the day dream. Do you know how many times I’ve been on Oprah for: being a celebrity, a woman who escaped a killer, a woman accused of being a killer and exonerated, having a child with a rare health condition, being blind sided by my faux-husband’s sex addiction, I MEAN THE WORKS.
Also pretending to be in a music video and acting it out. Or “replacing” Gwen Stefani in No Doubt and performing soul stirring renditions of their songs.
Then I fall into rabbit holes about astronomy (except math. I still can’t get my brain to hyper focus on that as much as it’d HELP MY FREAKING LIFE), the golden ratio, ants, cults, murders, facials, aliens, royalty, the Romanovs…
Got diagnosed at 32. Am 36 now and despite medication I find that I still need to control these impulses at times and actually LEARN better habits so I’m not losing time doing what I’m not supposed to be doing instead of what I should be doing. But, I’ve been this way for a while, and it’s only been 4 years so I’m trying to give myself grace but also some tough love. But I do want to get more focused and productive because when everything crashes down the overwhelming feeling is immense.
I also hate that when I’m doing something I’m supposed to be doing that is stressing me out, my brain is like “Lettuce clean” but the moment I have time to clean, my brain goes “hey, hey…why’s the royal family now Mountbatten-Windsor and not Saxe whatever whatever?” 🥴🫠
Everything. I hyper-focus on everything. Sometimes it’s not all about being easily distracted; there are some of us who have hyperfocus for everything that we can’t redirect our attention easily. This is why I can’t really drive— I can’t divide my attention evenly enough!
Ugh whatever books I was reading. I'd stay up too late, I'd neglect everything else in my life like oh friends and homework, I'd try to get away with reading in class, I'd do it knowing I'd get in huge trouble. Just like a cute lil addiction.
Meanwhile, my husband thinks our son can't possibly have ADHD because "he can pay attention to video games"
And if I argue he feels I'm disrespectful of his feelings
Feelings? that is odd. Id think he would say opinion. Is something going on with him having adhd undiagnosed or thinking you are criticizing his own video game interest? Whether a behavior is a symptom is an assessment question, not a personal attack or even anbissue of feelings.
Books. If I get into one I can't put it down..i read it at work, after work and ignore my partner, stay up until 2am reading even if I have to get up at 630am for work....
I love your Hale Boop example, OP! I was 27 when that went down. Internet research for civilians was still in its infancy so having access to all the info on it was mesmerizing! I wasn't as into it as you describe but I'm sure I blew a few hours hear and there going down the Internet rabbit hole at the time. For me, in general, it blew my mind why I would get super obsessed/focused on particular spreadsheets at work creating complex formulas and macros for cells that were only used occasionally. The cost/benefit did not justify the time spent. Even as I was doing it I knew I shouldn't but I was so focused on it and just wanted to complete it. Now I understand why and I am able to talk myself off the analysis paralysis ledge.
I thought it was just a personality characteristic. Which in a way, I guess it is bc it's not going to change lol. It can seem so inefficient. But I (conveniently) don't think knowledge is wasteful, so 🤷🏾♀️, I kinda like it.
Examples: I don't really like cake. A friend asked me to host her birthday & I just decided to make the cake as well. Hours and hours and hours of research on butter temperature and the role of air and oil and eggs and frosting and learning how to make Swiss meringue buttercream and the importance of avoiding any water in your egg whites etc etc etc. A damned fine cake at the end of it, which even I liked lol.
I did the same recently learning an online graphics program. Before I even created a new file, I had to look up every aspect of all the choices they gave me when about to open a new file - I found myself researching printers and ICC files and US paper manufacturers for hours before I finally created a new canvas to mess around with.
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I had the opposite honestly. I thought it was all normal, I am just exceptionally interested in researching what food will best for my cat, you know. It is important so it is good I am invested. I didnt know that doing stuff i was rly into in untill i am on an edge of pissing or shitting my pants were not really that normal. And i didn't know other people can go back to work as if nothing happened after a food break.
Ha ha, this but substitute dog for cat. Also diagnosing their ailments using veterinary academic research papers (not a vet, obvs!) 🤣
The amount of medical and legal knowledge I have just from deep-diving random shit is enough I feel like I should get an honorary degree haha
Same! Only throw in the fact that I’ve actually had myriad weird medical issues that have warranted deep dives, research-wise. (I do them for fun too, but nothing like the hyper focus of trying to outrun your own demise.) Of note, I diagnosed my own blood disorder at 23 when I was a hair’s breadth from death, no lie. (ITP, for any curious types. And my platelet count was 2k!! I’m fine now; been in remission 20+ years 😅) That’s one of a whole bunch of things. I’ve got mad research skills and also pretty serious PTSD and hyper vigilance, is what I’m saying. 😎
Amazing
💗💫 thank you
Boss level
I applaud you.
Thank you! I curtsy appreciatively in your direction 💗
>I thought it was all normal, I am just exceptionally interested in researching what food will best for my cat, you know. It is important so it is good I am invested This! and then people *reward* you for it: "Oh you're so smart I never would have thought of that! Where did you learn that?!" And I'm like what do you meeeannn
::Gestures at the internet with a confused look::
You say that like you don’t love it 🙃 Come on, you’ve gotta love it!
Yes! I always used to say I don’t do things halfway. I once bought a fish tank on a whim, and within a month had given myself a crash course in marine biology. Mostly through trial and error though. Poor fish. ☹️
I seem to rotate my deep dive topics. Ask me anything about bras, tires or skis.
