No obsessions or interests

[Ovrthkr817]

I've read about people with Aspegers having one thing that they are obsessed with. Something that they can't get enough of. Either I haven't found my passion or I don't have one. Lack of a passion is what has kept me depressed and sad most of my life. I used to think that I loved graphic design but I don't think that I really do. My sister suggested I get into it when I was looking into programs for college. She suggested it because of a pass time I had caught myself up into at the time. After school I ended up working retail. A few years after that I started looking for stuff in "my field" and realized I wasn't qualified enough. I applied to go back to school, wasn't accepted, ended up doing retail for another few years, then eventually got a diploma in graphic design. Passed without a problem. Gained more knowledge, yet a year later, I'm still not working in my field.

I would think that if I had a true passion for this, or was really obsessed with it I would be working on so much stuff, always practicing. I would love doing it and would want to spend hours doing it, but I don't. I spend a lot of my free time at home doing nothing. Just sitting online looking stuff up, pointless stuff. I don't enjoy doing anything. It bothers me when I see others working towards something but I don't have anything i want bad enough. I have no inner drive and I hate it. It just makes me sadder.

I know no two people with Aspegers are the same. We're all different, but one thing that most people have is a thing that they can go hours on end talking about. I don't have that. Is there anyone else like this?

 

[Pella]

There are alot of things I am really interested in, like writing, classic literature, abstract and mixed media art, history, the various theories and discoveries of evolution, surrealistic film, foriegn films. I have alot of ambitions, but people have told me that i didn't have the passion for it, like if i had the passion for writing, then I would be actually writing, but for me everything seems so big, its overwhelming. Like I feel like if i write a novel it has to be brilliant, and so I never really get very far, My doctor at mental health says I tend to jump from one thing to another. I think its because while I want to do these things, when it comes time to actually do them, it is just to scary. I don't know if that has any relation to what you asked i don't know

 

[kasmanaft08]

I feel like having an obsession of some sort is part of being an aspie, to be honest.
But there could be a lot of reasons for not having one- you got bored of your old obsessions and just haven't struck a new one... are under stress/depression, that sort of thing. When I'm anxious about something I lose interest in my obsessions, which in turn makes me more depressed. But I would argue to qualify for aspergers you had to have, at least at some point, SOMETHING.

I think what varies between aspies and obsessions are the nature of the obsessions: topics, how specific, how mainstream or quirky. Some have very "normal" interests that just look like hobbies, research or fandom, others are a bit more quirky and obscure.

 

[Ovrthkr817]

I guess when I said I had no obsessions, I was really thinking of one specific thing. My interests have changed from time to time, and when I really like something I tend to "study" it like I will be tested on it in the future. I don't really think much of them though because I do consider them to be pretty mainstream things. Thanks guys for your replies

 

[Liza Jane]

I think the other people on this thread have made the point that you can get bored with your special interest, but here's another example: I heard Alex Plank talking Alex Plank talks to parents of people with Asperger's - YouTube about how he was really interested in computers before he went to college, but then he did badly in school because he got bored with it. He switched his major to Film and Video Studies and seems pretty successful.

Studying something like it's going to be on a test, I do that these days. My brother's obsessions usually go like this (he doesn't have AS; charismatic, but obsessive): he will study and study something for many hours every day if he can, all over the Internet, and info-dump to family members, until he feels he knows everything about it, and then he switches to something else. Right now it's drugs.