I know that “hyperfocus” is a bad term to use but I don’t know how to edit GIFs and what word would have been better instead: Link to a relevant segment from a video on neuroanatomy/psychology of ADHD
I personally see it as “hyperfocus” when I’m talking about minutes or hours and “fixations” when on the scale of weeks or months. But I have a lot of opinions about semantics for someone who isn’t a professional 😂
And I agree with his point in the video, probably because I first saw it years ago so I’m already biased and it’s also very much the case for me. It’s perseveration. I can’t break away from the task, sometimes even if I’m screaming at myself internally to do so. I hate it and it feels like I’m malfunctioning at the time. Hyperfocus sounds like a good thing, maybe even superhuman, that you can willingly steer, and that’s not the case.