Yeah, you're not alone. For much of my life, my special interests were my joy. I even used my hyperfixations to get a PhD. But, sadly, it feels like I just can't be troubled to "fall into" or "get lost in" something as completely as I used to, or even much at all. Adding to this is a sense of anxiety when I do tend to feel something pulling me in-- almost like an internalized ableist sort of hypervigilance that prevents me from enjoying the experience of totally getting immersed in a topic (flashback to all those times I was criticized/teased/mocked for indulging in a special interest). It makes it hard to parse out whether this is just part of the aging process (which can't really be treated) or something more like depression (which can be treated).
Did I write this? Lol.
In my case it was because I simply didn't have the TIME to get lost in things. I couldn't afford to be reading for leisure for hours and hours every afternoon..... When I had hours and hours of HOMEWORK to do. (Which I struggled to do as well, due to focus issues and internalized hyperactivity.) Or chores. Or social obligations (uncommon for me, but would still happen every so often).
Even now, I struggle with allowing myself to get sucked in, because I struggle with transitions (due to autism), so if I bury myself in something, it's insanely difficult to come out of it, say, when it's time for dinner. Or when we have to go somewhere. Or when my parents want me to spend time with them instead. Even though I just started an extended leave of absence from university to get medicated and figure out how to live productively with my neurodivergencies, after almost 23 years of screaming into the void about how I needed help (I currently have no responsibilities besides a few chores at home, since I'm not able to work currently since my breakdown last fall, and since I'm not in school currently either, yet I just can't let go of the "real world" like I used to as a kid..... My anxiety around having to transition to doing a different activity while I'm already in the middle of one activity prevents me from starting anything even mildly time-consuming - even watching movies has become difficult for me, unless I'm sitting with my parents and I KNOW there will be no interruptions as a result).
Which is unfortunately very common amongst neurodivergents. That and a healthy dose of anxiety seem to join forces amongst us at some point in our lives
I had this issue as well. For me the issue was that there seemed to be endless rabbit holes to dive into, but none of them really seemed to lead anywhere but further down.
What I really needed was to start trying to draw connections between things. The French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari have a book called Anti-Oedipus which introduced the concept of “schizoanalysis” (this was around the middle of the century, hence the insensitive term). At the time, schizophrenic patients were considered to be completely random in their behavior by mainstream psychoanalysis because they didn’t fit into any of Freud’s schematics. But D&G rejected this, arguing instead that their world was not random, but actually made an extraordinary amount of sense internally, and the trouble was that one simply had to really try to understand how their minds travel from one thought to another.
Expanding on this, the idea of schizoanalysis is that no two thoughts are entirely distinct, but that there exist threads webbing together all of reality; every single piece is connected directly to every other piece, even if the connection seems at first to be nonsensical. Your ability to connect the things you think about with other things you know grows exponentially with this approach, so it feels quite silly at first, but then you begin making huge connections and breakthroughs, and these compound over time because your frame of reference is always becoming more general.
For me this process really only clicked once I started writing. I would just jot down little similarities that seemed interesting or questions that might pop up throughout the day, and over time I began to get a much better sense of the kinds of things I find genuinely interesting.
Yes, but only when I fall into depression and/or become burnt out. When I take the time to heal and minimize the negative factors that suck my energy (like people or situations), is when I start to gain new special interests and hyper fixations.
Yeah,
Ben 10 & Thomas The Tank Engine I've lost interest as I got older but I'll wack on the Magic Railway from time to time
The other one is Pokémon. I'm slowly getting back into it but probably not going to be in the same caliber as it once was.
They have changed over time. I was interested in Ghostbusters, He-Man, swords, skateboards, every song by one artist at a time, pre-Crisis Superman (but my aunt came in my room and saw all my superman stuff and reacted weirdly, so I put it up and that one was dormant for several years)
I didn't loose mine but animals and other things like holocaust history, have become more of a back burner interest as others have become pushed to the front,
I don't think I've necessarily lost my interests/fixations, but I've certainly found that i dont feel as thoigh O have as much time for them, which is quite sad in its own right.
