Why is having ADHD so much more than just randomly “ooo shiny!” mid conversation? Am I the only one who goes down the hyper fixation rabbit hole? It feels like with the undiagnosed autism it is so much more than just hyper focus. ADHD says ooo new dopamine train lets learn everything about this RIGHT NOW. Autism says bet, we’re going to do this longer than normal though, exhaust every source of media and content we can get our hands on. I end up deep diving into something and I don’t JUST do the deep dive, oh no I will watch everything I can find talking about said interest until I can’t find more and move on until more comes out and scurry back. I’ve noticed I don’t really burn myself out all that often, though it does happen. But that I end up just rage researching the thing until I know all the fun facts and easter eggs, how it came to be…it’s not THAT bad (sarcasm).

For example when I watched the new Scream movies, I did a deep dive on what inspired the original Scream, found out about the Gainsville Ripper. Ended up rewatching all the kill counts, the documentary on the Ripper, reading articles and so on. Found out about all the script rewrites for Screams 2 and 3, etc. I watched all the behind the scenes drama for Charmed a few years ago and so on. I can’t help it. I just find something interesting and have to have everything on the subject. If I had money right now the amount of new books I would have in my apartment would be problematic…. and it’s never just one thing! It’s all the things. I want everything to do with the topic, I want to crochet pieces inspired by whatever media it is, the whole nine yards.

I have to avoid new shows as they are coming out most the time because I like to binge watch my shows… The YouTube creators I follow, if they can see when I watched something, probably think I’m a crazy stalker. I promise I’m not! I just REALLY like to binge my content, all of it in one long stretch. I watched all of Nip/Tuck for the first time about 2 to 3 weeks after the event. This show has about 5 or 6 seasons I believe, 22 episodes per season, each episode is an hour long. I kid you not it took maybe 2 weeks to blow through it. Weird ass show and I love it. I hate Jullian McMohan’s character but he is a wonderful actor, I loved him as Cole in Charmed (1998). That show was one of my first ever hyper fixations. Charmed, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Alice in Wonderland were probably my first big ones as a child. I wore those VHS tapes out and my mom was annoyed at watching every episode of Charmed every time it aired. I was so obsessed I had some of the spells memorized as a kid. I was going to be one of the sisters! Oh tiny me….you hopeless dreamer.

Since I was a young child I have worn my nerdines and interests on my sleeve. I still buy nerdy shit, listen to nerdcore music, watch video game play throughs etc. My kids are ADHD as hell and watch all the same stuff over and over again. Listen to the same songs so much I get sick of it. I love my kids and their interests so much though. I love watching them become interested in things and gain their personalities. I learned a lot about dinosaurs for my oldest and song lyrics for music I didn’t really care for, but my youngest loved it, so I learned. I find their interests fun to research and when we find something all three of us an hyper focus on together, my day just got that much better. I’m sad we can’t see Bad Guys 2 yet but oh boy will we.

Tell me hat your ADHD hyper fixations are. Do you love them or do they drive you crazy like an addiction you have to fulfil?