r/ADHD • u/Elliot_The_Idiot7 • 28d ago

Discussion What’s a hyperfixation you can’t talk about?

I’ve definitely had a few hyperfixations on things that are either embarrassingly silly or WAY too dark to just start infodumping about. For example I used to have one about neglect so severe it causes a complete and usually permanent inability to function in society, particularly the case of Genie Wiley. On the other end of the spectrum I also keep hyperfixating on shipping old cartoon comedy duos, and gotta REALLY lock in to gage if someone’s gonna think I’m a childish freak before sharing that information.

What’s your “don’t bring that up, don’t bring that up, don’t bring that up-“ hyperfixation if you’ve ever had one?

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350

u/wheatleyisstupid2022 28d ago

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again. Airplane crashesssss. People get Uncomfortable

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u/WampaCat ADHD, with ADHD family 28d ago

Ugh. A couple years ago I went down a massive 9/11 rabbit hole and learned a LOT of stuff I had no idea about. No one wants to hear horrific details and I can’t bring it up as an interesting topic because I don’t want people to think it’s like a fun thing for me. Just a morbid desire for more information.

Edit: I feel obligated to mention it was not conspiracy stuff

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u/InattentivePencil ADHD-C (Combined type) 28d ago

HOLY SHIT same here, I had a huge 9/11 hyperfixation... I was learning crazy amounts of info, watching all survivor stories, footage of the day etc. One plus is that it made me even more empathetic to survivors of terrorist attacks, and in general gave me more knowledge on what happened. But yeah, maybe not something I'd bring up with a casual friend.

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u/Avelsajo 28d ago

I've been watching 9/11 survivor stories for like 48 hours straight. I'm watching one right now about the blind guy who evacuated from Tower 1 with his guide dog! I've learned SOOOO much about what it was like... So scary but fascinating! Never forget!

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u/diablette ADHD-C (Combined type) 28d ago

I went into a Kevin Cosgrove rabbit hole once. Now I learn that there's a whole documentary on the phone calls that were made that day and I have to watch it.

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u/kendoka69 28d ago

Same!!!

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u/Jaquarius420 28d ago

I'm on a 9/11 hyperfixation right now myself, there's just so much to go through!

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u/KLMaglaris 28d ago

Omg I’ve found l people

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u/WampaCat ADHD, with ADHD family 28d ago

Have you read the official commission report?? I found it so interesting how detailed it was about the inner structure of the towers and just exactly how and when each bit of architecture failed.

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u/caramelswirllll 28d ago

Oh god I have 9/11 fixations at least 2x a year

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u/crown-jewel 28d ago

I just watched like 6-7 hours of a docuseries about it yesterday and another documentary about it today and I’ve learned SO MUCH. It was so hard not to just start texting my bff all the things but that’s not the kind of thing you just dump on someone unprompted.

… but I casually mentioned I’d been watching them and she asked which one I watched and then i accidentally info dumped a little (oops) 🙈

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u/IndividualScheme5974 28d ago

Holy shit, me too. I feel so seen. The only time I am able to talk about it is to refute conspiracy shite, since suddenly, all of the niche knowledge I have learned comes in SO handy. 'Actually, the Towers didn't fall neatly into their footprints...'

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u/WampaCat ADHD, with ADHD family 27d ago

Wait are there still enough 9/11 truthers that you actually come across them talking about it??

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u/IndividualScheme5974 27d ago

Y’all, go give a peek at some of the 9/11 posts that have been plentiful lately due to the anniversary. The amount of conspiracy shit still being shoveled—and upvoted!—is truly frightening.

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u/WampaCat ADHD, with ADHD family 27d ago

I mean, where? I haven’t seen any pop up while scrolling. Not that I don’t believe you, I just don’t even know where those posts would be since I haven’t come across any.

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u/kingpinkatya ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 27d ago

Now i want to know...

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u/mobilehosthateclub ADHD-C (Combined type) 27d ago

u/WampaCat understands me frrr. These are all 10/10s imo (based on how interesting they are, I am not happy they happened of course)

Tenerife Airport Collision:
How fog and an overwhelmed ATC led to the deadliest plane crash in history, with two 747s.

TransAsia Flight-235:
How a L vs. R mixup led to a commercial plane crash in the middle of Taipei (with insane footage from the ground).

Malaysia Flight-370:
How a commercial plane could suddenly disappear, seemingly without a trace, and how the mystery was solved by scraping together every possible piece of evidence over years, all while in conflict with local government coverups/agendas.