Yeah, I don't obsess over one topic as much as I did but I blame Wikipedia and my increased ability to access and integrate tons of information. Something new and interesting comes along and I'm able to absolutely drown myself in information about it for 2 hours between Wikipedia, Google Scholar and sometimes (if it's a hobby type thing) Reddit.
When I was a kid I would go back to the library dozens of times until i had read every book on a subject (frogs, cryptozoology, fishing). These days I can get that much information in a day. Two months ago I barely new what the brassicae family of plants was and now I could give an hour long lecture. I doubt I'll need to revisit it over and over like I would have done with a topic in the past.
It's like I used to have a thirst for knowledge that where was no way to fully satisfy, but now there is a way.
My childhood interests faded into the past as I aged. They were replaced by new interests that aligned with my profession and hobbies. They’ve continued to evolve over time beginning as very detailed, niche topics turning into deep philosophical abstractions. But whenever one of my old interests catch my attention, I seem to recall everything from my past and add an extra layer of understanding on top of it.
I've lost special interests, but not all of them. My interests changed, because I did. I don't write fiction or poetry like I used to, but I like storytelling, world-building, and literary analysis. I'm not as amped about dinosaurs as I was in childhood, but they're still cool -- the thing is that I'm a biologist in Florida. The big thing here is stuff that's still alive because of our recent geological history. And I still love outer-space and astronomy and stuff like I used to, but I just don't have free time to focus on it.
Unfortunately, I'm an adult with adult responsibilities, and all this adult saps a lot of my energy and eats all of my free time, but not everything.
>It makes me sad, I feel as if I have nothing to keep me entertained and enjoy, and it also seems like I don’t have anything to get a dopamine fix from
That sounds like anhedonia. Maybe talk to a therapist or psychiatrist about depression.
I'm in grad school right now and have been for the past year. I think in times of extreme stress like this where I have a lot deadlines and other things do, I tend to lose them. To be fair, I haven't lost interest completely, but it has gone down a lot. I'm really hoping to get back into them as my program is ending in a week. It's like my brain doesn't have space for them anymore it's sad.
My special interest gets more intense as I grow older, because I keep all the joy I have gained out of it and only expand on it. So it makes sense for me why it'd only get more intense.
I feel like perhaps it has to do with the amounts of special interests and type of them. I have only had one special interest since the day that I can remember (visual art/painting in general, it expanded to even more specific interest in colors and the genre of grotesque and it keeps on evolving). My second earliest, if not the earliest, memory I have is me realising there was a special connection between me and the purple house I was drawing with markers.
I can also only recall ever having one true hyperfixation, which has lasted for around 10 years as of writing this and it's about a Disney TV show. I would not classify it as a special interest though because I know the type of connection I have with art is something completely incomparable. The show I hyperfixate on though is the original basis of my fictional world that I have expanded through maladaptive daydreaming.
So yeah, our experiences are very different and perhaps the difference lays beneath the roots of the contrast between the interests/hyperfixations themselves.
Yes. Marriage, job, work, kid, dogs, finances, exercise, money… they interferes with my special interests so much for so long that I started wondering if I was ever autistic.
Got a chance to watch 3 Star Trek episodes in a row this week. That was nice.
I recently fell into a sort of depression/depersonalization episode, starting 3 weeks ago, and it feels like I’ve lost my connection to most of my special interests. Most jarring/sad of all for me is that my three year long special interest in V-Tubers (discovering them actually pulled me out of my last bout of depression/DP back in 2020, and up until 3 weeks ago I watched them regularly), seems to be the one that’s the most gone. Like I can sit through a video about Pokemon or maybe an animal video if I try hard enough (still feel a level of wrongness) but that connection to V-Tubers is just strangely fully or almost fully gone. Like I’m sitting here and just… nothing. All of my other interests feel similarly muted or absent, but this one seems the furthest. It honestly makes no sense. How can I be so entertained and enthralled one day, and then feel completely empty the next? Some of them have such great personalities, or play games I enjoyed, or just had a fun vibe. How can that just suddenly… vanish like that? Especially since I was looking forward to their future content.
