Do you ever get overfocused ? By that , I mean, Do you turn on to some event or some thing that you are concerend about and once you are focused on it, your concern elevates your anxiety to the point that you end up even MORE focused on whatever it is ? Don't get me wrong. I am not talking about hyperfocus.

I really hate it when I do that. I become such a nudge and can be downright unreasonable at those times.

ME :D

Dude ya know I have! Brutal, isn't it?

IM is on if ya need me, OK? :)

All the time.Aghhh even on this forum page when I should be cutting music for my students. I can read for like 8 hours at a time, no joke. I guess the meds make us super human. hahaha!

KFab overfocus is not hyperfocus hun ;) we intentionally induce overfocus and its actually kinda distressing to enter overfocused states :faint:.

Are you talking about Rumination?

I'm not sure I understand the difference between overfocus and hyperfocus. Explanations?:)

Overfocus is something we do out of anxiety, provoked by necessity? Like take me, I will have to overfocus to cook bacon because I cannot stand the stench of it (although I like the taste, it reeks to me and its a Rain Man-worthy serious offense to smell it cooking). My family must eat, they want bacon and so I overfocus. My desire is to get away, my need is to get it done.

Hyperfocus is involuntary and pleasureable. Overfocus is voluntary and irritating.

Overfocus is something we do out of anxiety, provoked by necessity? Like take me, I will have to overfocus to cook bacon because I cannot stand the stench of it (although I like the taste, it reeks to me and its a Rain Man-worthy serious offense to smell it cooking). My family must eat, they want bacon and so I overfocus. My desire is to get away, my need is to get it done.

Hyperfocus is involuntary and pleasureable. Overfocus is voluntary and irritating.
When I clean my living room I feel "forced" to clean it quickly... almost at a run. When I get into this mode, I get Pi**ed off that my wife is sitting thre watching tv while I'm cleaning. She knows that she has to stay out of my way during these episodes... or else we both end up in a bad mood. I usually get so irritated that it is so messy that after a few minutes I just quit, after having just straightened a few things.

After I quit cleaning and take my mind off of it for even a few minutes, I'm no longer irritated and am barely bothered by the mess.

Is this something like you are talking about?
Is this the kind of overfocus you are talking about?

speedo,

You are killing me man with these interesting threads. I gots to gets to work. Do you mean like me not able to sleep cause I'm working out algorithms in my head? I drive myself nuts with it.

However, hyperfocus - screwing around with bells and whistles for hours on end because the algorithm that is already worked out, but not coded, is so boring I can not bear it. Meaningless bells and whistles waste hours of my time. Finally, though, I spend the half hour to do the job. Hyperfocus is pathological.

However, overfocus, while not optimal is how I was able to accomplish what I did with unknown-to-me severe case of ADHD for the better part of my life.

I'm on a roll. Can't stop now. Hyperfocus at work.

That is probably why I never saw myself as ADHD for over a half century. I'm virtually always focused. But virtually never focused on what I knew I should be focused on. I think about my school days. 98% of the time, those critters that wear skirts occupied my mind. The other 2% of the time was focused on designing logic gates (didn't have a megabuck for a Enivac) and other electronic gear. I wasn't listening to the teach teaching whatever, but neither was brain "switching channels" as they say.

Bob

Hyperfocus is pathological.

ROFL ! :D
What a great line, Bob !!