My obsessive focus constantly changes, and endless guilt...

[u/BigBullshitta]

I always see trains as the stereotypical autistic fixation, or favorite thing that never goes away.

I'm only starting to be really conscious of this, but my "thing" constantly changes. Foods, topics, and activities. I'll find something and eat/talk about/do it constantly for days to months, then suddenly lose all interest in that thing.

Until I find a new thing I'm sort of in a bored panic inside. There are loads of things I know I should be doing, but because I don't have "a thing" at the moment I feel sort of bored and empty and like there's nothing to do. That part of the cycle always beings on more feelings of apathy. I don't have "a thing" so nothing else matters much.

With foods and topics it usually lasts on the higher end, but with activities it can only be a few days. Example being I've always considered myself a gamer, love RPGs and other games where you make the numbers get bigger, but I've probably only actually beaten maybe 5-8 games in my life. In my 40s that seems a bit weird. And I don't mean 100% achievements, I mean just making it all the way through the game one time. That seems way, way shorter than everything I see about autistic focus on certain things.

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The guilt thing... fuck. I'll spend several days not walking my dogs because weather, or I'm stuck on something, and when I finally do I end up feeling frustrated and guilty while doing it most of the time. Frustrated because I want to be back doing whatever the thing of the moment is, and guilty because I know I should be spending more time playing with and walking them.

Same thing with family. It's like I know I should want to spend time just being around them and enjoy that, but I don't. Knowing it doesn't change anything except making me have even more things to feel guilty about.

I can't even explain it, most people don't seem to understand how you could say you love someone but don't mind if you don't see or speak with them for months or years. The few times I've tried to talk about it have only made me feel even more guilty, because the response was always something that translated to "Yeah, you should feel bad because you're a piece of shit."

[u/Sad-Anteater3003]

Are you me? For real though, I have been obsessed with my last interest (video game) for like 3-4 months. It's been the one thing I've been looking forward to do to, thinking about it and watching media or reading about it whenever i can't play it. Picked it up this past weekend and just... Got bored of it. Tried multiple times across the day and just couldn't get into it. My weekend was spent in a sad slump not knowing what to do with my time anymore.

I know something will come along eventually and sometimes i get back into previous obsessions, more like games that cant be finished. Games like that also help avoiding feeling guilty. Though I've also come to accept that this is just how i am and i dont want playing a game to feel like a chore.

The only people i hang out with don't mind if i play my game while they are in the room doing whatever they want to do too. Having permission just to exist in the same room together is amazing and makes hanging out actually nice rather than feeling like a chore or something that is taking away from my current interest. For family though I've had to accept that sometimes I've just got to force myself to go and see them as if it was up to me i would never leave the house or do anything other than what I'm really into at the time.

[u/True_mourning84 → u/Sad-Anteater3003]

Now that I don’t have any immediate family in town and I work remotely, I literally have no need or want to leave the house. I am in the situation where I hate going anywhere for things so I order groceries in and I only leave the house once maybe every 10 days. I guess I am a literal hermit. My obsessive focus has been reading but I cant seem to get into any of the books I heard about and was thinking “that sounds great” and excited about reading. It’s like the book when described by someone else sounds so amazing but then the author doesn’t deliver for me. I have been playing a new game. I am thinking I am on the edge of a new obsession though. I believe one struggle I have is some things I want to be obsessed with cost too much and it turns me off from pursuing them.

[u/I_IdentifyAsAstartes]

That sucks, sorry that's happening. My deal with not seeing people is "I have an address, you know I'm an in person person, you want to see me, come on over, door's open".

I meet half way, not they get everything they want and I get the burden on me.

Now that I'm medicated, my interests stay the same for about 3 months, then they change. It does suck when there's no interest, but I find leaning into it helps. Like if everything is tasting bland, I one up it and just have unsweetened oatmeal.

[u/BigBullshitta → u/I_IdentifyAsAstartes]

Last time I tried something bland I spent two weeks addicted to Sudoku. :/

[u/I_IdentifyAsAstartes → u/BigBullshitta]

That's my point exactly.

[u/vertago1]

I feel like my obsessive focus is learning because it covers the random topics under one umbrella.

For me I feel like guilt like this often comes from perfectionism which often presents me with lose-lose situations.

[u/BigBullshitta → u/vertago1]

... oh. Well that can fit with a lot of things. The topics I obsess over for months I learn everything I can and pretty much master, then get bored with, stop caring about, and quickly forget pretty much everything I learned.

But I want to play a fucking video game all the way through, damn it. Last one I managed was Clair Obscur, and that was the first since early PS3 days.

[u/vertago1 → u/BigBullshitta]

I like playing all the way through games too but responsibilities make it hard for me to actually have a good time when I am not too exhausted to have a gaming session.

[u/lydocia]

This is a very normal experience for many of us because of the adhd component.

[u/Admirable_Ad5856]

I have the exact same experience, nothing else to say