Every once in a while I get really passionate about some topic of study or a project, dive into it head first, devote all my (hopefully spare) time to it. Occasionally it has even been detrimental to my wellbeing. Like once I permanently fucked my stomach by skipping too many meals during a week long programing project.

Yet, nine out of ten times the whole shebang doesn't amount to anything. After a week or so I loose all interest and drop the whole thing.

Now, I'm getting one of those obsessions about learning a language and it got me thinking about the best way to deal with it. Maybe I should try pacing myself, stop myself from spending too much time everyday learning and maybe it will prevent me from burning out and losing interest in a week or two? Maybe trying to cram information into your brain ten hours a day is not an effective way to learn? Or maybe it's the opposite and the smart thing is to use this short period when I'm excited and eager to study to learn as much as possible?

Do any of you guy have experience with something like this?

    • Anemasta [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      When I hear people with autism talk about their fixation they seem to sustain them for long periods of time. My problem is not so much that I occasionally get those intense bouts of obsession, but that they go away after a couple of weeks and I'm left spending my evening scrolling through twitter or watching random videos on YouTube instead of learning or creating anything.

      • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        This sounds more like ADHD than autism imo, because the distractability is an important hallmark of ADHD. Once the novelty that sucked you into the new hobby starts to fade, your focus falls off a cliff. As far as I understand autism, the focused interests are much more durable than that.

        I've got ADHD but not autism and your post is basically doxxing me lmao

      • crime [she/her, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        yeah I'll tend to categorize my fixations like this as either hyperfixation or special interest

        Hyperfixation is more of what you're describing: my life is entirely consumed by a topic for a few weeks, then I quickly lose interest and never come back to it, and until I have something else to fill the void I end up feeling very bored and not doing much at all. This can be associated with both autism and ADHD but tends to be associated with ADHD more often. For me it's more like "I just watched this TV show and it's the greatest thing I've ever seen. I will spend the next 2 weeks rewatching it on loop, reading fan theories, learning all the in-universe lore, reading interviews with the creators, and now that 2 weeks are up and I've squeezed every drop of serotonin out of this show I will probably not pick it up again for another 5 years minimum" or like "I am starting a new hobby like knitting, I'm spending all my free time researching knitting and watching tutorials and picking out knitting patterns, and I've finally gotten some knitting supplies and started knitting half a scarf and my interest is over, time to put the yarn away in the corner and look at it guiltily while I scroll through twitter until eventually I don't even see it when I look at it and forgot I ever did it"

        Special interest is more often associated with autism, that's more like if a topic that I'm really interested in comes up I can and will talk for hours and hours about it if nobody stops me, and I will frequently spend time researching or engaging with the topic over a number of years. It's less like "I need to be engaged with this topic at all times" and more like "I have been putting the vast majority of skill points into Trains and Railway Infrastructure for the last few years and if we get stopped at a railway crossing I will not shut up about the kind of train that went past, where it was probably going, where it was probably coming from, what kind of locomotive was attached and all of the technical specs about that locomotive, how the crossing signal infrastructure works, etc, etc, etc"

        • wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I have been putting the vast majority of skill points into Trains and Railway Infrastructure for the last few years and if we get stopped at a railway crossing I will not shut up about the kind of train that went past, where it was probably going, where it was probably coming from, what kind of locomotive was attached and all of the technical specs about that locomotive, how the crossing signal infrastructure works, etc, etc, etc

          Hello, you called me?