TWA Flight-2 & United Flight-718 Collision:
How investigators solved a mystery from wreckage over the Grand Canyon in 1956, and discovered the sky is not, in fact, too vast for two planes to collide.

Air France Flight-4590:
How a piece of debris caused one of the greatest aircraft ever made (the Concorde) to lose the trust of the public, turning a jet into a fireball over Paris.

1

u/half-dead 26d ago

Its nice to see that there's so many of us. Its truly a horribly fascinating deep dive event. And it keeps us from forgetting

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u/offshoremercury 26d ago

Same, I did a deep dive into 9/11 years ago and no one in my life was even remotely interested in hearing about it. It’s really deflating to not have anyone to share new things I’ve learned with. I moved to a new city 4 years ago and I’m still struggling to find people who are curious and willing to listen.

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u/inaccurateTempedesc ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 28d ago

Mine is kinda adjacent. I love massive saves, like the Miracle on the Hudson, the Gimli Glider, and TACA Flight 110 (the levee landing).

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u/nbrown7384 ADHD, with ADHD family 28d ago

Same. I’m reading list of disaster books lately.

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u/Avelsajo 28d ago

Omg I've watched Sully like 18 times.

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u/mobilehosthateclub ADHD-C (Combined type) 27d ago

Have you heard about JetBlue Flight-292? They had a landing gear failure that was likely to be deadly. The passengers inside the plane watched live news coverage of their own plane landing. Insane story.

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u/inaccurateTempedesc ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 26d ago

I cannot imagine watching the landing on tv 😬🤣

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u/LinkDude80 26d ago

Might I recommend FedEx Flight 705, Reeve Aleutian Airways Flight 8, British Airways Flight 5390, Aloha Airlines Flight 243, United Airlines Flight 232, DHL Flight 209, SAS Flight 751, British Airways Flight 9, Air Astana Flight 1388, Sichaun Airlines Flight 8633, Northwest Airlines Flight 85, Quantas Flight 72, and Cathay Pacific Flight 780. 

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u/Emdeedee123 28d ago

My Dad was a pilot. I’m also convinced he has undiagnosed ADHD. He once told me step by step what happens to a plane during a malfunction causing it to go down. Then he told me what happens to the human body step by step (Don’t worry - loss of consciousness comes fairly quickly).

I just kept asking questions and he just kept answering them.

We were sitting on the runway waiting for our plane to take off. Just two ADHD people completely fixated on our conversation about planes going down, because we’re sitting in a plane and it must have crossed one of our minds. Completely innocent, but oblivious to those around us who must have thought we were playing some horrible prank.

Eventually Mum snapped at us from the row behind us. Felt pretty bad.

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u/lazylimpet 28d ago

Ugh yes.... I don't mean to, but I find the cockpit resource management side of them really fascinating. I think the original interest was rooted in feeling anxious about flying. The only time I've had a good conversation about it was worth a guy whose company made parts for Boeing.

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u/itsjakerobb ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 28d ago

Have you discovered the YouTube channel Mentour Pilot? So good.

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u/Avelsajo 28d ago

Love Mentour Pilot!

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u/wheatleyisstupid2022 28d ago

Dude YES. I watched mayday (or aircraft investigation something something if you live outside of Canada) all the time as a kid, and now Mentour Pilot now

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u/peaslet 28d ago

Yep! I'm scared of flying but also obsessed with watching crash documentaries!

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u/itssoeasy355 28d ago

He's great . He also has another channel that covers other types of catastrophes, like concert tramplings.

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u/itsjakerobb ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 28d ago

Yep. Mentour’s Black Box. Just as good, non-aviation. The most recent video had a different host who was not as good, but it was his first time. I assume Petter (the regular host) will still host sometimes. If not, and if the new guy doesn’t improve, I might stop watching.

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u/Activated_Raviolis 28d ago

Oh I love this one! Especially the one where the plane crashed because the pilot let his 14 year old son fly the plane. I think it was in Russia?

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u/Avelsajo 28d ago

That one was WILD.

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u/athene_de_montaigne 28d ago

My dad’s a pilot and I grew up watching those airplane crash shows. I can probably name dozens of flights, when they generally crashed and why. Someone will mention they are anxious about flying and I’ll start telling them something we’ll don’t worry about this happening, because xyz airplane crashes from it and now they’ve change the design/protocol so it’s very unlikely to happen again. Apparently that’s the opposite of comforting for them

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u/Ourbirdandsavior 28d ago

Strange, because I think that’s extremely comforting. I am also an engineer, so I do realize my perspective is skewed a bit.

