Losing the ability to have special interests

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The short version: Is it possible for someone on the autistic spectrum to lose the ability to have special interests? Has it ever happened to you? Could medication be a factor? (I'm on an antipsychotic which was upped twice this year and I heard that those types of drugs can reduce autistic symptoms.)

The long version: Over this past year I have lost the passion I once had for my special interests, and I have tried really, really hard to find something to replace them, but nothing has "clicked" with me. I realize that special interests cannot be consciously chosen, so what I mean by "trying to find a new special interest" is that I have been exposing myself to different things in order to see if anything connects with me in a meaningful way. Nothing has, even though it feels like I have looked into everything under the sun. My obsessions throughout my life have consistently involved either animals, foreign cultures or works of fiction (in particular movies or television shows), so I have tried to look into various topics under those categories, only to be disappointed when my mind didn't form an obsession with them.

I have groaned and griped about this problem to my family and friends for months, and no one understands why this is happening to me or how to fix it. They seem to be getting rather irritated that my lack of an obsession is all I talk about - as my mom puts it, I am "obsessed with being obsessed".

But one idea that my brother has brought up to me several times is that maybe I have simply lost the ability to have special interests. He says that most people don't completely obsess over one or two things and instead enjoy multiple things to a less intense degree. He says that the way my mind works has probably changed to reflect that and I should accept it instead of worrying about whether or not the things I enjoy qualify as obsessions.

What my brother says makes sense, but the problem is that I've never heard of it happening to other autistic people before. I wonder if there could be any outside influences that could have caused the way my mind works to change - specifically, my medication. I have been on an antipsychotic (Risperidone) for many years, and this year the dosage has been upped twice due to problems with paranoia and hearing/seeing things, as well as suicidal/homicidal thoughts and urges. Since I heard that antipsychotics can reduce symptoms of autism, I wonder if that means that it could have possibly destroyed my ability to have special interests?

I don't know about other people, but when I was taking anti-psychotic meds, my brain was rather blank a lot of the times. I couldn't think deeply about complicated stuff. If your special interests require a lot of thinking I imagine the drugs could affect them. Now why not develop some new special interests? Something that doesn't take a lot of brain power? Like gardening, knitting. You can even start exercising a lot. Say walk a couple miles a day, takes a lot of time, improve your health and doesn't need much thinking.

I hope you can reduce your dose in the future and get your brain back.

Same here when I was on abilify I could barely think at all. I was "pleasantly" gray, all day. It was horrid. I stopped doing things past listening to music randomly.

writers may have writers block
artists may become unable to create
a muse may be what you need

maybe go to the library or such and something new may emerge...

I think it's in part of maturity to be honest, your 21, that's about the age that my mind started to get a little more level. Your hormones have peaked out, and your most likely engaging into the social realm on a more serious level.

My obsessions are a direct product of loniless and lack of social stimulation. The more I'm around people, and the more emotional content I take in, the less one thing will interest me.

I've also become better and switching obsessions. Of course once I'm into something I still get into in hyperfocus, the trouble is getting better at switching gears.

The medication may have something to do with it. I know that my current depression and anxiety issues have sort of blunted the sense of enjoyment I used to get from special interests and now I am obsessing over autism and asperger's instead. It's more practical than some of my past obsessions but not fun because it has real world implications. Now it seems that nothing removes my anxiety or even gives me a break from it.

I ruminate that meds and time have 'messed me up' in this aspect. I'm reflecting on this and can't claim any multiple shallow interests simultaneously but when I follow my curiosities I see any data not immediately and directly connected as "TL, DR", however I'll occasionally loop over and see if I can absorb new data

I would suspect the meds.

Thinking about losing the ability to have special interests is skeeery. I would nevar evar want to lose that.

I would highly suspect the meds.

Losing my special interest entirely would make life less fun for me. However, they have lessened over time, which is actually a good thing, too.

I think you need the special interest obsession go. If it's gone, it's gone. If it isn't gone, you are preventing it from happening again.

