Do U suddenly get burnt-out on a special interest/obsession?

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I'm not sure if this is somehow related to my problems concentrating lately but I haven't been interested in my obsession the last couple days & I haven't been interested in anything else either. No other obsession or interest has taken it's place rite now. The 2nd to last obsession I had was very bad for me but the last was causing me some problems to. I may be being prematurely optimistic here but so for it seems to have served it's purpose of getting me over the other one & if I really am over this one to; I'm kinda glad. I posted this in the Random section because I'm not asking for advice or anything. I'm wondering if suddenly getting burnt-out after being completely obsessed for a while is common & if so what happens. Does the obsession suddenly return after a bit, does an old one suddenly return, do you suddenly fine a new one ect

I don't think I've really had a special interest that out of nowhere I just thought that it wasn't interesting at all. I think with the things I consider special interests... my enthusiasm towards them fluctuate. I mean, there are special interests I grew out of like collecting toy cars and stuff as a kid... But the things I consider my special interests are Drawing, playing video games, and playing the guitar.

Really though, for example, I just got super interested in the guitar again even though I hadn't seriously played since I was like 19 or so. I had played a few times off and on, but usually in the mind set of... "hey look that's my guitar", and then I'd play and think..."alright". Now I'm playing and having fun with it... and it feels like a special interest despite me being so rusty .

Right now though I've limited my game playing time to only playing with friends so that I can find time for other things... like work on my art portfolio that I've been procrastinating on . Now I think I've found more time to think about art and somehow, cutting back on my game playing has opened up the ability to have my three longest living special interests at the same time . But this is the first time I haven't just been ultra absorbed into one with no others. I think mine usually come in shifts though .

I guess there have been some that burnt out permanently... Hehe I don't see myself going back to playing magic the gathering

Although I could potentially go back to painting warhammer 40k models ... although that sounds rather anti-social to the max .

I have been in the sad boat of being bored and unenthused with my special interests though. It's as if nothing was that interesting. Actually that happens to me on occasion. I sometimes realize that that happens more when I'm depressed. It makes everything rather boring . Although, sometimes it's because there's something I want to do, or someone I want to talk to and can't... and that makes my special interests not as interesting as wishing I was doing what I really want to do .

Last edited by Lace-Bane on 18 Feb 2011, 2:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not really sure that I have special interests, but I'm really just comparing myself to what I read here. My friends/family would probably say I have special interests.

And yes, I get intensely interested in something for a while, fairly quickly get burnt out, and continue the cycle with something else. I often go back to something I was interested in before, though. I have broader interests that I maintain, like animals, but then I pick a smaller focus...recently I was interested in herptiles then aquatic species and now it's birds

I stopped obsessing over A league of Their Own in April 2010 when I got pregnant. Now I haven't really obsessed over anything. I feel cured now. I have been reading into dead malls and one of the malls here about the history of it and it got stuck in my head, I just wish I'd find new information about it than finding the same old photos and same information so I stopped looking it up. I have also looked up some old buildings and looking at abandoned places. These are one of my interests. I am also interested in vintage malls. I like Southgate Mall in Missoula, MT because the floor there looks so original and the place hasn't been updated in a few decades it looks like. Last time I was there (2009) it was still the same. I like any mall that hasn't been updated and it looks original.

I still have AS on my mind but looking it up is old information and I would rather read books on it. I have a bunch of them on my ebook to purchase but I can't make up my mind about which one I should buy. I also have other books that are un autism related and I also can't make up my mind.

Sometimes it saddens me I don't have an obsession right now because I have nothing to focus on and I am at lost. I have gone through this when I was 15 and my school counselor kept pestering me about it asking if I have gotten a new obsession yet. Then I finally did. The Legend of Zelda. I got a crush on Link and started looking up the games. I remember I was so into video games I would look them up and try and find out what year a game came out and reading about the history of them.

Yes. In Long Walk by Stephen King one character at one point explains it in this way that one day he was interested with something (and was so for quite a long time, don't interpret this literally as a one day lasting interest) and when the next day he woke up, he was completely indifferent to this thing (I believe it was about painting).

I'd say all my interests I ever had, from the beginnings of Christianity to astrology and astronomy which predated my very recent interests, are stored somewhere in my brain and kept for the future upcoming. At one point I'm interested with something (now my interests I am having now aren't very ambitious - Anne Rice's novels and old NES games) but there's still that potential for my starting to be interested with something else out of the fields of interest that are stored by me. Whenever I get a new interest, I just add it to the store and the interests are awaiting their awakening one day. One burns out only to become replaced by something else out of this mental store or something new.

I've recently gotten out of an obsession with the Columbine massacre. It began in August of last year and only lasted several months. At the time, it was pretty much all I ever thought about, and I spent countless hours on the internet researching the event. Now, I'm completely over it, although I still find it interesting to an extent.

I find something can come along and displace "it" to inactivity, and the feeling is one of idleness, emptiness and boredom. Something will come along later and it 'resets' itself.
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As far as I can recall I have always been in the throes of "these," and before my knowledge of the spectrum, I knew there were was something askew here or or out of the 'norm'-- it's a visceral sense I guess because they occupy so much of your mind as this displaces other things in its wake.

A couple of times I've had a few days where my special interests aren't as special as they usually are. I hate that when that happens, because I worry that I'll lose it forever and I love my special interests I can't get enough of them. But each time after a week or so of these breaks it's back in full swing, actually I end up doing some big obsession marathon where I'm searching for pictures on google images or finding some new articles and studies. Then it goes back to normal.

I find new things that replace old things. I have a new interest every 2 weeks or so. My newest interest is this, the WrongPlanet forum.

My brain is taking an intellectual vacation right now. I haven't spent this long a span of not researching in quite a time, lol.

I will burn out on this soon, I'm sure. I hope not, though. I enjoy it here. But I enjoy all my interest.

It's not that I lose interest. It's is that new things excite me so. And I must know everything!

I've been hooked on this site since the day I joined lol. I expected to get bored after a few months or weeks or so, which is usually the case on sites I join but not this one.

I got burned out on my Routemaster obsession, because I was the only one who understood it here and offline.

My interests normally last about 6 months to 3 years. At some point during this time frame, I'll wake up one day and find that I feel burned out on whatever it is that I'm obsessed with.

I'm always sad when this happens because it's out of my control. It is especially saddening to me if I had a strong emotional connection with the interest. Once I have become burned out on an obsession, I never go back to it even if I try to force myself to. I inwardly mourn for my lost interest and try to find something else to take its place.

Sometimes I am already getting into a new obsession by the time I get burned out on an old one. That's the best-case scenario because my love for my new obsession helps take away some of the pain of losing my old one, and it also eliminates the need for searching.

But other times I get burned out on an obsession and there is nothing to immediately take its place. That's when I have to go on a search for a new one. This search can last for days, weeks or even months until I find something that "clicks". Just as I can't control when I lose an obsession, I can't control when I gain a new one. As someone once said in another thread, it often feels as though you don't choose your special interests - they choose you.

All that being said, I'm dreading the day I lose my obsession with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. It's a very sentimental obsession to me for many reasons, so the day I become burned out on it will be a very sad day for me indeed.

I'll be a Kinks Fan for life. I won't get burned out on that special interest.

Me, Siouxsie Sioux for life!

Very much so, but I don't always have something to replace my old obsession. There are times where I'll go weeks and weeks feeling listeless, because the old things don't interest me anymore even though I want them to. But when something becomes my main interest it becomes hard to even sleep, because I'll lay there thinking about it instead. But oh, those times when nothing is interesting to me, those are terrible. D: