I wonder how other people have experienced this whole notion of Hyperfocus.
I know that personally, for a long time I completely disregarded the notion that I might have ADHD specifically because I could point to a number of things I was completely obsessed with. In fact, every aspect of my life can be filed into the "uninterested"/"obsessed" dichotomy. 90% of the time I can't focus my mind on something no matter how hard I try (and, truly, most of the time why would I try? It's painful, and I'll get nowhere with it) but the other 10% of the time I'm completely unwilling to stray from the topic. I'll decide that I need to start working on a paper, but then I'll suddenly open CNN.COM and see an article on "mermaid syndrome" and spend 5 hours reading about it online and downloading numerous pictures and video files of the disorder. Now, that paper can be something I'm truly interested in and REALLY want to do well on, but for some reason it's the mermaid syndrome that I'll get stuck on. Then 5 hours and one minute later, I couldn't be less interested in it, and I'll never look at those pictures or videos again (let alone remember where I even saved them). I'll even forgoe sleep or eating for whatever it is I'm hyperfocused on. I'm so into it that I simply won't let anything else distract me.
That's been the biggest frustration with the hyperfocus. I NEED it to get anything done (and anything I hyperfocus on, I'm AMAZING at), but it seems as though I have absolutely no say in what I hyperfocus on and what I do not hyperfocus on. When that light shines on a subject, I can't see anything else or even ponder anything else, and it feels great to focus on it and work on it, but it's as though someone else is controlling the light for me. And I'm just stuck with their decisions.
Has this been the case for other people?
I think that you just have to learn to accept this as ADHD behaviour.The house could be on fire, and if I'm in hyperfocus I wouldn't Know it!
I have dones this for years and didn't know why. In fact, the longest I have ever worked without sleep was about 42 hours with quite a few 32 hour days. Sleep didn't matter, I couldn't rest until ____ was finished. What I should of done in a weeks time of 8 hour days, I would do in one sitting.