I miss my special interests...

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Is it normal to have periods in your life when you just kind of try new things to see what you like?
Because currently I just don't have a special interest and it makes me feel so empty...
It feels like I've lost a lot of interest throughout the years in the hobbies I used to have when I was younger.

As a 13 year old I was obsessed with Japanese Fashion. I would spend ALL my time watching youtube videos about all kind of alternative fashion videos and I even tried to get a job (haha) as a 13-year old to be able to afford buying the pretty dresses!
That interest faded away about a year later. I learned all the lingo in a couple of days and also learned pretty much all of the famous prints of the dresses.

Right now I'm 14 and I miss the feeling of having such an intense special interest.
I'm interested in Psychology and read a lot of books about it. But it's just not as intense...

So... Yeah. Is it ''normal'' to not have a special interest at times in your life as an aspie?

I'm new to this, I'm 43 and just realized I have Asperger's recently. I have a doc appointment to get tested in 2 months. I mention this only to say I don't know what I'm talking about except as it applies to me.

However, this has happened to me my whole life. I go through periods when everything is boring, nothing has any meaning, I can't find that interest or obsession. Then, when I find it, things are better for a little while, then I learn a certain amount about it and no longer care.

So I don't know if it's normal but it is for me, hope that helps a little.

Take care.

I find as an adult that my special interests are not as "intense" as they were when I was younger. I think partly because I do not have the time to engage in them as heavily as I would like. But, they still come and go. Right now I think I have a bit of a dry stage when it comes to my special interests.

I was without a special interest in 2004 and 2005. I was bored to death because I didn't have anything exciting to keep my mind occupied. I'm lucky that I've found WP at the time, because that was the one thing that kept my mind occupied.

I completely understand.

During the dawn of my special interest it was intense and much more satisfying, everything was new and there was so much research I could do and I actually had friends to talk to about sonic with, now it's just me and all I can do is draw sonic and watch sonic boom.

I've had side interests like FNAF, Disneyland, Film reviews, Adventure Time but nothing was as fun as sonic.

Yeah, I totally know what you are talking about.

I have been obsessing over space travel for 12 years, at first I was way into it because there was so much to learn but now that I know the purpose of every Apollo mission and can list important strategic design differences between rockets built by different space agencies it has begun to loose momentum and in the last few years it has been put aside while I obsess over other things.

It is still a special interest, I still do get very excited when I see a rocket or an epic photo of Earth from space, but it's just loosing momentum. It is helping though that I am beginning to study the mathematics behind space travel, that should last me a while although for the moment I think I will try to get back into lucid dreaming because that was a fun obsession and I have come so close to succeeding so many times. Then I can visit my imaginary world, fly historic space missions, and tell physics what to do as much as I want in my dreams and it will be super epic.

I quite enjoy down time on my obsessions. It means I can relax and just read a novel or two. They don't last very long there's always something just around the corner that's going to grab me.

It's plenty normal to switch interests and to have varying levels of intensity, I think anxiety/depression probably strips the joy out of most things too, things you use to enjoy or care about don't matter much any more.

Hey Mikeman:

Do you think they'll be a manned flight to mars by 2030?

I hope you get the NASA job by 2024, with maybe an internship before then.

Is it possible you're depressed? One symptom of depression is loss of interest in things you'd normally enjoy. For aspies this can mean losing special interests.