Undiagnosed here, seeking some inspiration and will to not lose hope.
Had anyone successfully gotten in tune with your ever changing hyper fixations?
- If so, how long do your fixation periods last?
- Do you have a structure or benchmark after which you can effectively “close that chapter”?
- What strategies do you have to nudge yourself towards topics which will be meaningful in the long run?
I tend to go from rabbit hole to rabbit hole but it never feels like I’m in control. These fixations never produce any meaningful outcomes and always have a cost which I pay for by neglecting other aspects of my life.
It is a superpower and a weakness as you all probably know. It’s great for expanding your interests and appreciating life through different perspectives. I don’t want to lose it and want to get into some harmony with it. Anyone had any success?
Thank you :)
Dang… thank you for sharing. It’s really tough when certain interests literally take over your life. The time between fixations of a week feels like you’re just getting time to breathe and resurface before getting dragged down again.
It’s interesting how you’ve weaned off gaming as I find myself keep coming back to that rush of dopamine. I just change games if I’m getting bored and it becomes a never ending cycle. There is hope for me! What did you replace it with if I may ask?
Love the idea of nurturing social and outdoor projects. The act of being witnessed by others does help. And you can’t go wrong with nature!
That superficial knowledge feels like you’re building a big table of contents, good enough to reference just not enough to write the chapters. All depends on your note-taking and documentation I guess.
Maybe a suggestion regarding closure, as it helped me, was fixating on my past behaviours as it’s own research. I once spent 2 weeks just listing out my rabbit holes: what sparked it, how much time I spent and what point I went from 100-0. At least for me, I could see that the moment my brain had a clear path ahead and “progressing” on such fixation becomes a matter of just discipline/“putting the hours in”, my brain was like ‘boooring, let’s move on’. Acceleration is easy but maintaining speed is a huge challenge. Controlled deceleration is another lol. Reading other responses here reminded me that the times I felt some closure was when I had made something tangible or have it validated by others, however minimal.
Great to hear you’re becoming more aware of yourself and it’s trending towards positive. Really do appreciate hearing what has helped you.
Wow. Thank you for sharing. What a thoughtful response!
If I ever feel the urge to write down all my hobbies and projects and rabbit hole topics I will. But currently that sounds like an absolute chore.
I replaced gaming with painting and building miniatures for TTRPGs. TTRPGs are my other life long hobby. I hope it stays. It’s nice because I get to share the results to people without it being about me. They are just game pieces and people like them.
Gaming just stopped feeling rewarding one day. It felt pointless.
And yes. Once I know all the steps I have to take to the end I often lose interest. Figuring out the way often is most of the fun. Actually walking the way isn’t always why I got interested. I think. It’s really hard to grasp.
Sometimes I really hate the lack of control over my life.
But then it leads me to so many interesting places regularly. I just hope it never picks up something too destructive.
Haha it was a chore to finish… the urge started at 4am one night so can’t say it was a controlled acceleration either.
Ttrpgs is a fantastic hobby. So jealous. You’re working with your hands and collaboratively building with a sense of play.
Can understand things telling pointless… you’re making me question things now.
Ah yeah this constant meandering does flesh out ones personality. Lack of control is frustrating… Comes at a cost but as people said, it’s all a matter of limiting the destruction. Keep on trucking fellow traveller. Appreciate you sharing your experience