Struggling with obsessive nature

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Since I was a child I had my obsessions. They varied over the years but they would last months, sometimes years with the same thing - collecting CDs, shoes, stuffed animals, celebrities, books/magazines, clothes, particular toys...as an adult I had hoped they would lessen but instead the frequency with which my obsessions changed increased. Suddenly I was only interested in things/people for a brief period of time, perhaps a few weeks and I would move on. I am not able to feel mentally 'balanced' unless I have a current fixation. This is causing me a great deal of anxiety and having a negative impact on my general mood.

Recently my new 'project' was my dining room. I wanted a complete overhaul and I re-painted and outfitted it inside of a week all by myself. I expected to feel satisfaction from this but it was very anticlimactic. I moved on to a few other odd jobs around the home, appliances I wanted to have, things tidied, clutter removed and again, I felt little from attaining this.

I am now lost. I have no current interest or fixation to occupy my mind and I feel adrift. I cannot sleep well anymore and although I try to busy myself around the home doing the usual chores, it is like something is missing. I have ALWAYS had an obssesiveness about SOMETHING and now I have nothing.

Am I depressed? I am unsure. Perhaps I have no reason to be really in the grand scheme of things.

Does anyone else find that their fixations change more often or less as they get older? I wish I could go back to a time when I was occupied by things for longer periods of time. This flip flopping from topic to topic, object to object, person to person. It's draining but I cannot make it stop.

Last night I become irrationally upset about my husband dying and being left alone and how I would never be able to find someone like him. I was sobbing in bed alone at 3.30am.

Your husband died? I'm so sorry to hear that.

I have experienced this myself. Now that I am older and so distracted by so many obligations ranging from children to husband to home I jump interest to interest feeling guilty about one that I really want to do and think I should do as it is more useful than the others. They are sewing, dinosaurs, a person I know (that is the strongest right now and I know it's bad and am trying to not be controlled by it but I am really attached to that obsession), ASD, and writing this fantasy world I've been working on on and off for the last seven or eight years. Haven't touched it in months. Worries me. The writing is the most mentally engaging and with all the adult obligations and social demands I have being a wife and mother, I can't live in that activity like I need to to make it work. I always have a people obsession though. I used to have a longer period with each thing but now I've gotten too many interests and too little time. I feel disoriented in time a lot because I don't have a constant, running positive obsession. I am trying to lessen the current people obsession and failing at it; it's really not adaptive for me. Trying to release myself from the ASD obsession as it has hopefully run it's course and in some ways has become egodystonic in that it isn't serving much purpose anymore other than to depress me. Ridiculous anxiety is always waiting in the wings. I feel like I have no direction and often end up sitting and obsessing over the person or my past instead of managing to do one of my interests. Been trying to replace the person with dinosaurs. Helps a little.

Same here, pretty much. I have learned it is okay to have time alone and not to feel guilty about it. I obsessed over my first child to the point where I accidentally spoiled her.

I have trouble doing anything in moderation. Almost like it's all or nothing. Just another part of the frustration and difficulty.

I've become wary of getting engrossed in my special interests since I realised how much harm they could do to me and others, and I definitely miss the days when I wasn't so damned wise.

Luckily I still allow myself the luxury of dabbling in music, as long as I resist the temptation to get so stuck in it that I never emerge. And I'm also still fascinated with my relationship with my partner - that gives me some worthy problems to solve, mercifully nothing traumatic, it's a very good relationship, but the rest of the world causes us a fair bit of trouble as a couple.

I too like to have something on which to focus my attention. A new thing will generally hold my attention for somewhere between two weeks and two months. During the in-between times I can feel a bit restless and discontent.

Upon reflection, though, I have come to realize that this usually only lasts for a few days or maybe a week. Then a new interest or project will come around, or I will have a re-kindled interest in a former one. So now, rather than become anxious during the in-betweens, I try to reframe them as times of expectations, like waiting for a package delivery, and patiently look forward to seeing what new interest the universe sends my way.

I am not always successful in that positive reframing, but it is nice when it works.