I would like to know the rational basis for this behavior

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I would appreciate some insight on behavior problem I had growing up. When people used to yell at me for doing something wrong I ignored them and continued. It often took 3-4 times yelling or physical contact for me to respond with action or with voice. When I try to think of why I have no clue. I would have no idea what I was thinking and why I ignored. Its like the words would go in my head, but I'm in such panic I cant understand what they mean.

I'm not sure but perhaps the extreme anxiety is preventing the processing of words. Once when I was a kid, my father went apesh!t because someone took my mother's red lipstick and made a mark on the tile in the bathroom. He lined up my sister and my younger brother and I and screamed at us like a drill sergeant. My mind went completely blank and to this day, many years later I'm not sure whether I made the mark or not. I was in my 30's before it occurred to me the problem was easily fixed with a soapy sponge. So, I think perhaps a extreme fight or flight response shuts everything else down.

I somewhat loose focus all the time... not just when my behavior is being corrected but just in general...

Not exactly thinking, and if so its typically not anything important... sometimes it's difficult to think about or pay attention to the topic at hand...

not sure what it is, but when some of the other people around here talking about having "their own world" I figure its something like my daydreaming that just for me doesn't include dreams.

I don't know if this is a similar situation but I think something like that happened to me. I was in grade 4 or 5 and I was in choir. The teacher was trying to set up the risers and benches and she kept moving us around so she could get them in place. She kept moving me back and telling me where to move and I was moving back and forth. I didn't understand what she meant and I got really anxious, she rolled her eyes at me and slammed the bench into my legs, screaming "Move!" It hurt and I had tears in my eyes but I wouldn't let myself cry. I just get confused when I have to copy what people do sometimes.

Also, when I'm being taught something and I'm really anxious, I usually don't process what people are saying due to my anxiety.

It never occurred to me to actually obey whatever the heck my parents were yelling about, which was a lot of course. They never explained why, and without the why I just couldn't fathom it. The parental rule as absolute law never worked for me, because it made no darn sense.

Yeah, I have always had trouble doing something "because I said so". Sometimes when someone says something to me and I don't respond, however, it's not because of anxiety - it's because I'm in the middle of doing a particular task and I'm focused on it, and I want to finish. What the person said is filed in my mind, to be responded to in 30 seconds or so. (This bugs people.) One thing at a time, I say!

"Fight or flight"...or freeze, I think is the new understanding. Many animals do this. I'm sorry that happened to you- it sounds traumatic.

My father would slap me in the face if I said something he perceived as "smarty", and often I'd have no idea what I'd done wrong and be unable to process the event, after. My mother did the same, right up until a couple years ago (I'm 24) when I slapped her back, in the face, and she hasn't, since.

I just started keeping my mouth shut, because it was always getting me in trouble about something. I was getting the belt to the rear once a week like clockwork for quite a while. Doesn't it just feel like we're in some twisted comedy sometimes?

Excellent question! I don't have the answers yet, but this is something I'm currently exploring with my eldest son, and something that used to happen to me, and still does but only rarely now (he's 15, and I'm 51, BTW).

For a while we were thinking it could be something like petite mal or complex seizures, based on something his vice principle suggested last year, but we're steering away from that explanation now due to how long these shutdowns (that is what they are) occur.

This used to happen with my son far more often than it does now (a couple of times per school year now, whereas it used to be several times a year). Yesterday it happened again, but not in reaction to anything out of sorts. Nobody was yelling at him, and I don't think he was receiving any undue pressure. It just seemed to happen for no apparent reason. I have asked him in the past what's happening with him during these episodes, and his answer has always been, "I don't know. It just happens, and I can't control it, or at least don't know how." Yesterday he was able to tell me (for the first time ever) that while it is happening, he is either sad or angry, but never anything else.

So in his case it's emotional, plus it adds up with what I remember from my own episodes. I was always said, angry, or frustrated. The frustration came from not being able to do anything about it, and not even understanding why it was happening.

One important thing to add: There almost never seems to be any obvious "trigger." It just happens.

I could write a book on my dad, but I'll spare you. He was a complicated man and I believe he was on the spectrum. There were just as many wonderful things as bad about him, but I am hyper-vigilant because of his temper, especially because the thing he exploded over one day was the same thing he wouldn't even notice the next day. I can tell if someone is in a bad mood just by their posture.
But I've dealt with that situation with other people. I had a boss show me how to put something together once and then told me to repeat what he had done. I said "uh" and he started screaming think! think! at me. Well, I can't think when someone is screaming "think" at me. That's just guaranteed to make my mind go completely blank.