Stages of Obsessions/Special Interests

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1. Latency
This stage can last years and years. In this stage I usually notice things related to my special interest more than other people. When I'm in this stage no one can usually tell I have this obsession including myself.
An example is my fixation with eyes and glasses. I might notice people wearing glasses more and notice how the lenses distort their eyes. I won't be aware that this is unusual.

2. Discovery
In this stage another special interest or random event makes me consciously aware of a latent special interest.
An example would be a kid in my class getting new glasses. People without a latent special interest might talk about their new glasses for a week at the longest. It will just become old news for them. I would probably ask them a lot of questions like their prescription, why they got them or how well they can see without them. I will keep on bombarding them with annoying questions. I will eventually be aware that most people aren't as interested in that as I am. I often got teased by both the other students and the teachers about it.

3. Action
In this stage I usually try to do something with my special interest rather than learn more about it. I often have a lot of trouble being satisfied by things that I did in stage two. It feels like a huge itch I can't scratch if I can't do something about my interest.
An example of this is looking for a career in the eyecare field. I haven't actually done this because I have other interests in the foreground right now. This interest often comes back strong when I don't have any other interest.

I go right to action stage.

There is no gradual development.

It just eggsplodes and takes over.

My stages of obsession go like this:

Discovery

I become curious about something, usually new but sometimes it's something I have noticed but not paid much attention to previously. I then have to research everything about it and can get lost in the subject for hours, spending entire nights looking up websites about it.

"Explosiveness"

I think about the subject 24/7, and talk about it nonstop both in real life and online. I will buy as many items related to it as I can and use them to decorate my room (or wear them, if the items include T-shirts).

(Note: "explosiveness" is my brother's term for the state of being totally obsessed with something.)

Integration

I have become comfortable with the obsession, content to just bask in it rather than research it 24/7, because by this point I already know most if not everything about it. By this time, the obsession has become fully integrated into my life, to the point that people now associate me with my obsession and will ask me about it and buy things related to it for me as gifts.

Burnout

I gradually begin to lose passion for my special interest. I stop talking about it, researching it and buying things related to it. I will often become rather upset that "the magic" of my obsession has been lost. I will become frustrated when people still associate me with my obsession as I try to explain to them that "no, I'm not into this anymore." It becomes especially frustrating when they ask me "why" I am not obsessed with it anymore. I almost never have a reason "why", I just become bored with it.

Transition

If I have reached this stage, it is because I have already begun the "Discovery" phase of a new obsession, so I am able to transition smoothly from my old obsession to my new one. If not, then I become...

"Obsessed with Being Obsessed"

With nothing to preoccupy my mind, my new obsession becomes finding an obsession. Every day is spent searching for a new topic to research and become interested in. Every unsuccessful attempt at finding a new obsession leads to increased desperation. I become very moody and waste time moping around and being bored. Instead of talking about an obsession, I will continually complain and whine about how much it sucks not to have one.

(Note: "obsessed with being obsessed" is my mom's term for being so preoccupied with finding a new special interest that it completely consumes you.)



I have been stuck in the "obsessed with being obsessed" phase for about a year and a half. It's incredibly frustrating and at this point I am at a loss of what to do.

I've noticed that most people's obsessions seem to be random. It seems like I'm born with most of mine. A lot of times when I become consciously aware of an obsession I can usually remember previous interest in it. My really big obsessions come in multiple waves. I often get bored of an obsession and come back to it a few years later even more obsessed than I was before.

According to my mom when I was one or two years old I used to like playing with her glasses. When I was five I remember being curious about how eyes and lenses work. I was also equally curious about a bunch of ofher interests I have no interest in now so that interest didn't seem out of the ordinary.

I came back to that obsession when I was eight. It was way more intense and it got me into a lot of trouble. I often had long interview style conversations with whatever glasses wearers I encountered. They were probably very annoyed at me, but I didn't have theory of mind back then.

At age nine I got my eyes tested. I thought I had to "try my best", which to me it meant squinting and guessing. I really wanted to get glasses and I also remember having some vision problems. Since I "tried my best" I didn't end up getting glasses. I was very disappointed so I started to make fun of kids with glasses to make myself feel better about my "perfect vision". That got me into even more trouble.

I continued to make fun of kids with glasses until I got glasses when I was eleven. They discovered that my left eye was way worse than my right eye. That explained my problems with depth perception and ball sports. Shortly after I got glasses I started to notice that I needed a stronger prescription. Since my eyes are hard to test most of the eye doctors messed my prescription up. That gave me a lot of bad headaches and vision problems. This made my obsession super intense because I wanted to find solutions to my own vision problems. When I got a decent glasses prescription that made my obsession more intense at first, but when I got used to it that calmed my obsession down a lot.
Right now that obsession is in the background. I still occasionally google stuff about glasses. If I find something new and interesting my obsession will come back until I can't find any more interesting stuff to read. I also notice that I get more obsessed when an eye exam is coming up and even more obsessed if I have a major change in my prescription.

Discovery.
I am drawn to an idea or topic and I don't know why I become totally absorbed in it. I think it just seems to fit my pattern of thinking.

Total Immersion.
It takes over my brain like a well warn pathway that I keep returning to and thinking about and reading and researching and finding more information. I only want to keep going down that same pathway and thinking about the same thing. It's comforting and it becomes part of me. It has taken root in my brain and I won't let it go.

Dormant phase.
It never goes away. Once the obsession becomes sufficiently rooted in my psych it is always a part of me and I can become obsessed with something else while never letting go of a previous obsession.

Am I the only one with a latent phase?