Losing your special interest

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Does anyone have tips on how to tone down or get rid of your special interest, especially if it is affected your self-esteem or causing problems in other ways?

A "special interest" is very difficult to get of. It's "special" for a reason.

I guess I would find out what else I'm interested in, and pursue that, thus diverting yourself from the "special interest." Suppose you're interested in clouds. Perhaps you could expand that to an interest in meteorology.

It also depends upon what your "special interest" is.

i placed greater emphasis on what my special interest was hurting and slowly swapped the priority until the other was gone

i am now better at what i lacked in but have now no lasting special interest

Ok, what was it hurting that you swapped it with? That is an interesting idea, just not sure we had the same problem.

social interaction and other areas of interest

I find my special interests seem to come-and-go.

I think that since I have more than one special interest, that may be why some are more important to me than others and that which ones are more important tends to change over time.

Hello. I have found that my special interest changes every 2-3 years. That may not be your case. But what I have found that once I basically know everything of that topic, I get bored, and change topics. My first obsessive interest was tigers, when I was 8-9, a few years after I learned to read. Once I knew everything about tigers, I found something else. My mind works in such a way that I want to learn as much as I can about everything, but mainly focus on my special interest due to ASD.

For you, I am not saying that you should learn everything about that topic, but make yourself busy in other ways. Like, make yourself busy in something that relates to your topic that you are obsessed about. For example, I write Fanfiction. When I was obsessed with Stargate SG-1, I wrote Stargate fanfiction. A few years later, I became obsessed with NCIS, so then instead of writing Stargate Fanfiction, I wrote NCIS fanfiction. I combined two main interest, and one faded eventually. Maybe that will work?

Try creating a new special interest then it should be easier to kill the old one. I'm in the process of making programming a special interests. It's not always a fast thing. Learning new things can be over stimulating and sometimes might I find myself going back to my old one as a coping thing, just ride it out once I know a lot about new a lot about my new one I feel like it's easier to transition to the new

I stopped getting special interests at some point, though I'm not sure how. I think it's around the time I started forcing myself to be more social and to try new things. In short, when I made myself behave in a less autistic manner I lost that autistic trait. Obviously, this is not a practical solution for most people. It took years of tremendous effort for me.

I still see hints of it here and there and worry I'll develop a special interest again. It scares me.

I used to be really interested in the show LOST. I found that when I stopped being interested in it, it was a huge relief for both me and everyone around me.

Last edited by Diamondisis on 11 Aug 2022, 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

Obsessions chose me, and there was nothing I could do to make them become less interesting, so I just had to let them run their course. Unfortunately it took a few years. Sometimes lifestyle changes can also help but it can all depend on what the special interest/obsession is.

The only thing that might work is finding another one. That, and being more self-compassionate about the one you have now, even if it is causing you difficulties. If they were easy to be rid of, they wouldn't be special interests.

I don't know what specific interest you want to be rid of, but if it doesn't involve harming yourself or others it isn't a problem. You might feel embarrassment, or been told by someone that its "cringey" but so what? You're allowed to be interested in and even enjoy them. they don't often last forever. I have had special interests that I have all but forgotten about.

The original post is from 2016...

so it is...oops. Good Catch

This is why it's annoying when old threads are bumped.

Professor John still comes here once in a while.