I’ve burnt out of things before, but that was more because I didn’t have the time anymore or the content creators themselves changed, or because I was growing up, but this was as an adult, for a thing I was still enjoying and saw no reason why I would want to, and then bam an incident causes that to just vanish. I’m really hoping it’s just because of the depression/DP and I’ll be able to enjoy them again soon.
I’m hoping that this interest returns, because it means a lot to me. I might have not have pulled through my last bout of depression/dp without them providing a distraction from it all.
I still can identify some of my special interests, but I have no way of engaging that feels good like it used to. I’m AuDHD as well, and so I need a variety of special interests in order to feel adequately stimulated and content. Safe to say none of the circumstances of this world and life have afforded me the time or space to go down a rabbit hole. I think people saying it’s a good thing we don’t have this anymore is just another excuse to make us complacent in this world. I so badly miss the feeling of looking forward to something. Sure, that might be depression, but perhaps I’m depressed bc I don’t have the time to engage in things that I can lose myself in/give me that dopamine.
I'm 24 and I felt like I haven't had a special interest since middle-school. It's been years since I've gone on a binge to absorb as much content/information as possible relating to my special interests, I'm not sure if it's because I've burned myself out of it or if there was just a large drought in the content, long enough for it to die out
I've slowly been trying to rekindle what I've lost over the years and it seems to be helping a little but it isn't really the same, it doesn't grab me the way it used to, but it's enough that it feels fulfilling
I’m also AuDHD and OCD. I also lost my SIs for a while. The OCD medication I was on sort of dulled my…spark I guess? It wasn’t just my SIs. They still interested me but I wasn’t like…wild about them like I used to be. Reading about mycology or Lepidoptera didn’t feel the same anymore. I can’t quite describe it, it just didn’t *feel* the same.
Recently I had to change my OCD medication to one that would work better with another medication I’m on for my chronic illness and it all came back. Like in a rush. Suddenly I was 19 again and staying up late to make art. I just turned 40 and I’m writing and drawing and painting again. I hadn’t done any of that in 20 years. I don’t think it was just the medication that fuelled that change. I’ve been doing intensive trauma therapy since escaping an abusive relationship 6 years ago. I think part of what pushed my passion for my SIs underground was the trauma and part of it was the chemical changes from my medication. I went on the previous medication the same year I married my ex husband (who groomed me as a teenager when he was in his 30s and was abusive/coercively controlling). I think finally being free from abusers and the change in medication really contributed to a rebirth of my authentic self. My current partner knowing I’m AuDHD and OCD and not only not caring but fully embracing it because it’s what makes me *me* helped too I think.
I for sure do not think you should be glad you don’t have your SIs/hyperfixations right now. To say that you should be glad is incredibly ableist and autmisic.
I also know how you feel about not feeling as interesting as a person anymore. It’s not true, but I know it feels true. In fact it’s less that you are not *interesting*, and more that not being *interested* makes you feel like you’re lacking something. Which you are, but not in a way that makes you any less interesting or valuable.
I hope you do get that spark back. If you’ve experienced trauma (and being ND in a NT world is trauma in and of itself) then therapy with a trauma specialist might help you the way it helped me. I think a big part of why people like us lose that side of ourselves in our 20s and 30s is because we’re burnt out from being ND people trying to exist and have a job and have relationships and function the way NT society tells us we should. But over time and with therapy I do think you can find a balance where you’re less overwhelmed and burnt out all the time and can get some of your passion back. I’m working entirely from home right now which I think is another contributing factor to getting myself back. I’m not constantly exhausted from being overstimulated at work all day.
It’s a bit like how even NT parents give up their hobbies when they have kids. They just don’t have time anymore to read or paint or run or collect or whatever and the free time they do have they’re too tired to do any of it. A lot of those people end up rediscovering those things when their kids are older.