Now I remember that I was talking to some psychologists last week, and we were talking about autistic children taking Risperdal, and one of them said that Risperdal reduces autistic behaviors, because it reduces behaviors in general, like things that people do on purpose from cooking dinner to pursuing special interests. I wonder if it reduces motivation to do things, and the things that you normally do don't feel the same way to you when you are on the meds.

Thanks for your input, everyone. I really appreciate it.

I've had several people tell me this before, including my parents, my psychiatrist and a couple of WP members. You guys are probably right, but I just don't want to accept the possibility that I'm becoming more mature. Ever since I was 18, and with each passing year, I have become increasingly desperate to cling onto my childhood through watching movies/shows aimed at children and collecting toys. I very badly want my next special interest to be something that a child would enjoy. Shows and movies that are aimed at adults seem so boring.



I have definitely noticed a lack of motivation to do things. I no longer feel the desire to do artwork or go running as often as I used to (which were things that I used to majorly enjoy), I have trouble finishing movies, books and television shows, and I have to psych myself up in order to do chores. It seems like the only thing I really don't mind doing is being on the computer, and even then I keep refreshing the same websites over and over again.



I agree with you. It's just hard not to wish I could have a special interest when I compare how happy my previous special interests made me to how miserable I currently am without one. But maybe you are right in that my desperation to have a special interest is preventing one from forming naturally. It seems that the more desperate I become to have a special interest, the less I enjoy everything I try. I can't just relax and enjoy things for their own sake - I always wind up comparing them to past special interests and feeling disappointed when I don't become obsessed with them. It's awful.

antipsychotics made me thoughtless I lost my ability to do all sorts of things, didn't realise until I took myself off the drugs and found amphetamines (the opposite of antipsychotics) which sort my problems out a treat.

I was also on risperidone and it made me paranoid and trip out, I know it was the rispiridone because I stopped taking it and had nasty discontinuation syndrome for about a year but stopping the rispiridone stopped a lot of the side effects.

rispiridone is addictive and due to something called upregulating your brain will adjust to the affects of the rispiridone (brain damage) this upregulation will be in the areas related to paranoid thoughts and seeing things etc...

I'm so sorry you're really still having this problem........that sucks. When I was given an atypical anti-psychotic for really extreme insomnia it made me really drowsy and sedated (I still couldn't sleep....) and I didn't really feel motivated to do much of anything...I felt really lethargic....I watched a lot of T.V. without much enthusiasm. It was when I was clinically depressed though so I didn't really have a special interest at the time.....but it increased that lethargic un-motivated feeling. So it might very well be the meds.

Are you enjoying reading those fantasy novels just as an interest (not necessarily a special one)? Are you enjoying other activities but just not as obsessively as before? If so I think that's perfectly fine.......and it's also still possible you'll find something else years later that just catches you and you'll become obsessed with it again. It could just be a lull.....but I think if you keep trying to search for a new SI that won't work........you should just let it come to you if it's going to and otherwise enjoy various things to a certain degree (at-least that way you get to do MORE things....there's always a trade-off).

I agree with those who suspect the risperidone. It (among other things) can reduce or block the pleasure/motivation/desire circuits in the brain.

I don't know anything about medication, but I have found that my special interests have changed in intensity and breadth as I have got older. As a teenager I was heavily obsessed with specific interests and usually one thing at a time. My longest special interest (a particular video game) was a specific obsession of about six years. However, since my early twenties, I have found that I am less obsessed with specific things and have a wider range of interests - instead of being interested in only one specific thing, I am interested in four or five. The level of obsession is less and I do not think I would characterise any one of them as obsessive, though taken together they would be as I still enjoy all of these things and spend all of my time with them. I find that this works better for me because I have a larger breadth of experience, knowledge and skills. There is also a better chance of being able to communicate with someone about something that interests me, as having five interests instead of one means five times the chance of them being interested in one too.

Maybe in your obsessive search for "the one special thing" you are missing out on other things that you enjoy, just because you are not enjoying them to the same depth as your previous special interest? Are you sure that depth of experience is necessary for you to take enjoyment in something?