Periods of Time with No Special Interest

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Recently my special interest has been AS and I studied it all day long. However, I feel like I've exhausted the knowledge at this point and my special interest is no longer exciting to me. This makes me feel kind of lost, like what should I do with myself? I need a new interest but I'm not interested in learning about anything else right now.

Is it normal for there to be periods of time where one special interest ends and you don't have another for a while?

I hate those times...I've had them. I used to think of it in the metaphorical sense before I understood a bit more about how it works (and I still do, though, because I like the imagery)--it feels like a "fire" burning inside me when I have an interest (or two or occasionally three), but when that flame goes out and there's none left it feels so dark and dismal inside while I'm waiting for something else to spark!

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Official diagnosis: ADHD, synesthesia. Aspie quiz result (unofficial test): Like Frodo--I'm a halfling? 110/200 NT, 109/200 Aspie.

I've gone through periods, like that. 2004 and most of 2005 is a good example of my months, without a special interest. I'm very lucky that it was different, this time. I've gone right from the UK 70s Punk Movement, back to Swinging London.

I'm currently going through one of these difficult times...

I'm not entirely sure whether I have an overriding special interest, but I definately periodically latch on to things (like films, games, types of music) obsessively and read up on everything about them, before losing interest after a time or once the thing is watched/played/exhausted. Is this normal for AS?

At the moment my interest is in Dragon Age 2 (it was announced last week), Scott Pilgrim (the final comic, the movie, and the game are all coming out this summer), and this forum.

Anyway, to answer your question, yes, I have had that feeling a few times in this last year. While I was in school and university I never had enough free time to completely exhaust my obsessions (usually video games, films and music), so I always had fresh things to move on to once my old obsession ended. Now that I've been out of university for almost a year, and I'm unemployed, I have too much free time. Every game I'm interested in, I play to completion multiple times until I can't play anymore, and the industry just can't produce enough new ones to keep up with me.

I end up feeling like I have nothing to do, not knowing what to do with myself, and cursing the fact that I have no social life and no regular hobbies that would get me out of the house or help expand my horizons. The worst part is, I would dearly love to be able to play the bass guitar, and I have a bass to practice on, but I just can't seem to shift my obsessive tendencies onto it. Instead, I end up sat at my computer, obsessively refreshing my bookmarks all day.

I felt like that after I finished finding out about AS. It's like my whole life before that was trying to work out what the heck was wrong with me, and then after, the entire focus of my life changed. It's like, I know what's going on now, so what do I do with the rest of my life?

I'm sure something will come along for you, as it did for me. I have about 6 or 7 major SIs going on right about now. Ain't I greedy?

Hmm yeah.. For the past year mine has been MJ (of course, since he passed.. probably a lot of NTs too got into him, but it's amazing ..I feel as if I've learned as much about him in one year as other life-long fans have learned in, well, their lifetimes).
I've never actually met someone with AS that I know of, except for the amazing randomly bumping into Heather from ANTM, but my sister happened to meet someone with Asperger's on a trip to Australia and she was telling me how his special interest now was just pouring himself into researching Asperger's.
I felt I could easily get into that since I'm so desperate to get to that 100% conviction that I have it (it's always back and forth, but then again, we have our normal days and our aspie days).
But I can see what you mean. It's like okay.. how long 'til it sortof gets boring ..perhaps because of yes, too much information!, or because it doesn't feel UNIQUE to you, because maybe all the other AS people are into it too??

Anyway, I feel like the only time I wasn't nearly consumed with some special interest was when I had a boyfriend. Heh.

Oh, I hate going through periods of time where I don't have a special interest! I went through that for a couple of months last year and it was terrible. Starting as early as January of this year, however, I've picked up several interests which are still going strong. I'm happy now.

In the past when I was having a lull in my special interest I would aimlessly watch TV or listen to talk radio. Now I don't have a TV and, I'm just burnt out on talk radio. I can feel a lull in my special interest coming. I want to get obsessed with somethign productive for a change but, I don't think it works that way.

I have had periodic experiences that had no special interests.The last time that I had no interests was when I was 18 years old.My interest was
10-pin bowling and became successful at this activity.About this time, it just suddenly stopped.I have not bowled since.

Yes I have periods without any interest in anything. I am going through one at the moment. It has lasted about a month. My last interest was the Twilight saga. It happened by chance. I was in the second hand games shop and found the DVD of New Moon. So I picked it up thinking it will give me something to watch tonight. I watched the film and even though I didn't think it was brilliant I decided to read all the books. So I read the books in about 2-3 weeks and watched the first film. Now I am not interested in it anymore. So shortlived! Since then I have not been interested in anything much. I reckon it will last another month or so.

I have this right now, it's not that I don't have any interest at all, but it shifts rapidly. I have interests lasting only a few days, and no interest in my old interests. And what's weird is that I want to be interested, but I can't...

I have like weeks when I have no interests. It's very bad cause I keep beign bored and hyet there is little I can do that will engage me.

I do have this from time to time, like extreme boredom, but until I read this I didn't connect it to the special interests we have. It makes a whole lot more sense now!

One thing still interests me: numbers, and I hate prime numbers (except 2 and 5), my post count is now 167 and by this post 168, phew