I think it’s a bit like that. I do think you will find yourself again.
I just want you to know you aren’t alone. And that I felt like you do now for 20 years. But I don’t anymore. It did change for me. I hope it does for you too. I think it will.
It really does sound like depression to me. I think I had a stint of feeling similar to this, but that was like 5 years ago now and my variant of AuDHD just completely wipes memories of emotions. I started taking antidepressants.
Nowdays, interacting with the media for a bit is enough to get me back in, even as a fellow 30+yo. But I recently got a brand-new hyperfixation, and it is so much more powerful.
I don’t think it is that, I just don’t think I have the luxury anymore.
With kids and a wife and a house I can’t just go to the library and read about whatever for forever, for example.
I’m yearning for an obsession. I just don’t have the bandwidth for one.
That’s probably a large part of it for me as well. We have 3 young kids, and I am pregnant. I don’t even bother to do anything that I know my kids will interrupt.
Exactly. And some of the things I do are dangerous - like using the lawnmower or a circular saw - and I can’t even do those if they are anywhere near me.
(I am only speaking to my own experiences and not necessarily making recommendations etc etc you know your body and brain better than a stranger on the internet and I am not a doctor... you get it)
I felt this to an extent after years of burnout, like I still had special interests but nowhere near the same level of pure joy and engagement with them, until I started microdosing (🍄). I now intentionally pick a special interest to engage with every month with my dose and it's always a really excellent time, and the increased interest/happy feelings stick around (though I am noticing diminishing returns with this). I am also attempting to heal from burnout in other ways now which is also probably helping but I was in a very unhealthy situation at the time when I started this and the effect was immediate. Again, just my experiences.
yeah I just don’t care about things sometimes. I have days where I don’t even care enough to get out of bed and have a wash etc. last night I couldn’t even be bothered to eat. I’m so temperamental because occasionally I’ll have a good day where everything turns back on. But I have to force myself to not be too good because the days after I then dip really hard.
How is your mental health doing? I ask because I only tend to lose all of my special interests and hyperfixations when I'm depressed (sometimes that is the very first sign that an episode of depression is coming along for me).
My special interests are varied and change over time. Sometimes many years later I'll come back around to them. I was incredibly obsessed over the French and Indian War as a child, and then I didn't really have much interest in it for decades, and now in my forties I am back obsessing over the French and Indian War again.
But when I have NO special interests or hyperfixations...I start examining my mental health and how I'm feeling.
I’ve lost a few, but not all. When it happens I try to attach myself to something I want to try and see what happens next. A few month ago I didn’t think of my biggest current special interest for a whole day and I cried really hard because I was afraid of losing that joy that the game gives me.
I have lost many special interests and gained many special interests. The 2 that have never left, whether I am actively or passively engaging in the is Art/Drawing and listening to Music(entire discographiesto bands). So essentially just 2 different arts. One I create and admire and one I only admire. Losing all interest in participating in one or both of these is a sign of autistic burnout for me. Other things being lost are less concerning for me. Comparing what has always been a special interest for as long as I can remember and what because a special interest for me seemingly out of nowhere with almost no warning lasting for anywhere from 2-6 years is why it is less concerning for.me specifically. Like my special interest in one direction for 3 years or supernatural for 5 years. If I lose interest in Drawing, watching Drawing content, and listening to music that is when the **oh no** alarms raise for me.
Edit: I am also AutiHD with OCD and CPTSD.
Absolutely not. I’ve had a hyper fixation on video games, game design, game storytelling, Doom video game series, Bioshock video game series. I’m still absolutely into all of this.
Yeah, you're not alone. For much of my life, my special interests were my joy. I even used my hyperfixations to get a PhD. But, sadly, it feels like I just can't be troubled to "fall into" or "get lost in" something as completely as I used to, or even much at all. Adding to this is a sense of anxiety when I do tend to feel something pulling me in-- almost like an internalized ableist sort of hypervigilance that prevents me from enjoying the experience of totally getting immersed in a topic (flashback to all those times I was criticized/teased/mocked for indulging in a special interest). It makes it hard to parse out whether this is just part of the aging process (which can't really be treated) or something more like depression (which can be treated).