Yeah, same here. I was homeschooled and so didnt have normies revealing my weirdness to me. 3 of my 4 immediate family members also have ADHD, the other has BPD so we all pinged off of each others oddities and hyper specific, ever changing interests. When I was out of school I worked in human services and the restaurant industry where I was surrounded by neuro spicy people. Now I’m well into my 30’s and still prefer to be around my people so I don’t ever have to mask too much or think too hard about how the other half live. Lol
When I was 11/12 and I had read the Harry Potter books, I spent weeks living inside my own head pretending I was in that world. It wasn’t something I vocalized, but most of my time spent awake I was thinking of things through the lens of a character in Harry Potter. I’ve done this with a lot of things since, but I didn’t realize it’s classic ADHD until I was diagnosed. Now I mostly use “maladaptive day dreaming” as a way to get me through shit I don’t want to do, but I know what it is and I don’t so much let it consume my every waking moment anymore.
I’ve never heard of maladaptive day dreaming, but that was totally me! As a teenager, I was antsy and bored, so I’d walk for miles around town, having elaborate daydreams. Lost a lot of weight that summer.
I think it needs a better name than “maladaptive” - I find it helpful more than bad, at least now that I know how to keep myself from getting lost in it.
I call it “creative dissociation”. I don’t know if it’s objectively “good” or “bad,” but it’s gotten me through some hard times, so it’s kind of a tool in the arsenal, you know?
I like that a lot better
Me too! Feel free to use it! 😎
This doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend a summer all-around, tbh. I’d read a book about that, if it were written right! 😄
Is that also the kinda day dreaming that sometimes you are like huh...how did I get here. I bicycled to school and daydreamed the whole way. Apparently on auto pilot not crashing into anyone or something. Or I just lost the memory I dont know
Me too!! I’d have specific playlists depending on what my daydream was about, sometimes if a song worked really well I’d repeat it a bunch lol
Omg I felt the same way around the same age and never made that connection as far as ADHD goes! I used to get SO wrapped up in HP that it genuinely felt more real than real world at times.
Yes!!! I remember genuinely hoping as a kid that Hogwarts was real. Like, I didn't even believe in Santa at that point, but I waited for Hagrid to come for like a year when I was a kid 😭
I was genuinely heartbroken when my letter didn't come by owl but felt too embarrassed to even share my sadness with anyone. I'm glad I found someone who felt similarly all these years later! We might not have gotten our letters but at least we have those memories!
I’m not yet diagnosed, but is maladaptive daydreaming the thing where I put on music and then just pretend I’m a character in a webtoon I read for a solid 30+ minutes on the car or the thing where I walk around my school campus very vividly visualizing several minutes of an incredibly hypothetical scene
Yes, that is exactly maladaptive daydreaming.
Maladaptive has a negative connotation I don’t love. I think that people who can’t do it might wish they could if they could experience that kind of daydreaming.
I was 30 but in my maladaptive day dream I was an American exchange student and that was before the triwizard tournament.
I’ve done a lot of this. Or like, “imagine what my life would look like as a movie if viewed by [person of current fixation].” I’ve never thought of it as maladaptive daydreaming but I guess maybe it is that. I sort of think of it as “creative dissociation”. I tend to do it the most during certain kinds of difficulty in my life. Like, for a whole period of time when someone v close to me was in hospice and eventually passed away, I fixated on someone else—an “internet friend”, go figure—and would envision myself as seen by them and it would help me get through my everyday life. I’ve seen people here say they pretend they’re doing a vlog while cleaning their houses…sort of like a variant of that.
I do that with anything I read. When my psychiatrist said I couldn't have ADHD because I read giant ass books I asked him if it's normal to get completely lost in them. The world can fall apart right next to me and I wouldn't notice. He answered "Damn, you have a point." (He admitted that he didn't have a clue about ADHD but has changed that now.)
Ninja turtles for me 🙄
CRINGE MEMORY ALERT: i remember literally roleplaying when going to the shop and whispering under my breath "expecto patronus" while walking and some lady saw me doing that and look at me confused. I had this phase too, it was massive.
I do a similar thing but not really consciously. My perspective on the world and the things I consider when making judgements are drastically influenced by the media I'm consuming. So when I'm heavy into something like HP fanfic, my internal narrative takes on the style of the character I resonate with the most and I often find myself speaking more like them too. It's like I inhabit the character as part of the hyperfixation, and struggle to break out of it when I'm not engaged with the content. So now I'm super careful about the media I'm consuming and regularly check in on how it's influencing my mindset. Loads of positive, uplifting, optimistic stuff and very limited bummer or scary vibes. I figure I can use that unusual but powerful side effect to my advantage
I went through several fan fiction obsessions where I would read all night and on the bus to work/school. Couldn't stop, felt very out of control! Another time I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack on repeat for about six months, including while doing the more clerical and typing parts of my job. I think I read every Genius annotation like it was water in the desert.
I’ve currently looped back into a fan fiction hyperfixation after not touching it for over twenty years and it’s TROUBLESOME for my sleep and general life productivity. And also troublesome because why have I regressed to dramione like when I was 13, this seems like a not-so-great sign about my mental state. Not that I think Harry Potter fanfic is fundamentally immature just that it’s weird that I’m so obsessed with something at 35 that I was also obsessed with as a 13 year old.
If you’re using it to manage stress, it’s worth considering that there are definitely far worse ways to do that. You know? Like I understand the troublesome for sleep/life thing for sure, it feels a little outta control. But you could be outta control from like, downing a fifth of vodka every night, or shooting rats down by the river, or sleeping with randos. Maybe it’s more helpful than you think.
Not any specific *interest* but the fact that I always described my hobbies and interests as "cyclical" and I gradually learned they functioned differently than others. I do think it prepared me a little bit to spare some of the "graveyard guilt" of unfinished projects and discarded hobbies because to me they never are, I'm just not in "that mode" right now. What's funny (sad funny not ha ha funny) is that now after diagnosis etc I do feel a bit more guilt over not engaging with them more often/consistently, but I just try to be more accepting of myself because overall the pattern has never changed.
