Periods of Time with No Special Interest

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I just don't feel like myself unless I'm obsessed with a cartoon character. During the times when I'm not, I'll watch a couple cartoon shows where I already have a favorite character,and wait for one of them to catch on as my interest.

When I lose one special interest before finding another, I feel bored and lonely. However, I often make transitions in a different way: I gain a second special interest toward the end of the first one's lifetime, and as the former fades out, the latter fades in. Smooth transition, no fuss. No lost period. And the overlap can be utterly hilarious, because I'll go from "OMG SPECIAL INTEREST 1" to "OMG SPECIAL INTEREST 2" in a couple of seconds, and then I'll start mixing them. Writing + psychiatry = 100-page story about psychiatry. Sly Cooper + Five Little Peppers And How They Grew = epic.

Then there's suddenly going back to one, usually for a swansong. And there's the rapid cycling of related interests. (E.g., fandom can be an overarching interest, and you can cycle between fandoms every month or two.) My first time with an interest is usually the longest, with progressively shorter cycles.

I'm glad to see that this isn't unusual. One of my main bugbears with the idea that I have Asperger's was that I didn't have one overriding, specific special interest (that I could identify), but rather cycles of extreme interest in topics that constantly changed.

Without a special interest, it's the worst of depressions.
It doesn't happen much.... but lethargy is a mild word to how I feel when I do.
And because I'm so depressed during them... I have a hard time finding a new obsession. Cause to get one back, I have to actively seek a new one. And when you're that depressed it's hard to force yourself to seek one.

I do manage though, and the depressions don't last that long. I just make myself do it. I've been caught in them for a few months, but usually it's a week or two.

Most of the time one obsession is usually a tangent or take off of the previous one, they usually just flow. It's like what I learn from one makes me need to research another specific topic... and I go sooooo off on that topic for such a while that I forget what the connection was.

Heh, maybe it's when I finally answer a deep question that my obsessions were helping me figure out that I go into depressions... If i reach the end of a train of theory or though, there is nothing flowing out from it... so I'm left without an obsession, thus depression. Maybe it's the newfound knowledge that helps me break out of depression.

Blah... it's all just a viscous cycle.

Viscous cycle? NEAT. We wouldn't want a watery cycle, after all.

Try looking when you feel yourself starting to slow down. That way, you'll be knee-deep in the next one by the time the first one fades. (That's the only way in which NTs are better-- they can have a lot more interests at once.)

DF's tip about being on the lookout when you feel the fire starting to burn down some with the first interest is a good one.

Also, if you have more than one, it's sometimes possible to shift from one to another in such a way that you can perpetuate them...like CDs in a changer, almost. Or, to think of it differently, I consider it "rationing." It's even possible sometimes (though not always desirable if for whatever reason you've outgrown or are now put off by a former interest or don't like the way you acted when you had that interest) to reignite an old interest from years back, because after a good several years of a break, new information is sometimes out there.

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Official diagnosis: ADHD, synesthesia. Aspie quiz result (unofficial test): Like Frodo--I'm a halfling? 110/200 NT, 109/200 Aspie.

In between special interests? I hate when that happens!

Oh, yes. A special interest will last as long as there's new information available. New books coming out in a series, or old ones you have yet to read. If you know ho much information is available to you, you can guess when the interest will start to fade. You can prolong it by finding some other source of information (e.g., joining a discussion forum, rereading with an eye to different details, meeting someone involved with the subject), if need be (or desire; I always feel weird shifting special interests, so I try to put it off, and deny that it's happening as it happens). After that, you've only got as long as your brain will keep working on it. That can be pretty long, especially the first time (I'm coming very slowly off a special interest I've had for a year now, but it seems possible that I can prolong it at least until the end of the summer, because almost every day I have new thoughts about it or new perspectives on old ones). That's the big thing, is availability of new information to memorize. (If I ever have a permanent special interest, it's likely to be writing, which ALWAYS has something new to consider...) Hence really hoping he comes out with the next book SOON, so I don't have to go to the trouble of remembering its existence, looking it up, rekindling it, rereading all the others and then reading the last book, only to have to come down from it again.

The last time I came off of one without having started another... *sudder*