Do you feel lost without obsessions?

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I've realised that when I'm not obsessed with something, I feel lost, like I'm missing something, but can't figure out what. I have this feeling of emptyness and restlessness that I can't explain. I feel this burning need to find fulfilment in something, but no matter what I do, I can't find it.

I feel restless all the time and have this "craving" for an obsession, something to focus my mind on. I try to take my mind off it by finding other things to do but I quickly lose interest and become very bored and hyperactive because all I want is an obsession to focus on.

I currently don't have an obsession. It's been this way for a few months now, the longest I've been without having an obsession, and I'm getting really fed up with this feeling of incompleteness and restlessness. I'm just sitting around waiting for an obsession to strike and I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get another obsession again.

Also, does anyone else find it really depressing when you realise that one of your obsessions is dying out?

I'm, unfortunately, not one of these people who can keep an obsession for life. My obsessions are VERY fickle and change quite often. When my obsessions start to fade, I find I get really quite depressed and try desperately to hold on to them. I sort of fall into denial whenever an obsession starts to fade and won't believe my interest is dying out, dispite knowing inside that it is.

So...

...How do you guys feel when you don't have an obsession?

Are you glad and welcome the break, or, are you like me and detest not having an obsession because you NEED something to obsess over.

Yes.

Uh, yeah. Definitely.

In high school, I was so pissed when I got my sports almanac confiscated and never got it back.

Now with the same info appearing on the internet, I don't need almanacs any longer. So I did get over it after a while.

Oh yes. I grieve for a few days when I finally admit to myself that I'm no longer obsessed with something. Then I very quickly have to find something else to obsess over or I'll be miserable.

I used to feel lost and depressed and empty without an obsession, something to live for. I didn't get how people could not have obsessions. What was their motivation to exist? Just going through the day-to-day rituals was not enough! All this normal stuff bored me!

Unfortunately...my obsessions don't die out.
I kind of wish they would. I'd be unhappy for a while, but then I'd be glad I got over it.

Definitely. Also, changing obsessions feels very weird. Occasionally I feel like giving something up for more time to spend on the others, that is a strange place to be.

Wow, I never knew others felt this way, too. Nice to know I'm not alone

You just wrote exactly what I was trying to, but couldn't find the right words. But yes, I also grieve for my dying obsessions. I wish I could quickly find a new obsession after one has died, but it sometimes doesn't happen that way. Occasionally, I'll get lucky, and a new obsession will begin just as the old one is dying out, but that doesn't happen alot, so quite often I'm left feeling empty while I sit and wait for a new obsession to hit me.



I've thought the same thing. I remember telling someone about an obsession I had with something when I was younger, and found it amazing that she had no obsessions of her own. That truely amazed me. I couldn't imagine not having an obsession.



I can kind of see what you mean. When I have an obsession with something, I'm never satisfied, I just can't get enough of it, and sometimes, it does drive me a little crazy with the constant thinking about it and constant need for more information, but at the same time, I'd rather have my obsessions and have them last, than for them to be only temporary. At least if I knew my obsessions where going to last, I could choose what path I want to go down with my life without worrying that my obsession will die and I'll grow to hate my job/college course.

Yes. That's one of the things I HATE about my depression. It makes me unable to pursue my obsessions and then I feel even more empty adn worthless. I get a lot joy from my obsessions. When I'm active in them, I feel balanced and healthy. Without them I feel weak and drained.

My obsessions help keep my hyperactive brain stimulated. And since I don't have many friends and I'm not close to my family, they keep me company, making being alone less "lonely."

I change obsessions frequently too, and sometimes I feel sadness about not going further with an obsession before my mind wanders to something else. I hate it when I leave a project unfinished. But often times it's not that I become un-obsessed, but rather I shift emphasis for a while and eventually I could back. I just wish I was more consistant.

My obsession is the internet - when I go on holiday I have to adjust. Holidays are always hard for the few days - anyway.

I am curious to know your obsessions AspieMartin - you don't have to tell if you don't want to (of course).

Yes. I've been this way all my life. When I was young it was video games. I would go crazy and play a game for hours and hours then I would get very depressed when I got bored with it. Now it goes between science/meteorology, mountain climbing/hiking, and stuff I find on the internet. When I get overwhelmed with life and feel like I don't have time to focus on my own "fun" things I start to feel empty, bored, and depressed.

Yup. Same way here. At least on holidays there's usually other things to do. If I'm alone and don't have internet I go nuts. Power and cable outages are pure torture. I get so antsy that I can't even do anything.

I would certainly feel lost. I wouldn't know what to do with myself!

I'm pretty sure I'd read somewhere that it's common for Aspies to feel depressed when they no longer have something to obsess over, and that they can last a lifetime or a year. Personally yes I do believe I feel empty and the need to have something to do when I lose interest, but I don't think it's happened too often.

Sounds very familiar, especially when it's not your own choice to give up or moderate an obsession.

Me too.
My long time favourite example of this is Sherlock Holmes, who resorts to drugs when there is no complex-crime-solving on hand to use his brain on. He even complains of exactly this feeling of grey fogginess/depression , of his "great" mind grinding away with nothing to work on.
I definitely feel this ( don't mean i necessarily have great mind or anything ! ! ). I will try to work out anything sometimes , simply to occupy my brain. But sometimes nothing feels good , nothing grips, and it's often when am too out of it on bread and cheese and sugar to take pleasure in any mystery; when only a ready-made/pre-packed "puzzle"/stimulation will do.
When am rested , and not zombied out of it on too much food-opioid ingestion, will enjoy any little question to gnaw at.
The same old subjects keep coming back to obsess me tho', year after year; the food opioids of gluten and casein being my own personal Professor Moriartys (along with sugar!)

Last edited by ouinon on 14 Nov 2007, 10:06 am, edited 8 times in total.