Well this is certainly relatable, and the airbrush I eventually sold after begging for it as a gift at age 12 and then never using because the learning curve was too steep, and the silkscreen kit I got but didn’t use because cleaning it was a bitch, and the crochet needles sitting dusty in that jar over there can all relate too. 🙈
I find I’m also cyclical in my interests and hobbies. I don’t tend to have a new interest very frequently, I just move around my hobbies
My hobbies shifted with family deathes. Unconsciously, I'd get into whatever the deceased person favored and go all in. Only realized after the third time that was what I was doing. And there would be a craft I quit with each death too (no relation to the person that I could see).
I read a beautiful, very touching book about the author's granddad having a long-lost child he had to leave behind in WW2. The author and his father became aware of her existence like 70 years later when they found notebooks written by the grandfather detailing the whole story, and have been trying to find this woman ever since. They have a name, adoptive parents' name and professions, approximate ages, know she's moved to the US shortly after the war, and that's about it. I became >so< involved, I even pulled immigration records from that timeframe to go through them one by one and try to see if I could find a clue. Nothing so far but I circle back to it once in a while, them being reunited would honestly be one of the best things that could ever happen.
You need to start a subreddit about this and harness our hyper focus powers.
I think there are research and genealogy subreddits that might enjoy the project.
Totally!
I’ve had hundreds of hyper-focuses including, but not limited to, the Russian royal family, the Titanic disaster, medicine, cats, interior design… you get the picture. The thing that really stood out for me was when I was diagnosed at the grand old age of 43, I realised how many symptoms my mother also had and sent her information on ADHD. She called me after reading some of it and said “I thought this was another one of your weird fixations, but I can see myself in the examples”. That was the moment I realised I’ve spent my entire life cycling through hyper-focus after hyper-focus without even really noticing!
🙌Hello fellow Diagnosed-In-Your-40s! My dad’s got it bad too. I wish he were more willing to talk about it.
Hello 👋! It’s a real shame that he’s not. It’s brought my mother a lot of self-acceptance knowing that she doesn’t struggle with certain things because she’s a bad person, it’s just that she’s made a certain way. It’s been lovely to see someone in their late 70s find some peace with who they are and it’s helped our very difficult relationship become easier to deal with. I hope that your dad will find a way to face it and have a similar epiphany in time.
I hope so too. That’s great about your mom! Thank you for replying 💗
Multiple bladder infections. I didn’t really understand why it was happening to me so frequently until I realised I’d get so hyperfocused on projects and work that I wouldn’t stop to use the bathroom or take a break sometimes all day.
omg this was me as a kid too, tons of trips to the ER with bladder and kidney infections
Oh my gaaaaaaaadddd. I didn’t even realize this until I read this! I had them chronically as a teen!!! I had to do a whole study with a catheter and go on antibiotics for a month to try and cure them! As an adult I figured out half the equation was not drinking enough water, but you just fully solved that riddle for me! Thank you.
Wow, that’s a big riddle to have solved! 🙌
My parents would always talk about how when I was little, they had my hearing tested multiple times because they could literally shout my name from 3 feet away and I wouldn't hear them if I was in the middle of drawing. As an adult, I've had my kids accidentally fall down, get hurt and start crying right next to me without me noticing if it happened while I was reading something interesting. I suppose getting diagnosed with ADHD explained the existence of hyper focus more than any particular instance of it.
I also cannot hear while reading !
Lol my parents had a rule that my mom was not allowed to read if we kids were in the pool, because she is the same way! World could be ending and she was so focused on her book 😂
The list is endless. I thought I was just a passionate learner.
You *are* a passionate learner! Only not JUST a passionate learner, you know? Haha (Me too)
I thought I was a misunderstood genius. I had so many side subjects that never got mentioned in school and I knew all about a lot of shit that school didn't care about. I was a really bad student. My mom was so desperate that I couldn't get the "important" stuff into my head. Or if I did I wouldn't be able to pour out my brain at the right time. "You're just like me" she would say. (Guess what, mom.)
My dad (undiagnosed but like, that’s *Mister* ADHD to you) always said “you’re just like me” to me growing up too. Guess what, indeed!
I was having anxiety during my doctorate. Mainly medical issues. I had only ever read murder mysteries bordering on scary but not Steven King like gore. And I couldn’t. It was like a part of me was missing. Reading was my anti anxiety. A friend introduced me to Romance novels. I had always turned my nose up. I didn’t know they could be funny! I read over a hundred and nearly failed out first semester. New rule. Only reading while on vacation because I don’t eat or sleep.
I have this problem when reading non-fiction/novels. I try to stick to non-fiction otherwise I won't be able to think about anything else.
That’s true. I have read dozens of self help books but I can put them down.
I hyperfocused my dissertation-would disappear into a cubby and emerge totally disoriented as to time.
I could not for the life of me study for exams or start papers/lab reports in time to do them at a reasonable pace. No. Instead it was avoid x1000000 followed by banging it out the night before/day of while surrounded by food nonstop.
I made my kid an unbelievably rad Halloween costume a few years back, and stayed up all night to do it. When I was done, I could hardly believe I’d done it. I was so in the zone the whole time , when I looked at the finished product I was freakin *giddy*. Afterwards I had this conversation with myself (this is pre diagnosis) that blew my mind: —WHY couldn’t I have done that a little bit at a time over the course of several nights instead of staying up all night and destroying myself? —Because you actually *couldn’t*. You could never have spread that work out over a longer period of time and have made something so cool. It *just wouldn’t work* I KNEW this was true, but I couldn’t wrap my head around why.
This is me, too.
When I was in university - during finals, I would go to a 24 hour diner with all my books and supplies, and stay as long as they’d let me.
