When Good Interests Go Bad: A Support Thread

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I would say it is pretty surely not ADD since I have ADD and have the opposite problem that my interest takes away from what I have to do. I think I am very lucky none of my characters have been the type to scrimp on education or I would never get the grades I have!

Hmm, interesting, thank you.
Another thing is that my focusing issues became much, much worse after I was diagnosed with anxiety/depression.
Besides the sensory and Aspie traits I have always had, my life was pretty normal. Then out of nowhere one night I had a panic attack. After 2 years, I overcame both panic disorder and depression (that I had been diagnosed with shortly after that first panic attack), but since then my focusing has just been terrible. Before that time, I could read books. Now I have a lot of trouble doing that. It doesn't happen anymore.

I have made a fairly successful career out of my special interest of about 15 years, but now I have lost interest in it. I have to keep working, but I have solved all the big puzzles, plumbed the depths of information on the topic, and the rest I find boring. I need to do something to motivate myself to continue, otherwise my career will suffer. Please help- Anyone have ideas?

Strange I also find it harder to read now, I also have anxiety and depression that dips in and out. I can see how this would be difficult, I know you have probably been told this before, but try to make yourself keep going, try to find a book you used to love that was funny or exciting and make yourself get into it you will probably enjoy it when you are there. I am like this wih writing and drawing as well I love the creative trio but a bad day or feeling low is very distracting, I tried this today, worrying about losing an interest I then came and wrote about it, I got sucked straight back in and felt much better. All you can do is try different things and see what works for you, hope this helps.

Joe90 - I'm very sorry that your interest is basically being forced to end due to circumstances beyond your control. That must be really hard on you. If it makes you feel any better, something similar happened to me when I was a child. Someone taped The Nightmare Before Christmas for me on VHS, and I loved it. I think that it may have eventually turned into a full-blown special interest if I had watched it enough times, but shortly after I received the tape, my dad - who was going through a period of religious fanaticism at the time - deemed the movie "evil" and taped over it with some televangelist program. Ironically, within recent years it has become one of his favorite movies now that he's older and a lot less high-strung.

1000Knives - While it seems to be true that figure skating is a cutthroat sport (the Tonya Harding incident comes to mind), you shouldn't let other people's opinions affect your enjoyment of it. I know it is easier said than done - I myself struggle with it every day - but ultimately the choices that you make in life have to be made according to what works for you, as long as what you do isn't hurting anyone. Something that helps me to put things into perspective is, why care so much what a stranger thinks? What makes their opinion so special? What made them the ultimate authority on whatever it is that you want to do? The only people you should listen to are the people who you actually respect. Everyone else can screw themselves.

Yeah, I will work on that, thank you

I learned to sing classical music for over 10 years. I was stubborn that I wanted to join those classes when I was a kid and I used to love singing even in front of people. Then I did not want to sing for a bit because.... I didnt like the way my voice sounded when recorded. I became incredibly shy and did not want to sing.
I have even performed on stage as a part of a group and alone.
Then I moved to a new city.Nobody knows me here.I just have to practice so as to not lose my voice. I am too shy. I want to sing but I am scared someone will hear it. But I also have an excuse for not singing that there is nobody to listen to me anyway. I actually have been complimented for my voice and for my vocal skills so I should not have a problem.
This contradictory comments on my head really frustrate me sometimes and I am irritated with myself.
Anyway to be in touch with music I started learning violin now. But I really would like to go back to singing.

I really enjoyed postcrossing for a bit. It is a site which facilitates you to send post cards to anyone in the world and you can get one back from someone else for each one you send. I even had a wild idea that I would find a pen pal there and that would be cool.I started thinking of how much I would divulge if I even get a pen pal and so on.
I used to buy lots of post cards where ever I see them.My wallet always had stamps. I was always prepared. I totally lost interest in 3 months.

My problem is when I find a new interest, I dream/fantasize about it too much. Then I see it doesnt move as fast as it does in my head and lose interest and find something else. I get frustrated about my lack of patience.

