Lived experience
What looked like love bombing was just my hyperfocus
August 24, 2026 · 4 min read
Short version
- Hyperfocus can make a new person the most interesting thing in the world — for a while.
- Attention fading is not feelings fading, but it looks identical from the outside.
- Naming the cycle early prevents the worst misreading.
The six-week sunrise
We met in March. By April I knew their coffee order, their childhood dog's name, their boss's latest crime against sanity, and the exact cadence of their laugh.
I texted good morning before I was fully awake and goodnight sometime after 2am. I planned a weekend trip in week three and meant every word of it. Every spare thought orbited this person, and the orbiting felt like devotion.
From the outside, it looked like love bombing. From the inside, the most interesting thing in the world had arrived, and it was them.
The spotlight moves
Week seven, a new project at work swallowed my brain whole. The good-morning texts became noon texts, then a single “sorry, today ran away from me” sent at midnight.
My feelings had not changed by one degree. Hyperfocus is a spotlight, not a promise — and it had swung to the next fascinating thing without consulting either of us.
- What they saw: intoxicating intensity, then sudden withdrawal.
- What I felt: the same love, plus a new fixation eating my waking hours.
- What they concluded: the whole thing had been a tactic.
The misreading hurts both sides
They grieved a version of me that was never sustainable. Nobody stays in week-three mode forever, ADHD or not — but they didn't know that version had an expiry date, because I didn't know either.
I grieved too, quietly convinced I was incapable of loving anyone steadily. Both of our stories were wrong. The intensity was completely real while it lasted, and the attachment underneath it never left.
The cycle was the problem, not the love.
What I say now
Early in anything new, I name the pattern out loud: I come on strong, and then I go quiet, and the quiet is not about you. It lands awkwardly every single time. It also lands.
What actually helps is unglamorous: a standing low-effort ritual, like a voice note on my commute or a meme that says “still here.” Contact that costs me thirty seconds and tells them the spotlight hasn't left the building.