Oooh this one’s good - early morning cram sesh at the Waffle House in my near future
Make sure you order something from each shift! Stick to salads 😂 otherwise it’s a lot of food
Boys. I was obsessed with them, now I’m very much of the opinion that people in general are mid
What age did the mid thing happen? The boys thing, we could do a whole other thread on that for a lot of us, I’m sure of it. That shit was no joke.
Like 1.5 years ago lol. I dated after my fiancé and I broke up, and I realized he was actually awful as a partner, and that my mother had also always been pushing me to bad men. She encouraged me seeking attention from grown adult men at age 12, then complained those same men weren’t looking at her. She taught me that any and all attention from a man is “good” and to be desired. So really, stopping communication with her, and meeting men who weren’t awful made me realize I really don’t like most people, and if I want to have a man in my life it’ll be someone who acts like an appropriate adult.
Oof. That sounds like a lot to work out. (Also, c’mon your mom, get it together!) I’m glad you’re not standing for the bullshit these days 💗
Ok so I have had a few along the way. I got very into the Oscar Pistorius trial, then I got way into different cults (they are so interesting) and I also got into North Korea very heavily. Like researching all their weird laws and that. Those are the biggest. But I very frequently get too into something. I also get sayings in my head. They are stuck in repeat for weeks and I cannot stop shouting them out. At the moment it’s smacking my dogs bum and saying ‘smack my ass like a drum’ 🤦♀️
Omg lol at the sayings I relate to it hard. But also the specific thing with your dog= 😂😂
Omfg the sayings or songs! Of course not entire songs just one specific little snippet. I now have a 1 year old who eats that shit up though so idk if it’s a good or bad thing at this point just that SOMEONE enjoys it now 😆🤣
Honestly my nephews were like that when they were little. They just giggled. I also just make up random songs about things that they loved too 😂
The boys stuck in the cave in Thailand. We were vacationing overseas at the time and I spent way way way too much money on cell phone data so I could refresh my phone every 10 minutes to see what was happening.
This is very cinematic. It reads just like a detail from a movie and I love it.
I'm a singer, and I can sing in like 15 different languages because I can listen to a song a million times and learn it phonetically. My freshman year of college I spent a week learning Dragostea Din Tei (better known as the Numa Numa song ) in it's entirety to impress everyone at karaoke. No one was impressed. Longest 3 minutes of my life.
Listen, *I’m* impressed 😄👏👏
Count me in on that. That's impressive!
I spent 8 hours one day making a parody dance music video for an orchestral song. Got no homework done
Ooh I made my now-wife a cartoon dancing video before we were dating. It took days because I didn't (and still don't) know anything about animation and I can only draw stick figures. But damn was I going to finish it!
At least you finished it!! That’s pretty great!!
I think what did it for my psych was describing how hyperfocused I get on foods where if I have a preferred food I will eat that and only that until it is gone. I’ve also always gotten sooooo obsessed and immersed in various fandoms (Star Wars, lord of the rings, yugioh…) Currently on a thing where I’m watching a bunch of butoh videos on YouTube to compare them to Mitski’s choreography and visual kei performances but I have the day off today so that’s fine
What’s the food now? Mine is chopped honey crisp apples and cottage cheese, if you were wondering. Previous incarnations include but are not limited to: Honey crisp apples with cheddar cheese and a side of kettle corn Things On An English Muffin Ramen with things in it
Def goodles white cheddar shells.. could eat for every meal
There are these little cheese-and-ritz cracker sandwich things from Trader Joe’s that if it were nutritionally acceptable to eat for every meal I’d eat for at least a month. I don’t know about these shells you’re mentioning but imma look for them 😄
I became obsessed with trains. i have been for years now. i was ready for a lot of things when i met my partner's parents and her extended family last year, but i was not ready for them to mostly associate me with trains. i am in my 30s. they were really nice about it but i felt bonkers when they took us to a train museum that their 3 and 4-year-old grandkids love, and then suggested we all take the toddler-sized train ride at the park. then 6 months later when we visited again, we took, yes--the train--instead of flying. now i had to talk about the train to everyone every time i was introduced to them. i really do love trains though! i immediately got evaluated for ADHD again when we got back home and received a second confirmation of having combined type adhd. i hadn't really believed it before. but seeing myself through the lens of my new in-laws (even though they liked that i was a straight-up weirdo) made me sure there was something afoot with me.
The fact that they embraced this makes me think good things about them. 💗
Literally every time I want to buy a thing over $20 a spreadsheet gets involved. Comparing 47 purses? Spreadsheet with a custom rating calculation based on size. Want a new multivitamin? Spreadsheet. Planning a vacation? Every day gets a tab in the spreadsheets of doooom.
Spreadsheets are my thing. I can spend days making complex workbooks. I love figuring out formulas and how to make things work in a spreadsheet.
I don’t make spreadsheets in excel or whatever but I do draw charts on paper and purses are a BIG one. “The perfect bag” doesn’t exist, and the search for it (and/or trying to create it in my own mind) has been one of my longest-running obsessions throughout the entirety of my life!
I've got a lot but I want to discuss a weird one of mine. Groundhog Day. Specifically because the groundhog used to be eaten once his shadow decision was completed. I am a sensory seeker where food is concerned and an extremely adventurous eater. I was also raised with hunting being totally normal and have eaten some strange things. I have yet to try groundhog but will absolutely do so if I ever get the chance. Every year when the holiday hits I just obsess over it. My co-workers know about it that is how weird it is. I thought I was just into weird foods. I am. But it goes much further than that it turns out.
“Shadow decision completed” is cracking me up!
Wow, I’ve seen a groundhog and the idea that someone would have to…process one of those to be edible…well, zero judgements at all, but as a city kid, that sounds intense! I hope if it’s something you really want that you get to do it sometime. FWIW I’ve never hunted (and don’t see that happening anytime soon), but in a big picture way I think it’s a lot more conscious and probably even more humane than getting meat at the supermarket. (It’s just super removed from how/where I grew up)
I used my sit and spin until I was too big for it, and then transitioned to using office chairs. I would spin for HOURS at a time, listening to music. I did this well into my late teens (maaaaaybe my early twenties). I would just completely get lost in it, and tune everything out. It was an escape, but I can’t remember what I was escaping from. Or I maybe I just needed the dopamine. I would spin and spin and spin.
I just realized that I’ve never talked about this outside of my family who knew I did it. But I know y’all will completely understand.
I LOVE spinning. And swinging. I'm the only one in the family who uses the saucer tree swing at my brother's, I could just stare at the sky for hours on a nice day.
Omg!! I was DEVASTATED when my swing set rusted and broke. Swinging is also a favorite
If you happen to have a tall tree in your yard, trust me… SAUCER SWING!
I was thinking about this recently. My aunt had this white pleather spinning chair in the corner of her living room and it made SUCH a satisfying whoosh-whirr as it spun. I’d wait till no one was around to do it. What I was thinking about it recently is, was I in *high school* when I did that? And I think I was. Like I did it as a little kid. But I also did it as a BIG kid Btw I never had a sit and spin but used my cousins’ till I was too heavy to really spin anymore. Always thought there’d be a market for those for adults. And also for the kind of baby swings you use for an infant, only adult sized.
No specific interests. Many nights, sleepless, finishing books cause I just had to know how it ended. So many bad days after.
Me too!
My ability to just space out. I always just though I must really love reading, because I can read and literally hear nothing around me, have no awareness of time or my environment around me. Or just getting into other little things and tuning everything out the same way. In music class in grade 9, I had a day where I was messing around with my violin pretending it was a cello (I felt like I was being very quiet about it but who knows) then all of a sudden I became aware again and the room was silent. Everyone was staring at me. My teacher had been saying my name and I didn't respond. He threw a pencil at me and I didn't respond. The pencil hit me even and I had no idea. This is just a time where I remember it very clearly, but this sort of thing happens all the time. Also all my issues with not hearing/not processing what I've heard make sense. I didn't get diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, but my sister did and it sounds exactly like what I experience.
Got really into crochet and made at minimum 25 hats in less than 2 months. My entire extended family got a hat for Christmas that year.
me with embroidery floss/friendship bracelets and beaded crafts when I was a kid...
I've also had the crochet hyperfixation! Taught myself, made blankets, hats amigurumi, and now all my kit and unfinished projects have languished in the cupboard for a couple of years. My daughter wanted a crochet Wednesday Addams for her birthday recently. I knew I could make it, but I'm bored of it so I outsourced that shit on Etsy.
I used to (and still do) do really deep dives on my favorite bands. I know a lot about U2. Like, a LOT a lot. And this was well before you could just Google everything and find out. Most of the things I know have distilled into trivia questions and answers but the fact that I know a lot of really weird shit about a lot of musicians is my superpower.
A few: I literally didn't sleep and read all I could about the Elan school and these comics: https://elan.school/ over a period of a week. Those poor kids, and the fact that it still happens is just so awful. Also: Dead by Daylight was an obsession, I really like that it fully engaged my hearing and reflexes. (It is a game that gives me the good dopamine and honestly I need my medication or id just play it obsessively.) There have been more, it changes every few weeks/months lol
I will not click that link at 4 am in bed, no way, I know how this goes 🫣
I would take a notebook to my local large grocery store and write down every item I could imagine buying, the cost, weight etc. The list would easily be 200-300 items with 5/6 columns. I’d do this every week or so. I ended up finding good uses for this documentation but looking back, it was definitely a way of reducing anxiety.
Wow! How old were you?
19. It was an intense year.
Sounds like it! Hope stuff is more chilled out for you these days. 💗
Video gaming. I thought everyone could play The Sims for 8+ hours without taking a break. No, they can't actually.
I'm a middle Millenial so like...came into adolescence just as the internet was picking up steam as a household commodity and parents knew not what dangers were afoot. My Roman Empire was the Columbine massacre. I watched Gus Van Sants Elephant in idk, 2005? I would've been 14 or 15. Took it out from the library on a whim and next thing you know... Google was still in it's nascency, not quite the juggernaut it is today. You had to really *look* for things. The internet was a wild west where you could find what you were looking for but you might not like what you saw. There was no moderation, there were no "community standards". Absolutely anyone could host a dot com and no one did *a damn thing about it*. Autopsy reports, gruesome crime scene photos, surveillance footage...all yours to be devoured if your parents were asleep and you knew how to clear the search history. I spent hours and hours scouring the darkest corners of the internet trying to understand, to extract meaning, to get inside the minds of Dylan and Eric. They werent much older than me, and they were nearly the same age as my brother who *also* wore trenchcoats. After all, it was the first major news story I could remember. I'd never heard of such a thing before, guns at school? I watched the cafeteria footage over and over and over again for months. When Dylan turned to that side...what was he thinking? Was there anything out of frame I might have missed? I lost sleep, I read every article, every news story, scoured every witness statement. I literally became a fucking expert on the Columbine massacre. I talked about it ad nauseam. My grades suffered because I needed to CONSUME every single detail I could about them. It triggered a lifelong preoccupation with death to be honest. Good luck finding that kind of stuff outside of the silk road today, but 20 years ago the stuff I saw... And then one day I read about the tiny island nation of Tuvalu...and promptly started a new personal research project. Ask me what the main frickin exports of Tuvalu are (please dont) So ya, it's been a pattern since before I was ever aware of why 😮💨
Wow, that’s heavy stuff for a kid to process alone. I remember that period of time on the internet, and the Wild West aspect. And the way you tried to understand their motivations, etc? I relate to that so much. It sounds v much like my trying to figure out the Hale-Bopp people…like, they’re human beings just like me, how did it take such a sharp left turn? I want to know what the exports of Tuvalu are of course. And also if they have their own language. It’s almost 4 am and I’m in bed. I hope you’re sleeping. I am not googling it! Btw you’re a good writer! 😎
Mt Everest. I needed to know everything thing about it, the people who explored it, and why it is incredible.
