The truth about Hyperfocus

[@Stfguac]

Yep, my work stopped being my interest a couple of years back and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. My work days are a constant fight with myself to stop thinking it my actual current interests a s focus on work. But I don't exactly know how. I've been a programmer for 8 years now and I just can't seem to care about learning new things about it. I've gotten impostor syndrome about it, but it's not the fake kind, because I know how good I was at my job a couple of years ago and now it's just getting worse and worse. Waiting out the interests kinda works, but takes a long time. Listening to music seems to help sometimes, but nothing long term. Does anyone have any advice, any success stories out there?

[@autismisnotmysuperpower]

I just pinned this comment, I am looking for answers too.

[@rubenayla]

I personally know at any given time about a few topics or activities that, with some initial effort, might start being interesting enough to make me obsessed until I finish, so I try to drive that focus like if I was starting a fire in a specific area. For example, I cannot hyperfocus if someone else is forcing me to do something. It just automatically stops being interesting to me. But in the summer, right after having finished my university exams, oddly enough, I'm interested in some of the subjects of the next course, and I know that I will get obsessed with them if don't link them emotionally to exams, class, and all that crap. Sometimes it works and I get in 1 week more work done than I usually do in 1 month. Other times I might spend like 6 hours looking at standard sizes of hoses and screws or something crazy like that. I try to make use of it so that it doesn't become a problem, but in the end it is a problem when you have a lot of work to do, cannot choose to change your focus externally, and continue with your stuff, when everyone else just studies what they are told to without any difficulty. Most people don't need the extra effort to get out of the obsession.

[@joskeguereza3714]

@@rubenayla "For example, I cannot hyperfocus if someone else is forcing me to do something. It just automatically stops being interesting to me." That's 100% me lol

[@dancingdoormanable]

Gamification comes to mind. I can play managerial games for hours, but can be bored at programming. In work the pay-off is lacking. Just because it's useful or important, doesn't make it interesting. Why do you think Candy crush has al the colors and movement going on? That's more for normal people, as those gambling games have to attract as many normal people as they can. For smart people something intellectual stimulating like ITFS can give a dopamine's rush. Quite interesting that for some people that can last for days. Anyway there is a stimulus and there is a response. Find out what you're sensitive to and devise a strategy to make it work in your favor. You probably know what gets you going. What is hard is what makes you stop. The stopping part is like getting up when the alarm clock rings. It probably has to do more with your physical state then you realize.

[@poisongothik]

Thank you for your videos. I'm a psychologist and, as absurd as it may sound, we don't really learn a lot about autism in college. And even if we did, most of the literature about it just leaves much to be desired, to put it mildly. And unfortunately that's the reality for many neurodivergent conditions, not just autism. And so nowadays I find much more useful to just learn about it from listening to people who actually live it everyday, and videos like yours really help me to be a better professional for my patients. Thanks!

[@autismisnotmysuperpower]

Thank you so much for posting this. This really gives me hope that in the future more therapists will be better and more understanding. This one comment makes me want to keep going more than I already did. Thanks again.

[@SRT987]

I want you to know that these videos have helped me greatly. Im Turing on notifications to make sure i get everything you post.

[@Dokkaebi365]

Thank you for this! I’m trying to finish college and it’s SO hard when I have assignments due but I’m off on a new tangent. I’ve literally started learning a new language during finals and it was all I cared about. I change everything in my life from what I eat, what I wear, my room, everything based around what I’m focused on at the time. 😣

[@robertjmccabe]

For the most part I love my ability to hyper focus. At least professional. It was a pain in the ass when I was a teenager trying to figure out what girls wanted (I still have no idea and I’m married). But as an engineer it’s treated me good. I can work 24 hours in a row writing code (well I’m getting older and it’s harder to work that hard now). I agree that coming down after a “binge” is hard. Kinda like a drug. When I got diagnosed with autism (half a year ago) I got absolutely obsessed with human psychology and read all the books i could find on the subject. So much so that I was neglecting my job as a software engineer. I had to force myself to stop reading so much. Ahh autistic problems

[@PatriceBoivin]

retired Oracle DBA here, sometimes I read and read, only to discover that sometimes the official books were not consistent or were advocating actions that I had tested before and found didn't work (raw partitions on Windows didn't perform better than regular ones despite what the documentation claimed). That threw me in a loop, it's hard to deal with puzzles which have no solution. Other times courses existed but my employer (the Government of Canada) refused to pay for training. My wife also tells me to stop trying to understand things girls said or did to me while in high school (like saying one thing one day and pretending later that they never did or said those things), she says she doesn't understand girls either.

[@suzywhy8401]

I didn't know what to call it, I do this I obsess over my interest I'd forget to eat in go numb staying in the same position researching instead of sleeping the way I manage it now is timers and alarms. But only because I have to stop for my kids who also hyper focus and I need to get them to stop and eat and sleep even with my phone screaming at me to stop I still struggle with the frustration and think about my researching.

[@theautisticpage]

Of course this is exactly what happened to me about four months ago. I watched one video, suspected I was austic, 4 hours later I KNEW I was autistic. The following # 1/2 months I had quit my job and all I did was dedicate every possible moment to study. Autism became my hyperfocus .I was Diagnosed at 50.

[@WolfsRaven]

Thanks for mentioning the anxiety (and maybe the guilt) that happens when you feel your fixation lock onto something, but you foresee that there is not enough content to address the drive you feel. Sometimes it devolves into something worse (now there is definitely guilt), and I am cast adrift (for days or weeks) into "researching" meaningless tangents of the original short topic, which itself was not a good use of my time. As if I'm trying to pick up the trail of the original topic.