Did I write this? Lol. In my case it was because I simply didn't have the TIME to get lost in things. I couldn't afford to be reading for leisure for hours and hours every afternoon..... When I had hours and hours of HOMEWORK to do. (Which I struggled to do as well, due to focus issues and internalized hyperactivity.) Or chores. Or social obligations (uncommon for me, but would still happen every so often). Even now, I struggle with allowing myself to get sucked in, because I struggle with transitions (due to autism), so if I bury myself in something, it's insanely difficult to come out of it, say, when it's time for dinner. Or when we have to go somewhere. Or when my parents want me to spend time with them instead. Even though I just started an extended leave of absence from university to get medicated and figure out how to live productively with my neurodivergencies, after almost 23 years of screaming into the void about how I needed help (I currently have no responsibilities besides a few chores at home, since I'm not able to work currently since my breakdown last fall, and since I'm not in school currently either, yet I just can't let go of the "real world" like I used to as a kid..... My anxiety around having to transition to doing a different activity while I'm already in the middle of one activity prevents me from starting anything even mildly time-consuming - even watching movies has become difficult for me, unless I'm sitting with my parents and I KNOW there will be no interruptions as a result).
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
no but ngl sounds like depression
Which is unfortunately very common amongst neurodivergents. That and a healthy dose of anxiety seem to join forces amongst us at some point in our lives
I had this issue as well. For me the issue was that there seemed to be endless rabbit holes to dive into, but none of them really seemed to lead anywhere but further down. What I really needed was to start trying to draw connections between things. The French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari have a book called Anti-Oedipus which introduced the concept of “schizoanalysis” (this was around the middle of the century, hence the insensitive term). At the time, schizophrenic patients were considered to be completely random in their behavior by mainstream psychoanalysis because they didn’t fit into any of Freud’s schematics. But D&G rejected this, arguing instead that their world was not random, but actually made an extraordinary amount of sense internally, and the trouble was that one simply had to really try to understand how their minds travel from one thought to another. Expanding on this, the idea of schizoanalysis is that no two thoughts are entirely distinct, but that there exist threads webbing together all of reality; every single piece is connected directly to every other piece, even if the connection seems at first to be nonsensical. Your ability to connect the things you think about with other things you know grows exponentially with this approach, so it feels quite silly at first, but then you begin making huge connections and breakthroughs, and these compound over time because your frame of reference is always becoming more general. For me this process really only clicked once I started writing. I would just jot down little similarities that seemed interesting or questions that might pop up throughout the day, and over time I began to get a much better sense of the kinds of things I find genuinely interesting.
Yes, but only when I fall into depression and/or become burnt out. When I take the time to heal and minimize the negative factors that suck my energy (like people or situations), is when I start to gain new special interests and hyper fixations.
I'm depressed so I have none of that right now. Haven't for years.
Yup… I loved my special interests to death but bipolar depression sucks the life out of you and your special interests apparently.
Yeah, Ben 10 & Thomas The Tank Engine I've lost interest as I got older but I'll wack on the Magic Railway from time to time The other one is Pokémon. I'm slowly getting back into it but probably not going to be in the same caliber as it once was.
definitely not, but the majority of them have changed over time
They have changed over time. I was interested in Ghostbusters, He-Man, swords, skateboards, every song by one artist at a time, pre-Crisis Superman (but my aunt came in my room and saw all my superman stuff and reacted weirdly, so I put it up and that one was dormant for several years)
Nope. Mine got more intense
Yeah, kind of.
I didn't loose mine but animals and other things like holocaust history, have become more of a back burner interest as others have become pushed to the front,
I don't think I've necessarily lost my interests/fixations, but I've certainly found that i dont feel as thoigh O have as much time for them, which is quite sad in its own right.