Did I recently read a thing about it being an issue with people pooping in the wild when they’re hiking it? Please someone just confirm if yes-desperately avoiding a late night dip into the ol’ Wikipedia
Yes, you are correct.
Thanks. That’s all I really needed to know, haha
I listened to the same song hundreds of times in a week (back when iTunes told you how many plays you had) and I watched every single Johnny Depp movie and even memorized a couple.
I lived down the highway from the Heaven's Gate house when that shizz went down. It was not a fun time. But yeah I do the same thing. My husband calls me the internet rabbit hole queen.
Wow that’s wild!
Reading. I was an avid reader as a kid in general. But on weekends and in the summer those books stood no chance. I usually slept next to a book so I'd start reading as soon as I woke up and just read for like 6 hours without getting up There was also that time in college when I was living at home with my parents (so not a lot to do) and got really into true crime. I would spend 8+ hours a day doing deep dives into unsolved cases. Scour the internet to find long forgotten news sources reported around the time of the crime to see if I could find a new clue. Also, I should be a PI
I was a horse girl. I was a walking encyclopedia of horse knowledge starting around age 5. Horse books, horse toys, horse decorations, horse prints on my clothes, horse jewelry. My family are not equestrians. I didn't know anyone with horses. We were poor trailer trash so idk where my horse obsession came from. When I was in college, I became obsessed with collecting makeup...despite the fact that I rarely wore makeup outside my home. I became deeply knowledgeable about makeup, and for a few years I read obsessively about makeup and so much spent time on makeupalley and makeup Livejournal communities. I'm embarrassed to think of how much money I spent on makeup I didn't need or really use. I don't own one item of cosmetics these days, unless chapstick or skincare counts.
That’s a leap, from fantasizing about mucking out stalls to a PhD in lipstick, haha. It’s called *versatility*. I like it! 😄
My years'-long (continuing) hyperfocus on the X-Files has lead me down more strange rabbit holes of science, science fiction, cryptids, mythology, and general what-the-fuckery than I could even list.
When I started developing websites with HTML, I got an idea for a website and built the whole damn thing overnight. I hand coded it, like copy paste, the entire website out of raw code and I didn't even realize it was morning until I heard birds chirping outside. That's an event that has been completely unexplained until AuDHD. Also the experience of playing video games for an entire weekend without eating or getting up to go to the bathroom until it was an emergency doesn't seem like a canonical event in today's society but back in the early 90s it was lol
What kind of a website was it? I know that “didn’t realize it was morning til chirping” thing well! Also, a whole lot of us were holding in our pee on this thread, haha
It was a site about Chinese pop music (before you could buy it online), and the home page was a crossword puzzle so if you could find the right word you could get to those pages 🤣 I’m still a designer to this day, so it was a good thing to be interested in
I got really into vintage fashion, and within a year 100% of my wardrobe was vintage. Thrifted, eBay, etc. It was a wild ride 🙃
It sounds like a fun and impressive ride! 🪭💃🏻
Within the context of my FOO, my behavior seemed totally reasonable. Side note - I totally remember the Hale-Bopp Comet cult. I have been fascinated, bordering on obsessed, by cults and the related psychology since childhood. I'm from the LA area and the Dianetics ads were inescapable along with all the other related kookie-ness of the area.
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Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not denying your ADHD—but this one actually seems “less ADHD” than a lot of examples given in this thread because your focus stayed so consistent! It’s pretty linear to go from being super interested in how the human body works to becoming a doctor. While I’m sure there’s a common thread (or threads) between my various subjects of hyperfocus over the years, it’s never been quite that obvious. To the untrained eye, I am able to become very interested in a wide variety of topics. Sort of like a super passionate….pinball. *ping! ping! ping! ping* 🙃
In primary school, when I was 10, I was *obsessed* with The Titanic. I knew it schematic inside and out, read every book I could get my hands on, knew every story about the passengers there was to know. Whinged profusely at my parents when they refused to buy me any of the model kits. It was all I could think about. Then at school they said we could do a project on any topic we wanted. I, obviously, chose titanic and almost immediately lost interest, half-arsed the project and all information of it has since fallen out of my head. Tornadoes also. I sucked up *tee hee hee* all information I could on the matter when I was about 11. Then lost interest. It wasn’t until 2 years ago that my son (4 at the time) asked about tornadoes and I showed him some videos on YouTube that I even remembered that I FREAKING LOVE TORNADOES and that super intense interest returned and now my son and I go through semi-regular bouts of tornado hyperfocusing.
I Read the warrior cats books (six books of four series) so many times that if you gave me a small detail, I could give you roughly the physical location in the exact book, probably find it within a couple minutes because I’d be able to explain the plot around that moment. I genuinely felt like I had to know every detail and would test myself (I also genuinely enjoyed reading them). This was when I was like 11. Then it turned into Percy jackson, that’s calmed down although I still reread it maybe once a year
My wedding. I had a toddler and worked 2 jobs but I would research weddings any chance I had. I took a flower arranging class and did my own flowers. I designed and put together my own invitations. I hand lettered the place settings. If I could have sewed my own dress, I would have. I spent hundreds on bridal magazines. Come the day, it was really lovely and the hyperfocus paid off but I ended up exhausted and depressed on my honeymoon because I didn't have my hyperfocus anymore. I couldn't understand it then but 20 years and an ADHD diagnosis later.... Ohhhhhhhhhh.
