Honestly, your description of yourself sounds like ADHD. Unfortunately, ADHD is a very poor name, because it really is not about an inability to pay attention.

Honestly, your description of yourself sounds like ADHD. Unfortunately, ADHD is a very poor name, because it really is not about an inability to pay attention. Hyperfocus is very common in people like myself who have ADHD. ADHD manifests itself as an inability to pay attention to things that are uninteresting or not engaging, an inability to change focus when appropriate, and difficulty with time perception and management. Like yourself, until diagnosed, I would have never considered ADHD a possibility because I would regularly focus intently on a programming project or random wikipedia rabbit hole for hours and hours at a time, often skipping meals and staying up until the early hours of the morning. But it turns out these trances of hyperfocus are typical for many ADHD sufferers. There are different flavors of ADHD. I never experienced the hyperactivity that often leads to diagnosis in children. Keep in mind that one of the requirements for diagnosis in the DSM is impairment in social, academic or occupational function. In my case, spurts of hyperfocus routinely kept me from maintaining healthy sleep, diet, and hygiene routines, and ADHD also prevented me from doing homework and chores that were uninteresting. Unfortunately, there are precious few people who are able to exclusively focus on whatever engages their fancy at the moment. For me, it was debilitating. Check out the video brazzledazzle posted above. You'll learn ADHD is way more nuanced than the popular understanding.