Many obsessions, low attention span

Post Reply New Topic

Anyone else like me who has obsessions everywhere but cannot get on with them due to low attention span?

For example my current obsessions:

1) Web Design/development - I have been reading up on this for about a year now, in fact I still read (I say read and not learn) how to do things almost everyday and I havent stopped but Ive never got further than designing a page in photoshop.

2) Music - I've been trying to write my own music for liek 2 years now. Learning all the software, but Ive got nothing but a collection of 20 sec demos

3) Piano - I bought a piano late last year. I promised myself this would be a serious instrument and I wanted to learn everythign from theory to composition. But I still havent found a teacher and I only practice now and again or when I get obsessive about it.

4) Drawing - I bought a tutorial book and some tools but I havent done anything yet!

5) Castlevania video games - I bought loads of these games because I heard they become rare pretty quickly. I started one and never finished it so I dont want to start a new one. Damn what a waste of money.

I guess my biggest obsession is becoming an 'artist' or something special. Because like most aspies, I am eccentric and dont fit into the normal crowd. Becoming specialised in the arts makes me think I will fit in somewhere. I feel useless because Im not particularly talented in anything, and if I dont have talent, its pretty hopeless for me since I dont have any friends and most of the time feel like I dont actually want any friends either.

Anyway didnt want to go off on a tangent there. I thought Aspies were known to be obsessive and excel in one or more fields. Im not like that and it makes me sad.

Are you sure that these are your real obsessions? What do you spend the majority of your time on?

You sound EXACTLY like me.

I get the impression people like us are affedted by ADD as well as Aspergers.

calandale- All aspies are different and have different problems Two people can be affected by the condition and be totally different in their habits.. Just because you or someone else is routine and dedicated, doesn't mean the rest of us are.

I suppose. I just assume that if I can walk away from something, I'm not really obsessed with it. There have been a lot of things that I've been really interested in, until it comes to some difficult stumbling block. Then I either give up, or spend time unproductively trying to pursue it. What I see as my real obsessions all tend to be pretty useless though.

I didn't mean to be rude. I was just projecting myself onto someone else, which seems so easy after I see so many of us alike. I don't really know what my obsessions are, if not by what I spend time on. Are they just those things which I must do? There are few of those, and they seem so much less important - more like OCD.

Jonny - I can definitely relate to what you wrote here. I have many obsessions and I feel myself pulled in many different directions sometimes. I consider them obsessions because I do think about them constantly and intensely even if I'm not currently working on it, studying it etc. For example I'll have music I want to create constantly going through my head, or daydream about all kinds of different art or computer projects. Or it can be a subject I want to learn about.

It fluctuates - as I can sometimes get extremely focused on a pursuit and spend hours upon hours on it (if no one interrupts me). Once I get in the "zone" like that the world around me disappears and only the pursuit is there. But often I find myself being very indecisive about getting started - choosing which thing to pursue - and end up doing nothing. I frustrate myself, feeling like I can never get all the things done that I want to. And I still think about them all the time which frustrates me even more.

I wish I knew the solution to this. I think part of my problem is that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to creative pursuits. I often have a negative thought process which goes "if its not coming out perfectly how I imagine in my head then why bother" - which puts a lot of pressure on myself. I've got to learn to relax more when I create and face the fact that I'll make mistakes and everything can't be perfect. Thats the only way to learn and develop a skill.

I have not looked into ADD but that might be something thats going on with me also.

Jonny, I'm like that too. I just can't seem to get motivated sometimes. I am genuinly motivated and obsessed I just have trouble getting in to it sometimes.

that's me. i can't concentrate on one great obsession because i get distracted by another obsession or thing.. i do this with people as well...

I did it, and never made sense of it. Many times I thought it all a waste, years later all those bits of skill gathered, joined into something else, and that worked. Did I gather the skills to do what I did later? Or did I use them because they were what I had?

Before the age of education, aspie self education was all. Do we produce and follow an idea, or does it exist and draw us to it?

Looking back from sixty, I gathered skills that fit later. A being with a purpose, but starting with the body of an immature ape. I cannot force it, it gets upset, but I can get it to play with things, and it learns.

Your ape may not be great, but it is exploring a wide range, and where you are gifted can not survive without much that is common.

What I noticed was most others did nothing, they also made fun of what I did. They declined, I slowly grew, and if anything, I would have learned more in the past. It is play, non-directed learning. For three quarters high school is all of education. Some see it as something that comes from a university, but those who have done great things all drew it from within.

Now I'm wondering if my school work counts as this type of obsession. I'm always worrying about it, but not always willing to do anything about it. Seems totally diferent from say my desire to play games (which is fading with seperation though), or my thoughts about my wife.

Same problem here and it really, really annoys me. I am fairly sure I have ADD as well as AS. I stock up on books on my obsessions, then dont get round to reading them..I think of final fantasy and chess a lot, but don't get round to playing them...so I suppose my major obsession right now is this forum...which is annoying as I get nothing else done.

Computers are my obssession and they only thing in life I truly have patience for. When I'm working on them (and there isn't one around I can't fix given the time) hours pass, sleeptime passes, mealtime passes.

I desperately want to build a new one but money is an obstacle. So that has me stuck for a bit.

I just bought a house 1.5 years ago and I want to paint the all white walls so desperately it almost hurts. Again money gets in my way. Paint has gotten incredibly expensive! My bedroom is pink with a pink ceiling and a green shag rug that would be more comfortable in a 1970's van The bathroom looks as if a bottle of pepto bismol exploded in there, more pink. I hate pink!! !

I become obssessive about things in bursts at different times. I'm that way with crochet and knitting. I'll create one thing after another and then get sidetracked when I have a computer to repair.

I think when things get in the way of the things I obssess about, I find myself redirecting. It's not an attention thing as much as it is life getting in my way.

I feel the exact same way, i was only diagnosed with aspergers, but i think i also have ADD as a co existing disorder.