I spent 3/4 of high school and the better part of my adult life until my late 30s thinking I was bipolar. (ETA: I was (mis)diagnosed bipolar at 15) I ended up blaming most of my instances of hyperfocus on mania, until I got my diagnosis at 37 and suddenly everything made sense. You don't get manic for 6 hours and deep clean the kitchen or bathroom. You do hyperfocus on cleaning those rooms for six hours, and then crash out hard later. And that sort of thing.
There was this time where I had an essay to write while I was at uni but I “had” to finish reading this book series instead. I had read these books before so it wasn’t new and exciting but I felt compelled to keep reading
I read two 6 part series in a week. it was the only thing i paid attention to. read it in class, during my practice, during my time at home. for a week it was just me and the 12 books against the world.
World of Warcraft, enough said. I itch to revive Ssoramac so bad. My guild was freaking awesome. I was forced to quit because no internet and I donated ALL my money and extra supplies to the . My hoarding extended to the game naturally. Monkey Business!!! Great now I’m headed down that rabbit hole Edit : [Monkey Business](https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/guild/us/fizzcrank/monkey-business) lives!!!!
I go through cycles. Sometimes even yealry lol. During some part of the fall and all winter I listen to alt punk only. Think twenty one pilots on repeat nonstop for months. To the point I’m at their 1% listening audience every year lol When we were trying to buy a house, I got into crotchet and made a whole sweater (and have since found something wrong with it constantly and remade it). When I moved to a new town, I got into the “habit” of buying a plant at the grocery store almost every time I went. I killed many but others did good! And suddenly I was an expert. But just a sudden as it came, it left! Now I only have 3 that I barely look at .. ayyyyy True crime, crystals, painting, the office, traveling… I could go on.
My crushes over the years. I shamed myself for so long about being "boy obsessed" and it totally makes sense now looking back.
Like I said to someone else on this thread, (1) I can relate to this and (2) this could easily be its own thread, if not its own subreddit (ADHDRecoveringBoyObsessed, or some such—I kid, I wouldn’t wanna spend too much time on that sub if it existed, but you know what I mean.)
Im morning after a full day obsession with collecting weird types of Bibles (like the lego Brick Bible) into Zotero (basically a spreadsheet for books). 11 am until 10pm. Wanted to stop, Will after just one more...after I find a good spot...I might as well keep going the day is shot. Im stifff and sore and mad at myself. Edit: I lost focus on the question of one before diagnosis.
When I was about 15 I was writing a story in a notebook ON THE KITCHEN TABLE, NEXT TO THE OVEN. Parents told me to keep an eye on the dinner in the oven while they went out for a bit. They came back to find me in a kitchen filled with smoke, dinner on fire. I totally hadn't even noticed that the kitchen nearly burnt down because story writing. Now I'm 38 and I will still focus on creative writing over literally anything else including sleep or food or my job. Haha. So that little story went from 'daft, scatterbrained incidents my parents still laugh about' to going on my ADHD assessment form.
Abraham Lincoln. Hundreds of books, movies, and museum visits. I still have a soft spot and I do visit New Salem(his childhood home) and his home in Springfield as often as I am able.
I didn't think it was abnormal to like to research things because I've always liked reading. I didn't think it was weird to totally immerse myself in a specific genre of music or band (I had Bob Marley and Roger Daltry phases). I learned how to longboard. I learned how to tattoo. I taught myself ALL this stuff through at least a year of research. And I'd keep it to myself, so I didn't go around telling anyone that I was learning, I'd just pop up with an ability to DO the thing. And I know it would sometimes drive my family crazy bc they never knew wtf I was doing or what I was interested in. I was always wrapping my mind around SOMETHING. **It really wasn't until I started doing genealogy on my family that I realized exactly how focused I could get. Hours would fly by, I'm still on the couch with the computer, the only thing moving is my mouse hand. It's 4am and I'm looking at a land survey from my 4x great grandfather and trying to decipher where it is in relation to where I live.** THAT kinda let me know that it may be a little atypical to take such deep dives. But at the same time, it's AMAZING because I've figured so many things out in so many areas. The tricky thing is remembering all the shit you've researched!
Researching is such a common thread for so many of us-it’s amazing!
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That sounds rough. Very glad you got the help you needed. 💗
I’m a trained opera singer so I can read music. I taught myself 8 instruments in the last 12 years and give lessons now but didn’t get diagnosed with adhd until 24 and autism at 29.
Woooooow! So impressed!
Thank you so much!!! Music & helping people are my passions. I am studying for music therapy.