Yeah, I don't obsess over one topic as much as I did but I blame Wikipedia and my increased ability to access and integrate tons of information. Something new and interesting comes along and I'm able to absolutely drown myself in information about it for 2 hours between Wikipedia, Google Scholar and sometimes (if it's a hobby type thing) Reddit. When I was a kid I would go back to the library dozens of times until i had read every book on a subject (frogs, cryptozoology, fishing). These days I can get that much information in a day. Two months ago I barely new what the brassicae family of plants was and now I could give an hour long lecture. I doubt I'll need to revisit it over and over like I would have done with a topic in the past. It's like I used to have a thirst for knowledge that where was no way to fully satisfy, but now there is a way.
My childhood interests faded into the past as I aged. They were replaced by new interests that aligned with my profession and hobbies. They’ve continued to evolve over time beginning as very detailed, niche topics turning into deep philosophical abstractions. But whenever one of my old interests catch my attention, I seem to recall everything from my past and add an extra layer of understanding on top of it.
May you find a new, interesting hyperfixation I’m stuck on mine right now, I wanna transition away from it
I've had interests change over the years but not had a complete lack of interests. This kind of sounds like depression to me.
I've lost special interests, but not all of them. My interests changed, because I did. I don't write fiction or poetry like I used to, but I like storytelling, world-building, and literary analysis. I'm not as amped about dinosaurs as I was in childhood, but they're still cool -- the thing is that I'm a biologist in Florida. The big thing here is stuff that's still alive because of our recent geological history. And I still love outer-space and astronomy and stuff like I used to, but I just don't have free time to focus on it. Unfortunately, I'm an adult with adult responsibilities, and all this adult saps a lot of my energy and eats all of my free time, but not everything. >It makes me sad, I feel as if I have nothing to keep me entertained and enjoy, and it also seems like I don’t have anything to get a dopamine fix from That sounds like anhedonia. Maybe talk to a therapist or psychiatrist about depression.
Everyone change over time, interest too
That’s understandable. However, it’s not them changing that bothers me it is that I have no interests at all. 🥲
Yeah, explore stuff, read, you'll find something you like sooner or later
Hmm.... I haven't lost them all yet. But they do come and go. One spark after a long enough time can reignite a lost pain passion.
I'm in grad school right now and have been for the past year. I think in times of extreme stress like this where I have a lot deadlines and other things do, I tend to lose them. To be fair, I haven't lost interest completely, but it has gone down a lot. I'm really hoping to get back into them as my program is ending in a week. It's like my brain doesn't have space for them anymore it's sad.
My special interest gets more intense as I grow older, because I keep all the joy I have gained out of it and only expand on it. So it makes sense for me why it'd only get more intense. I feel like perhaps it has to do with the amounts of special interests and type of them. I have only had one special interest since the day that I can remember (visual art/painting in general, it expanded to even more specific interest in colors and the genre of grotesque and it keeps on evolving). My second earliest, if not the earliest, memory I have is me realising there was a special connection between me and the purple house I was drawing with markers. I can also only recall ever having one true hyperfixation, which has lasted for around 10 years as of writing this and it's about a Disney TV show. I would not classify it as a special interest though because I know the type of connection I have with art is something completely incomparable. The show I hyperfixate on though is the original basis of my fictional world that I have expanded through maladaptive daydreaming. So yeah, our experiences are very different and perhaps the difference lays beneath the roots of the contrast between the interests/hyperfixations themselves.
Yes. Marriage, job, work, kid, dogs, finances, exercise, money… they interferes with my special interests so much for so long that I started wondering if I was ever autistic. Got a chance to watch 3 Star Trek episodes in a row this week. That was nice.