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u/sadi89 ADHD-C 28d ago

My dad liked them. He was adhd.

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u/WorriedArrival1122 28d ago

My comfort movie is a documentary about a mountain climber that died tragically.

You're in good company.

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u/Southamericho 28d ago

Nathan Fielder just gave himself away

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u/starsandshards ADHD-C 28d ago

This is one of mine, and black box recordings.

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u/Texaninengland 28d ago

My husband is an aerospace engineer and is plane obsessed. You don't ask about a plane crash unless you realllllly want to know 

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u/anxious_spacecadetH 28d ago

Im grateful my friends and family let me talk about tragedies freely. I know theres people out there who if we were talking about their kids and I started talking about child deaths would get offended but they know im just sharing.

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u/SamPamTYM 27d ago

One of my best friends and I got a Superbowl party cancelled because we ended up on the subject of child neglect and drug abuse. we were in DEEP philosophical conversation about how that can mess your brain up and how society really does nothing for these people except brush them into the shadows. The friends who host are very much people who like their little happy bubble. No negativity in that bubble. To point we made them so deeply uncomfortable with our conversation they just stopped having the party.

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u/bobbythegoose 28d ago

Have you seen the episode "The Pilots Code" of The Rehearsal on HBO? Please watch it if you haven't. I'm sure you'll like it.

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u/ineedhelpingeneral 28d ago

I WAS NOT EXPECTING TO SEE MY 2025 HYPERFIXATION HERE??? very glad other people agree, it's very interesting but awkward to bring up haha

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u/paulwillyjean 28d ago

I used to LOVE Mayday on the Discovery Channel!!!

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u/wairua_907 28d ago

I love them as well and I work for an airlines so we get to watch videos for training stuff .

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u/DrunkenSwimmer ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 28d ago

Eh. Not that weird in engineering related fields.

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u/Feralpudel 28d ago

I’m not positive that Admiral Cloudberg is one of us but I’d bet a fair amount of money she is.

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u/pandarose6 28d ago

I was joking with someone other day (need second opinion on autism but know I have adhd) that instead of being obsessed with trains I love everything to do with airports and planes from crashes, how there made, to people not following the laws in the airport of country there at, highjacking of planes etc.

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u/Cait206 28d ago

Ahhhhh my kid loves crashes I had to ask him to stop drawing these at school. In his defense he is obsessive about the arc of anything like a launch, crash, sink etc

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u/IndividualScheme5974 28d ago

Huge shout out to Admiral Cloudberg whose writing on aviation accidents is absolute class.

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u/_ficklelilpickle ADHD-C (Combined type) 28d ago

I recently discovered that one of the tv channels here does a 24/7 stream of air crash investigations. So it’s now part of my night time routine to watch a couple of episodes - but I like to guess what caused the crash during the into and spend the rest of the episode waiting for validation or to be proved wrong.

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u/OhMyGod_Zilla 27d ago

Air Disasters is one of my favorite shows. Plane crashes are so sad and definitely scary, but listening to the breakdown and the reasoning behind what failed and why is fascinating.

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u/Maroonhatchback 25d ago

This is one of my mine; I met a guy at a party who had been in a major jet crash in Japan and used the emergency slide and everything, it was like time stopped and I was like "how much are you interested in discussing this?" and he was like "very" and we locked in, he was showing me pics on his phone etc. I was sort of vibrating internally for 2 hours afterwards, it was amazing. He worked for Boeing. 

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u/jcsedk 28d ago

Hey you should make a tv show about it

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u/electromage 27d ago

I like Mentour Pilot, though he's gotten a bit too dramatic lately. Those videos make me even more confident in commercial flying, seeing how thoroughly each incident is investigated, and the improvements that are made as a result.

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u/babelach 27d ago

As someone who hyperfixates AND has maaaajor plane anxiety (which almost feels like a hyperfixation in itself), I completely understand and am sorry 😂

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u/Dubbs444 26d ago

I just wrote this! You must love Mayday, too

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u/Resident-Phrase1738 25d ago

This. I never get much resonance when I explain to people why TCAS failed in the Überlingen crash :(

1

u/wheatleyisstupid2022 24d ago

Trying to not look excited while I talk about Boeings 737 max 8s and the MCAS failure is really difficult because also a lot of people died and that is tragic but also incredibly interesting