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tips for mansging obsessive researching?

M

monkeyclogs

Active Member
V.I.P Member
i'm wondering how common this is.

I get obsessively curious about a subject and end up researching.

current obsessive researching is a health problem. It's not health anxiety. I'm not anxious about which of the many possibilities my health problem will turn out to be, it's more like a puzzle that needs solving and I can't relax until it's solved.

And I know that once that has been solved my brain will move, quite arbitrarily, onto something else. More often than not it's based on something someone has asked me that I've not known the answer to or something someone has mentioned in passing that I know nothing about.

It's like a compulsion to research.

Another example, last year was the 25th anniversary of a significant landmark in my town and there were lots of related events. Someone asked a simple question about the construction and nobody seemed to know the answer so I started researching. Within a week I'd obtained blue prints and learnt a lot about the design, tracked down historical photos and people who might have leads and started piecing it together. I go to ridiculous lengths to understand. I spent a few days learning to interpret blue prints and went down a whole rabbit hole of how the government grants were allocated, the construction firms were selected etc. I also researched the people who were leading the process, became fascinated by a town councillor, no longer alive, who was very active at the time and his career.

And then, I casually mentioned to the person who'd asked the question that I'd looked into it and told them the answer to their question. To which they responded "that's intetesting" and then changed the subject! They clearly had no interest in all the related information I'd acquired. so, i just file away what I"ve learnt and move on, it's unlikely to ever be useful information.

is this a common autistic trait or something else? it's exhausting! Anyone have any tips for switching this off? I can distract myself for a couple of hours but it's an effort.
 
I have a research compulsion too. It can be a source of much excitement and yet also a source of much distress. Even before I had Internet access, I would jump up from having coffee or something to retrieve a dictionary, encyclopedia or other reference materials to find an answer to something myself or someone else had wondered about. The other person would often say something about me not having to go look it up or not having to look it up right now. I would still take off and often very quickly have the answer. I think other people thought that I thought they expected me to or something and felt bad that I didn't stay seated , but from my end once a question was floating around it would eat at me and perhaps even cause an anxiety spike if I did not find the answer. Whereas, both learning the answer as well as being able to demonstrate my aptitude for looking up information quickly would give me a dopamine boost.
 
Same symptoms here. I read something, notice a word or a concept, google it, notice a word or a concept, google it, and so on... At worst, after a whole day I haven't finished the original text but has learnt a lot of new stuff which require even further analysis because I stop midway and force myself back to the original subject. No holes allowed.

I just have developed myself thumb rules about how far I go. If I try to say something to someone, but it just doesn't sink to him/her, I stop after third attempt. Likewise, if I find myself following three levels of that "read, google, read more"-cycle, I'll force myself to stop. I'd rather make a reminder note to "check these-and-these things later", and then later, when my head has been cleared, I reconsider if it is really that interesting and worth of it. And yes, these rules are not easy to follow.

I have read and learned that this is an autistic trait for sure. Not sure what kind of percentage of population suffers from that. Need to research about it... 🙂

Sometimes I feel like Tiffany from Hellraiser 2: Cenobites take to Hell everyone who open the demonic puzzle box, except her because "it is not hands that summon us. It is desire". She didn't have any desire, just a compulsion.
 
For anything that interests me I learn at a rate that boggles the minds of most people, but key to that is it must be something I'm interested in. It seems I only have high intelligence if I'm having fun.
 
FayetheADHDsquirrel said:
I have a research compulsion too. It can be a source of much excitement and yet also a source of much distress. Even before I had Internet access, I would jump up from having coffee or something to retrieve a dictionary, encyclopedia or other reference materials to find an answer to something myself or someone else had wondered about. The other person would often say something about me not having to go look it up or not having to look it up right now. I would still take off and often very quickly have the answer. I think other people thought that I thought they expected me to or something and felt bad that I didn't stay seated , but from my end once a question was floating around it would eat at me and perhaps even cause an anxiety spike if I did not find the answer. Whereas, both learning the answer as well as being able to demonstrate my aptitude for looking up information quickly would give me a dopamine boost.
Click to expand...

that's an interesting point about dopamine because it does feel rewarding when I start out on learning about something and it is incredibly addictive.

I think our difference is the immediacy of the compulsion. I mostly don't think about it when the question is asked it's usually after they've gone home it springs back into my head and starts eating away at me.
 
@UFO

that sounds like my compulsion! The rule of three sounds like an interesting experiment.

"I have read and learned that this is an autistic trait for sure. Not sure what kind of percentage of population suffers from that. Need to research about it... 🙂"
😂 this!
 
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