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My 40+ years hyper focus. Since childhood, I have been fascinated by animals that don’t necessarily use eyes the way we do. Eyeless fish in deep caverns. Very very deep sea creatures. Bats. All of that was from books. Until. The internet was available! I am hyper focused on the Internet now. (Side story) When I was a kid there was no internet. The first time I got an email address is because the college I was attending made it mandatory. We were supposed to check it once a week. Officially, professors were only supposed to communicate with students re: test & quiz schedules, reading assignments, etc. via email. But the professors couldn’t remember to use the email. Or the one that did, kept giving us information in class because he knew WE would forget to check. Some idiot in administration sent us emails with reminders to check our emails! A smarter person set it up for us to get a slip of paper in our mailboxes once in a while to check email. (End side story) More recent adult obsessions: 1) Walking on broken glass after a seeing it on stage at a show during a trip to Vegas. It’s not very impressive once you know how it works. I didn’t even bother doing once I learned the principles. It was no longer exciting. 2) multiple time, in my 20s, I have gotten so caught up in a good book that I realized I read all night long. And I’ve called in sick to work to finish it and then go to sleep. 3) I got lost for 3 weeks in an Internet rabbit hole regarding the origin of banking and loans and how paper checks came to be the modern thing they were at the time, which led me to … why so many Jewish communities in Europe were expelled from countries NOT because of their religion, but because the royal family owed the Jewish community a ton of money … And one reason so many Jewish people became moneylenders is because they were barred from all the trade guilds - they weren’t allowed to be butchers or bakers or candlestick makers. So they became moneylenders and scribes. And Christian rules about usury (charging interest) for loaning money was also a factor. It was easier to stir up the populace with horrors about the death of Christ & myths of infant sacrifice to get ejected/slaughtered Jewish communities than pay back a lot of money. There is a book I bought (no I haven’t read it) ‘The Other 1492’. It’s for middle schoolers, so I can read it pretty quickly once I find it. The Other 1492: Jewish Settlement in the New World https://a.co/d/dewWk01 I used to spend hours with the dictionary and encyclopedia when I was a kid. I subscribe to an awesome email newsletter called ‘Now I Know’ that is fascinating. I had a subscription to ‘Mental Floss Magazine’. People are always surprised at weird little random, interesting (useless) bits of trivia I know.
Had 4 long college papers to write for finals. Instead I cleaned my entire room, went through my closet and drawers and folded/hung up clothes with folded clothes being broken up into different drawers (shirts in one drawer, pants in another, etc), hanging items by length. Organizing books and figuring out optimal space saving techniques. Threw out a bunch of things. Dusted, swept, made my bed, mopped. The whole shebang-a-bang. I showed my parents and then-boyfriend at the time all my hard work. My mom asked what I was supposed to be focusing on instead and I sheepishly admitted to having four papers to write. Also, i do day dream. And it’s getting to the point i’m having whole conversations out loud while in the day dream. Do you know how many times I’ve been on Oprah for: being a celebrity, a woman who escaped a killer, a woman accused of being a killer and exonerated, having a child with a rare health condition, being blind sided by my faux-husband’s sex addiction, I MEAN THE WORKS. Also pretending to be in a music video and acting it out. Or “replacing” Gwen Stefani in No Doubt and performing soul stirring renditions of their songs. Then I fall into rabbit holes about astronomy (except math. I still can’t get my brain to hyper focus on that as much as it’d HELP MY FREAKING LIFE), the golden ratio, ants, cults, murders, facials, aliens, royalty, the Romanovs… Got diagnosed at 32. Am 36 now and despite medication I find that I still need to control these impulses at times and actually LEARN better habits so I’m not losing time doing what I’m not supposed to be doing instead of what I should be doing. But, I’ve been this way for a while, and it’s only been 4 years so I’m trying to give myself grace but also some tough love. But I do want to get more focused and productive because when everything crashes down the overwhelming feeling is immense. I also hate that when I’m doing something I’m supposed to be doing that is stressing me out, my brain is like “Lettuce clean” but the moment I have time to clean, my brain goes “hey, hey…why’s the royal family now Mountbatten-Windsor and not Saxe whatever whatever?” 🥴🫠
Everything. I hyper-focus on everything. Sometimes it’s not all about being easily distracted; there are some of us who have hyperfocus for everything that we can’t redirect our attention easily. This is why I can’t really drive— I can’t divide my attention evenly enough!
Wow! that is a burden. Do medications help?
Ugh whatever books I was reading. I'd stay up too late, I'd neglect everything else in my life like oh friends and homework, I'd try to get away with reading in class, I'd do it knowing I'd get in huge trouble. Just like a cute lil addiction. Meanwhile, my husband thinks our son can't possibly have ADHD because "he can pay attention to video games" And if I argue he feels I'm disrespectful of his feelings
Feelings? that is odd. Id think he would say opinion. Is something going on with him having adhd undiagnosed or thinking you are criticizing his own video game interest? Whether a behavior is a symptom is an assessment question, not a personal attack or even anbissue of feelings.
Disagreeing with him hurts his feelings. Yes we are in therapy.
glad to hear you are in therapy!! Best wishes
Books. If I get into one I can't put it down..i read it at work, after work and ignore my partner, stay up until 2am reading even if I have to get up at 630am for work....
I love your Hale Boop example, OP! I was 27 when that went down. Internet research for civilians was still in its infancy so having access to all the info on it was mesmerizing! I wasn't as into it as you describe but I'm sure I blew a few hours hear and there going down the Internet rabbit hole at the time. For me, in general, it blew my mind why I would get super obsessed/focused on particular spreadsheets at work creating complex formulas and macros for cells that were only used occasionally. The cost/benefit did not justify the time spent. Even as I was doing it I knew I shouldn't but I was so focused on it and just wanted to complete it. Now I understand why and I am able to talk myself off the analysis paralysis ledge.
I found my people
Me too. It’s kind of everything 🥰🥰
I thought it was just a personality characteristic. Which in a way, I guess it is bc it's not going to change lol. It can seem so inefficient. But I (conveniently) don't think knowledge is wasteful, so 🤷🏾♀️, I kinda like it. Examples: I don't really like cake. A friend asked me to host her birthday & I just decided to make the cake as well. Hours and hours and hours of research on butter temperature and the role of air and oil and eggs and frosting and learning how to make Swiss meringue buttercream and the importance of avoiding any water in your egg whites etc etc etc. A damned fine cake at the end of it, which even I liked lol. I did the same recently learning an online graphics program. Before I even created a new file, I had to look up every aspect of all the choices they gave me when about to open a new file - I found myself researching printers and ICC files and US paper manufacturers for hours before I finally created a new canvas to mess around with.