Autistic "Hyperfocus". How does it work?

[FoxLovinPat]

@FoxLovinPat, from my experience, it has nothing to do with “laziness”. My parents criticised me for anything not focussed on my university studies - I was shamed into discarding a skateboard that I had made myself during highschool.

To quote @Tom, there has to be a strong connection with the object of the focus. It cannot be something that someone else says is “important“. It has to be something you connect with. If you are VERY lucky, this might be something in the orbit of your professional life (at least for your career prospects.) At times that worked out for me.

It does not come easy. Just as @marc_101 noted, I would be well qualified to procrastinate at international competition level. As I have said before, it can take an inordinate amount of time to get “in the zone”, to bring hyperfocus to bear on “useful” (work-related) purposes.

How can I sum this up? My experience has been that hyperfocus is a thing that I (can) do. (Sometimes it is almost involuntary.) It does not always come “at will.” It is not something that can be “switched on“ for whatever task you, or someone else, want, when you/they want. (There needs to be an interest for it.)

We are all on a spectrum - your mileage may vary.

Yeah I got a lot of that too which is probably why my go to internal response is to think of myself as lazy, and I'm trying to charge that. Actually that's what the thread I keep teasing will delve into.

So many things I was interested in were criticized as useless and a waste of time, and I was told I should focus my energies on learning actually useful stuff that could be applied to my life and/or a potential career not stuff like deeper Star Wars lore as one example.

But like you and @Levitator said regarding focusing on things others or the school system say are important, nothing ever really clicked with me that I was learning about in school.. I wasn't so lucky that I was able to discover anything via my schooling that interested me enough that I could pursue it as a career and be able to apply my Hyperfocus to it to aid in that effort.

I'm sorry you feel this way. Just to clarify (and maybe get you some perspective on this): My hyperfocusing on my finals at school wasn't something intentional or probably even healthy. I was feeling the lowest I ever felt during that time, having massive problems at home, and the only thing my brain (and sanity) clung to was getting out of there. Logically, the way for me to do this was getting a high enough grade to get accepted on the first try at a uni for my field. I think my brain got into total survival mode, and studying became essential to survival. I haven't been able to get into this amount of hyperfocus mode for exams or studying since then, which I take as a good sign on my overall wellbeing. That said, I'm glad it happened since it was my way of coping, but please don't take it as something to aspire to.

I did have a similar experience myself where I somehow managed to pull myself together towards the end of senior year, studying for the finals and somehow managing to land myself a passing grade.
I wasn't allowed to graduate with the rest of the class though, I was told it was a punishment for being lazy up until that point. I was instead given my high school diploma separately, but I still got it.
However due to my struggles and poor grades I wound up with a less than ideal gpa and my SAT scores were horrible (no I don't recall what they were), so I didn't have too many options for college much too my father's dismay.

I know when I did manage to pull together at the end and somehow get a passing grade my father made the comment of "See? When you put your mind to it and stop being lazy you can do well! If only you had done this much sooner you would've gotten to graduate with your class and gotten a better GPA and SAT scores!", which was not fun as It did make me wonder if he had a point there or not.
But then again I was given extra privileges for my finals that the others didn't get, such as a cheat sheet and the ability to use a calculator, and I think I was given a little extra time but I'm not too sure on that one, so that also likely factored into it too.

Finally I did try and go into college with a better mindset of "I'm going to try my best to not be lazy and to actually apply myself to do well!" and well... that didn't last long and neither did I as I ended up stopping/flunking out of college not too far into it. And ofc my father called me a failure as a result and I felt like one too.
I've surmised in recent years that college just wasn't for me and I dunno if I should even give it a other try, I don't even know what I'd go for, if I'd even be taken after my previous performance, or if I'd be able to get access to resources for extra help if I needed it.

 

[Levitator]

Yeah I got a lot of that too which is probably why my go to internal response is to think of myself as lazy, and I'm trying to charge that. Actually that's what the thread I keep teasing will delve into.

So many things I was interested in were criticized as useless and a waste of time, and I was told I should focus my energies on learning actually useful stuff that could be applied to my life and/or a potential career not stuff like deeper Star Wars lore as one example.

But like you and @Levitator said regarding focusing on things others or the school system say are important, nothing ever really clicked with me that I was learning about in school.. I wasn't so lucky that I was able to discover anything via my schooling that interested me enough that I could pursue it as a career and be able to apply my Hyperfocus to it to aid in that effort.



I did have a similar experience myself where I somehow managed to pull myself together towards the end of senior year, studying for the finals and somehow managing to land myself a passing grade.
I wasn't allowed to graduate with the rest of the class though, I was told it was a punishment for being lazy up until that point. I was instead given my high school diploma separately, but I still got it.
However due to my struggles and poor grades I wound up with a less than ideal gpa and my SAT scores were horrible (no I don't recall what they were), so I didn't have too many options for college much too my father's dismay.

I know when I did manage to pull together at the end and somehow get a passing grade my father made the comment of "See? When you put your mind to it and stop being lazy you can do well! If only you had done this much sooner you would've gotten to graduate with your class and gotten a better GPA and SAT scores!", which was not fun as It did make me wonder if he had a point there or not.
But then again I was given extra privileges for my finals that the others didn't get, such as a cheat sheet and the ability to use a calculator, and I think I was given a little extra time but I'm not too sure on that one, so that also likely factored into it too.

Finally I did try and go into college with a better mindset of "I'm going to try my best to not be lazy and to actually apply myself to do well!" and well... that didn't last long and neither did I as I ended up stopping/flunking out of college not too far into it. And ofc my father called me a failure as a result and I felt like one too.
I've surmised in recent years that college just wasn't for me and I dunno if I should even give it a other try, I don't even know what I'd go for, if I'd even be taken after my previous performance, or if I'd be able to get access to resources for extra help if I needed it.

I essentially got bullied out of both high school and college. The final straw in high school was that some kid threw me into a chair and yelled "sit down!", and, well, it got ugly, and it had to be defused by the teacher. Of course,the victim is seen as the root of the problem because as soon as he's gone, he's not the center of hate anymore, and everyone can go back to living in peace. I had to get a GED, and the test was easy to pass.

Essentially the same attitude chased me out of the two part-times I got at the college. I had two jobs, but the staff kept complaining to my manager that I was unpleasant. Rather than insist on a specific complaint outside of "we don't like this guy", he would correspondingly formally reprimand me for.... being unlikable. One of many times I abruptly wound up on the street. At that point, I figured that if I was going to get chased out of two IT jobs by the staff, then there was no point in taking classes or pursuing a degree.