oof, i feel this one
At that point that becomes my info dump to relate to people! I still 3d print just not obsessively! I ride a motorcycle or bike to work if I work late. I make friends keyboards and computers. I bleed people’s breaks and change their breakpads. My past special interests are my friends tools and my means to community and sense of belonging.
thats good for you. do you have to force yourself to do those things or do they still interest you, just not as much as before? For me it feels like once the hyperfixation fades you couldnt pay me a million bucks to touch that hobby again in any capacity until the special interest comes back.
I started noticing something about my gaming habits that directly correlates, I believe, with my ADHD and hobby abandonment. I primarily play single player games – I know, a neurodivergent that avoids multiplayer games, shocker – and as soon as I look into cheating at it using something like Cheat Engine to manipulate the number of in-game items available to me, I lose interest in playing it soon after.
Similarly, hobbies tend to fizzle out as soon as I buy the tools or templates to do it better. Woodworking was fun until I bought stuff to make a table saw jig and a bunch of tools to do it easier and nicer. 3D printing was my life until I bought a new, nicer printer and a bunch of accessories to print different filaments.
I recently bought and played “Amnesia: The Bunker” (amazing game, highly recommend if you’re into those games, even moreso now after the Halloween update). Because each ‘item’ in the game is individual and unstackable, I can’t cheat by finding and manipulating numbers such as ammo or crafting item amounts. I have to find them during playthrough and pray I can get what I need with some really brutal settings possible.
I’m on my 4th playthrough, with over 50 hours in about 2 weeks, and I am still enjoying it. Each playthrough is different. I like to randomize the custom difficulty settings (added in the aforementioned update) and not look at them so I have to discover the settings as I play. Sometimes, it’s a little easier, and other times it’s much, much harder! The randomness adds uniqueness to each playthrough and makes it feel like a new experience.
I’m trying to find a way to do the same thing with some of the hobbies I used to enjoy. If anyone has any ideas based on the above info, or personal observations of a similar nature in your life, let’s have a dialogue! I’m always interested in learning more about my mind, and the minds of other neurodivergents.
I’ve found that challenges keep me invested, both for hobbies and at work. Once I have a problem “solved” I become quickly disinterested. It seems that you have come to a similar conclusion.
So if you wanted to rekindle your interest in woodworking/3d printing find a new challenge. Do you know CAD? That may enough to draw you back in. Then set bigger and bigger challenges for yourself to tackle.
