I think I’m extremely weird for this, and I try to explain it as good as possible.
See, whenever I do something I enjoy, be it designing something in CAD for fun, working out at home, watching a new show I enjoy, playing video games… it goes well as long as I’m completely alone. But as soon as someone even as little as encourages me, I loose all interest in this and stop doing it for some time until I am alone some weeks, months or even years later and I do it again, have fun for some days, and then someone finds out what I’m doing and I just stop it.
Is this normal? What is this called? Is there help?
Is it viable for you to get your own apartment and turn off yor phone?
Maybe once you experience isolation, you’ll find that you miss human interaction after all, or you are happy living alone.
Oh I don‘t miss human interaction most of the time. I’m living with a depressed ADHD partner in therapy that takes meds but as time goes on it’s just became a chore to keep her happy.
Makes total sense!
Research has been done on how our minds process “gratification” and studies have shown that merely telling others about about what we’re planning to accomplish feels almost exactly the same as actually accomplishing it.
As soon as you get that pat on the back from someone else about the progress you’ve made, your mind feels like it’s received your external reward already, so it doesn’t see a reason why it should continue doing the hard work of creating.
Next time, try intentionally NOT talking with others about a project you’re working on until it’s 100% complete. See if that helps keep you motivated.
I also lose interest in certain things when asked about them. I try to continue anyway, but I am not always successful at doing that. There is a project I am currently working on that I am struggling to complete because of this.
For me it’s the anxiety of disappointing the other person. I would rather they are disappointed right now rather than make an effort and have them still disappointed.
As I have gotten older I have learned to mostly ignore the the anxious thoughts, because they are often not true, but they are always there and I am not always able to shake those feelings.
Talk with your doctor. It’s likely they can help you with this.
Research ADHD
I’m not sure what it might be called, but I totally get that. I think it has something to do with the anxiety of expectations. Maybe you feel judged for how you’re choosing to spend your time, or maybe you feel like there’s an expectation that you’ll get better at whatever it is that you’re doing, or maybe it’s as simple as just not wanting to be viewed as predictable. If you’re unhappy with this tendency that you have, I highly recommend working with a therapist to either find a way to change your behavior or change how you feel about your behavior. It sounds like you’re not hurting anybody, so it seems like there’s just some unhappiness for one reason or another that a professional could help you out with so that you can get a little more enjoyment and peace of mind. If the 94 in your username is your birth year, then you’re 30ish and maybe just struggling a little with being comfortable with your identity in some capacity, like you “should’ve” figured out who you are and become comfortable with it by now, and you might be feeling some additional anxiety for not achieving that? Idk, I’m just some guy on the internet who had a similar thing, and it’s helped for me to adopt a slightly more complex version of the hakuna matata philosophy, which I think of as a sort of optimistic existential hedonistic nihilism: nothing matters, so there’s no sense getting spun up; just do what you feel like doing so long as it isn’t fucking others over. You like CAD? Then fuck around in CAD. Enjoying a video game? Hell yeah, that’s something cool to look forward to spending some time with this weekend. Knock out chores and errands for a bit and then you’re free to do whatever the fuck you feel like doing. Hell, light a scented candle while you’re at it. Really enjoy it.