I would actually like to add a problem of my own, since every night and day- evening is the worst- I am going through more anxiety and pain that I don't need all over again. Has anyone ever had it happen that they have a special interest for a long time then I faded away slowly and you are left fumbling about with smaller ones? This happened to me this year, at the moment- even though I have only had this for two weeks- I feel I've grabbed onto a very old interest and it is staying at the moment. It is however not nearly as strong as my other interests have been before. I don't know if this is because I had my last interest for so long that I'm not attaching in the same way, if this means it will be another very short interest or what. I get to this time every night and I feel very down because I begin to realise I'm not thinking as enthusiastically about this interest as I should be. This makes me panic that I'm loosing it. Is there anything I can do? I don't want to have to feel so down. I have found once I force myself to do something I do get into it but I constantly panic that this will end soon.
I'm also getting little sparks from my old interest and this makes me panic because I don't want to go back there incase I end up feeling even more like I do now. I panic so much about when an interest will be over that I almost don't enjoy it when I've got it, especially since this is the first low key one I've had for a very long time.

You just keep working, but find more hobbies. Don't be afraid to change them just because you put all the effort into it. Once you get a new job from your hobby, you'll probably get interest in that hobby all over again anyway! I'm sure you'll figure it out! Especially if you've gotten that far with one hobby! Now I'm curious, what is this hobby of yours that you no longer crave, and have made a living out of?

I've decided for myself that I'm never going to have the same job throughout my whole life, unless I reach the point of plenty of residual income that i don't have to work a ton for, which would let me pursue all my other hobbies! The monotony would kill me!! ! I have like 5 hobbies I would be willing to make a career out of and like infinity interests that I'm willing to make small job opportunities out of!! I go back and forth with all my hobbies, continually develop new interests that I purge the internet for information about, and sometimes turn my interests into hobbies!

I count myself lucky that despite having loved and lost a number of special interests something has always fallen into the place and become the new special interest, I've never been without and given that it's the biggest love of my life (other than my mum, dad and animals) I feel lucky about that. I think having a strong obsessive compulsive aspect to my personality has helped in that I've always had a mixture of special interests, short term obsessions, rituals and routines.
That being said, 10 years ago food and dieting became the special interest and that has, in part, led to 10 years of eating disordered hell. It has developed into a very strong special interest in a number of areas of psychology and I know that will be the key to recovery but letting go of the ED has proved to be incredibly difficult. Clearly my ED is far more complicated than just a special interest but that's a part of it and I would miss it, despite the fact that I hate it in many many ways.

I have had to kind of involuntarily relinquish all my special interests due to a lack of free time to pursue them and I'm getting more depressed by the day. I used to sit at my desk and knit at work but I got in trouble for that so I fiddle around here instead. I'd knit at home but with an autistic son running around grabbing and throwing things and other responsibilities of the home to deal with, I only have an hour of downtime a day.

My interests have run together--that's not right, not run together, but one has grown from another in a long "interest chain" from when I was little. It might be fun to try to trace it all back some time.

I'd like to say my son is my special interest but since I have a damn day job, I don't get to be around him anywhere near enough and when I am, he's such a sensory nightmare for me with all the motion and noise he generates. If I'd been able to stay home with him we'd probably have a much better rapport than we do. He and his daddy are sooo close. I feel left out.

That is very true with me. Last Nov., my nephew Montana took me to the Best Buy in Greenville, and I purchased several releases of what I thought at the time were some pretty good shows (Remington Steele, Bob Newhart, Perry Mason, Knots Landing). Bob Newhart and Perry Mason I'm good with, but Steele and Knots are where I have the remorse, because those aren't as good as I thought they would be.

Over the years since i was a child i have had so many various different interests. It got to a point in life where i had collected a ton of musical instruments (i had the intention of learning, yet not the attention span). That has seemed to come and go sometimes.
Also i am an artist and have started drawing again.

Art has always been an interest of mine and it seems to pop up randomly throughout the years and i will go right into the sketchbook again. It helps if i see really good artwork and gets me motivated.
I have very bad problems if i have to draw from my mind i have trouble picturing things so will do still lifes or reality lifes, composites.
I have found collages to be very fun! Mixed media especially.

ADHD has likely made many of my short lived interests short lived.
I guess i am lucky that my interests don't make me go broke.


However certain things, like video games and researching things, and collecting certain things i have never taken a break from. What i collect is so specific that sometimes it is hard to find them.


Special interests are good since they are special =) People should be able to do what they love to do, without competition or fear of others' thinking of their interests.

What makes special interests go bad? Is it that one gets bored with them? Maybe take a break or move on to another? I don't understand that entirely...

Also is one is so attached to a personal interest that grieving as in a death would be involved, why quit the interest unless it is something that is likely to harm self or others? Then it sounds more like a habit