Depressed when doing tasks not related to special interests?

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When you need to perform a task that is is no way related to one of your special interests, do you feel unhappy or even depressed? Do you get very unhappy when you need to perform tasks that you don't enjoy doing?

When I am forced to perform a task I don't like doing, I always procrastinate and people are quick to blame me for it. But, in reality, it's my ADHD acting up and also the fact that the whole thing gets me terrible unhappy. I have difficulties with carrying out tasks related to my special interests too (because of the ADHD), but there's a clear difference. And the difference is that, when I am allowed to pursue my special interests, I am as happy as can be, no matter how difficult it is to me to get organized.

Is this specific for Aspies? I always explain this as my already low levels of dopamine (due to the ADHD) dramatically dropping when confronted with something that I don't like. But could it be an Aspie trait too?

By the way, many ADHD people share this ability to get passionate about some special topic with Aspies, in that they hyperfocus (sometimes for months on end) on certain things. However, this hyperfocus does not seem to have the same importance in the life of an ADHDer as special interests have in the lives of Aspies. That's why I suspect that the way I fall in love with certain topics and the way I obsess over them and the way those interests change my life and my whole way of living (just to be able to pursue them) might be more of an Aspie thing than an ADHD one...

Last edited by Steven_Tyler77 on 22 Apr 2012, 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

As a side note, the ability of NT people to hold down jobs that they absolutely hate, without being overwhelmed by a huge depression in all areas of their lives, never ceases to amaze me...

Try thinking of a bottle of alcohol, drowning yourself out of reality & football or PARTY going on in they head or a clapping monkey. They do it because they need the money, in order to live in this world you need money. You would be more depressed the other way round, which I point to the teens been frustrated not having a job or employers saying they want people with experience or the adults who been out of work for 4 years now doing volunteer work.

It seems they can distract themselves by socializing, gossiping, joking, talking about sports, etc... If you find that intolerably dull as well you are thereby sentenced to a lifetime of miserable depression. That's how it seems anyways. If life is a prison sentence then I can see why humans have the need to invent religions with a more pleasant afterlife.

I can't do that for the life of me. The only way I could hold down a job I would hate would be to get all drugged up while working. Not the best idea ever, though. If I found myself in such a situation, I'd probably leave before resorting to drugs. That's why I struggle to turn my special interests (writing, psychotherapy) into a career, so that I don't feel miserable for a lifetime.

I don't get how NTs get through life without having any special interests. That looks so boring to me...

Sex is they special interest or socializing, football, fishing, trains, modding a car, building a kit car, racing a car, clubbing, concerts, cooking, sewing. Insert a tone of other interests.

You guys living on a totally different planet to me or what?

Whats with the focus on "Special".

I picked the last option.

There's something interesting in everything that looks boring to someone else - and if there isn't anything fun about it, I'll make fun happen in some way or another.

Self-motivation, I guess. I have ADHD but I don't have the mood issues that are said to go with it so unlike others who really can't just think "fun" and have fun, I just had to learn that I can change boring circumstances into more exciting ones.

Of course, that doesn't mean I willing do less exciting things all the time if I can just as well pick the more exciting things instead. The easy way wins after all.

And there just isn't that much excitement about doing something so-so for years. I don't feel healthy if I feel unchallenged and will avoid such a state long-term, preferring something more challenging.

But as far as enduring timed episodes of boredom go, I don't mind them unless I am denied (by someone who thinks you need to do this task a certain boring way and no other is allowed) discovering how interesting even doing the most mindless useless things can be.

Obviously, sometimes my ways of making things exciting aren't taken kindly by others if what I say or do is inappropriate, too unusual for their tastes or whatever. Every advantageous ability seems to have its downsides but I very much enjoy how things are.

Isn't this the name of the concept? In the field of ADHD, it's called hyperfocus and I thought that, when it comes to Aspies, it's termed as "special interests". I might be wrong though, English is not my primary language... But you surely must know what concept I'm talking about. It's these interests that many Aspies have, that they get very passionate about and that they sometimes talk so much about, that the NT people around get annoyed and become rude.

I have never met an NT person exhibting such behavior (I actually never met anybody else but me in real life; the only people that have experiences that I can relate to are Aspies or ADHD ones). I know NTs who are passionate about some things, but they don't obsess that much over those things and they don't talk about them all the time. Their interests are just a part of their lives, not the center of their focus.

But to me, if I didn't routinely get passionate/obsessed with some topic and live for it (at least for a while), life would seem so boring...

I'd lean more toward me getting bored when doing something other than my special interest. I do it, but I just stay bored while doing it.

I wouldn't say that I get depressed, but I can certainly get agitated/annoyed.

Hmm, sometimes. I remember when I was put on a work experience in my local town, which meant I couldn't get my bus what I always get (which is my obsessive interest), and I didn't feel depressed as such but I felt all strange, if you know what I mean. I felt all confused, because I'm always getting on this bus what I love and going to what I call ''my second town'', meaning it's not my local town but it's nearest to my local town, not as in distance but as in familiarity.

I mostly just get bored. Though I do try very hard to make them interesting. I found that the more I learn about things the more tolerable they become. I'm now a mini-expert in all sorts of things due to my forced interest. There are still things I just can't make them interesting, like cleaning greasy pans or sweeping the floor, I try to assign those to others as much as possible.