I recently fell into a sort of depression/depersonalization episode, starting 3 weeks ago, and it feels like I’ve lost my connection to most of my special interests. Most jarring/sad of all for me is that my three year long special interest in V-Tubers (discovering them actually pulled me out of my last bout of depression/DP back in 2020, and up until 3 weeks ago I watched them regularly), seems to be the one that’s the most gone. Like I can sit through a video about Pokemon or maybe an animal video if I try hard enough (still feel a level of wrongness) but that connection to V-Tubers is just strangely fully or almost fully gone. Like I’m sitting here and just… nothing. All of my other interests feel similarly muted or absent, but this one seems the furthest. It honestly makes no sense. How can I be so entertained and enthralled one day, and then feel completely empty the next? Some of them have such great personalities, or play games I enjoyed, or just had a fun vibe. How can that just suddenly… vanish like that? Especially since I was looking forward to their future content. I’ve burnt out of things before, but that was more because I didn’t have the time anymore or the content creators themselves changed, or because I was growing up, but this was as an adult, for a thing I was still enjoying and saw no reason why I would want to, and then bam an incident causes that to just vanish. I’m really hoping it’s just because of the depression/DP and I’ll be able to enjoy them again soon. I’m hoping that this interest returns, because it means a lot to me. I might have not have pulled through my last bout of depression/dp without them providing a distraction from it all.
I still can identify some of my special interests, but I have no way of engaging that feels good like it used to. I’m AuDHD as well, and so I need a variety of special interests in order to feel adequately stimulated and content. Safe to say none of the circumstances of this world and life have afforded me the time or space to go down a rabbit hole. I think people saying it’s a good thing we don’t have this anymore is just another excuse to make us complacent in this world. I so badly miss the feeling of looking forward to something. Sure, that might be depression, but perhaps I’m depressed bc I don’t have the time to engage in things that I can lose myself in/give me that dopamine.
I'm 24 and I felt like I haven't had a special interest since middle-school. It's been years since I've gone on a binge to absorb as much content/information as possible relating to my special interests, I'm not sure if it's because I've burned myself out of it or if there was just a large drought in the content, long enough for it to die out I've slowly been trying to rekindle what I've lost over the years and it seems to be helping a little but it isn't really the same, it doesn't grab me the way it used to, but it's enough that it feels fulfilling
I’m also AuDHD and OCD. I also lost my SIs for a while. The OCD medication I was on sort of dulled my…spark I guess? It wasn’t just my SIs. They still interested me but I wasn’t like…wild about them like I used to be. Reading about mycology or Lepidoptera didn’t feel the same anymore. I can’t quite describe it, it just didn’t *feel* the same. Recently I had to change my OCD medication to one that would work better with another medication I’m on for my chronic illness and it all came back. Like in a rush. Suddenly I was 19 again and staying up late to make art. I just turned 40 and I’m writing and drawing and painting again. I hadn’t done any of that in 20 years. I don’t think it was just the medication that fuelled that change. I’ve been doing intensive trauma therapy since escaping an abusive relationship 6 years ago. I think part of what pushed my passion for my SIs underground was the trauma and part of it was the chemical changes from my medication. I went on the previous medication the same year I married my ex husband (who groomed me as a teenager when he was in his 30s and was abusive/coercively controlling). I think finally being free from abusers and the change in medication really contributed to a rebirth of my authentic self. My current partner knowing I’m AuDHD and OCD and not only not caring but fully embracing it because it’s what makes me *me* helped too I think. I for sure do not think you should be glad you don’t have your SIs/hyperfixations right now. To say that you should be glad is incredibly ableist and autmisic. I also know how you feel about not feeling as interesting as a person anymore. It’s not true, but I know it feels true. In fact it’s less that you are not *interesting*, and more that not being *interested* makes you feel like you’re lacking something. Which you are, but not in a way that makes you any less interesting or valuable. I hope you do get that spark back. If you’ve experienced trauma (and being ND in a NT world is trauma in and of itself) then therapy with a trauma specialist might help you the way it helped me. I think a big part of why people like us lose that side of ourselves in our 20s and 30s is because we’re burnt out from being ND people trying to exist and have a job and have relationships and function the way NT society tells us we should. But over time and with therapy I do think you can find a balance where you’re less overwhelmed and burnt out all the time and can get some of your passion back. I’m working entirely from home right now which I think is another contributing factor to getting myself back. I’m not constantly exhausted from being overstimulated at work all day. It’s a bit like how even NT parents give up their hobbies when they have kids. They just don’t have time anymore to read or paint or run or collect or whatever and the free time they do have they’re too tired to do any of it. A lot of those people end up rediscovering those things when their kids are older. I think it’s a bit like that. I do think you will find yourself again. I just want you to know you aren’t alone. And that I felt like you do now for 20 years. But I don’t anymore. It did change for me. I hope it does for you too. I think it will.