[@DanaAndersen]

This happens to me so often (usually with tv shows, movies or books) and I’m so glad to see someone speaking about it so honestly. I’ve just made a video myself about why my autism isn’t a superpower and it’s lovely seeing that I’m not the only person experiencing things like this and then feeling that way. Thank you so much for being so open and honest!

[@sitedev]

Thanks for this honest appraisal of what it’s like to experience hyper focus and how it has adverse affects on health. I too experience this on a near constant basis and while it sometimes can be beneficial (I run my ow business - so the rabbit hole can sometimes be work/project based) but more often than not it’s a massive distraction from what I should be doing (making money) which ultimately leads to massive anxiety over financial worry resulting my inability to focus on work. I find a lot of videos on KZbin that extol the benefits of ASD quite self aggrandising- it’s refreshing to find someone who experiences it the way I do. For the most part it’s not fun - I don’t feel ‘super’ … I feel anxious, disconnected from society and constantly concerned for the future of myself and my family (given my role as a dad, husband and main bread winner).

[@NotAyFox]

When I was younger, this happened frequently with books and video games, computer stuff, etc. Once I got into hyperfocus, there was always a price to pay at the end. Now that I'm older I'm kind of constantly trying to avoid going into complete burnout from work and daily chores, so I rarely get to hyperfocus longer than a day's length. And sometimes it's a work related thing that starts obsessing me so it's great that I do a good job on time, but there's inevitable burnout at the end of that and I have to take a day off, or pretend that I'm sick. I think people who can honestly claim hyperfocus is their superpower is even less than 1%. It's probably mostly rich white dudes that have time and resources and don't have to worry about paying the bills on time. I've gotten to know a couple of autistic KZbinrs from Discord groups and they are all constantly battling with stress, anxieties, burnouts, etc. And maybe they don't talk about these issues enough and focus more on positives, but I think that has it's merits, because the rest of the world still sees us as sub-human and we need to address that too.

[@timbailey8180]

First off, thank you for making these videos. I’ve just watched all three and I’ve really enjoyed them because I can relate and they’ve been super informative. I really hope you keep making videos from your perspective of someone in the autism spectrum and what you experience. I think it’s really important for people to see the full range of the spectrum from the people that struggle like hell to function in a world that’s hostile to them all the way to people that thrive in some ways due to being able to leverage their symptoms in their favour. I am 40 and believe it’s very likely I’m on the spectrum due to my symptoms fitting all the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5. (I start diagnostics at the end of the month). I’ve had similar experiences with hyper-focus with a few notable differences. I do get into things where the focus is so strong that it affects my whole life. Work, sleep, eating and relationships all get pushed to the back burner while I’m in a state of hyper-focus. I’ve also learned that I can use it for short periods of time to get things done that need to get done such as work or household chores which can be difficult for me to get done as I too have issues with executive function. To do this I have to put myself in a specific set of circumstances, (I basically block the world out with headphones and give myself no option to switch tasks until the current one is complete). It sucks to have to do this and it takes a ton of mental energy in order to stay focused but it’s the only way I’ve found so far for me to get things done efficiently. Otherwise my brain tries to multi task and I only get bits and pieces of tasks done because I have difficulties switching tasks, (it takes a lot of time and mental energy for me to switch from task to task). I hope this makes sense.

[@briiree]

Yes. This is a perfect explanation. I would really like to control it. Also kind of annoying for people to compliment it while you are struggling because of it.

[@briiree]

Also please keep making videos

[@Achachucha]

Keep making those dude! Brilliant ending.

[@celadewallace474]

thanks for making these videos, thank you so much

[@abrahamgalloway5163]

so for me it is a superpower i love my ability to hyperfocus and i have never had it bother me or cause me any anxiety. I can focus for almost an indefinate amount of time without any physical isse or problem. on the other hand it drives my wife absolutly crazy. she just cant understand that when i am in the zone nothing else can get that focus including her. its not that i am intentionally ignoring her, its just that at that moment she isnt the focus so whatever she says is just background noise to me, i try to work at that part of it but it is hard. my major problem with my autism is having to deal with other people especially in groups.

[@anjachan]

I know that very well ...

[@HideoKojimaAgiotaIsGod]

A very similar thing happens to me, but I still feel hungry, sleepy (not always), the urge to piss and even very strong pains with the urge to take a shit, but I ignore all this to go and get any new information about something that interests me, until I don't get something new I don't stop.

[@HideoKojimaAgiotaIsGod]

(At the moment I'm doing it again).

[@joskeguereza3714]

I slept for like 10 hours total spread over the 5 days leading up to the UAP report... so much fun really :/ That's more than a week ago now and my sleep schedule is still a couple hours off "normal"

[@SRT987]

Thank you for uploading this. So much you have said has resonated with me. What you have said has helped me speak out with my family. Witch has helped me get help.

[@SRT987]

Thanks again.

[@zdvsjf8038]

Do you know if you also have ADHD? Sounds like there could be more than just autism going on. I would disagree with you that "team superpower" is 1 percent of the population with autism. However, "team superpower" probably accounts for 99 percent of the undiagnosed autistic adults out there. These people struggle tremendously because they try to fit in, and I think it's wrong to portray it as flying around with capes. But for these people (like myself) learning about autism can be a liberating experience where you also learn about your strengths.