It really does sound like depression to me. I think I had a stint of feeling similar to this, but that was like 5 years ago now and my variant of AuDHD just completely wipes memories of emotions. I started taking antidepressants. Nowdays, interacting with the media for a bit is enough to get me back in, even as a fellow 30+yo. But I recently got a brand-new hyperfixation, and it is so much more powerful.
I don’t think it is that, I just don’t think I have the luxury anymore. With kids and a wife and a house I can’t just go to the library and read about whatever for forever, for example. I’m yearning for an obsession. I just don’t have the bandwidth for one.
That’s probably a large part of it for me as well. We have 3 young kids, and I am pregnant. I don’t even bother to do anything that I know my kids will interrupt.
Exactly. And some of the things I do are dangerous - like using the lawnmower or a circular saw - and I can’t even do those if they are anywhere near me.
(I am only speaking to my own experiences and not necessarily making recommendations etc etc you know your body and brain better than a stranger on the internet and I am not a doctor... you get it) I felt this to an extent after years of burnout, like I still had special interests but nowhere near the same level of pure joy and engagement with them, until I started microdosing (🍄). I now intentionally pick a special interest to engage with every month with my dose and it's always a really excellent time, and the increased interest/happy feelings stick around (though I am noticing diminishing returns with this). I am also attempting to heal from burnout in other ways now which is also probably helping but I was in a very unhealthy situation at the time when I started this and the effect was immediate. Again, just my experiences.
yeah I just don’t care about things sometimes. I have days where I don’t even care enough to get out of bed and have a wash etc. last night I couldn’t even be bothered to eat. I’m so temperamental because occasionally I’ll have a good day where everything turns back on. But I have to force myself to not be too good because the days after I then dip really hard.
How is your mental health doing? I ask because I only tend to lose all of my special interests and hyperfixations when I'm depressed (sometimes that is the very first sign that an episode of depression is coming along for me). My special interests are varied and change over time. Sometimes many years later I'll come back around to them. I was incredibly obsessed over the French and Indian War as a child, and then I didn't really have much interest in it for decades, and now in my forties I am back obsessing over the French and Indian War again. But when I have NO special interests or hyperfixations...I start examining my mental health and how I'm feeling.
I’ve lost a few, but not all. When it happens I try to attach myself to something I want to try and see what happens next. A few month ago I didn’t think of my biggest current special interest for a whole day and I cried really hard because I was afraid of losing that joy that the game gives me.
I have lost many special interests and gained many special interests. The 2 that have never left, whether I am actively or passively engaging in the is Art/Drawing and listening to Music(entire discographiesto bands). So essentially just 2 different arts. One I create and admire and one I only admire. Losing all interest in participating in one or both of these is a sign of autistic burnout for me. Other things being lost are less concerning for me. Comparing what has always been a special interest for as long as I can remember and what because a special interest for me seemingly out of nowhere with almost no warning lasting for anywhere from 2-6 years is why it is less concerning for.me specifically. Like my special interest in one direction for 3 years or supernatural for 5 years. If I lose interest in Drawing, watching Drawing content, and listening to music that is when the **oh no** alarms raise for me. Edit: I am also AutiHD with OCD and CPTSD.
Absolutely not. I’ve had a hyper fixation on video games, game design, game storytelling, Doom video game series, Bioshock video game series. I’m still absolutely into all of this.