I frequently find myself losing momentum at the end of things that I enjoy. For instance, I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and loving it. I recently got into the last act (Act 3) of the game, and I’m finding myself a bit burned out on it and gravitating towards other games. I’m also in the last episode of Dimension 20’s Neverafter (yes, I’m a geek haha) and finding myself not interested in finishing it.
Does this happen to anyone else? I started on medication earlier this year, and lots of other symptoms of my ADHD have gone away, but this one seems to be persisting.
Honestly, no! I usually switch over when I start to feel a dip in my hyperfixation on the game, but still have an interest in it (around two or three days of playing in a row). I try really hard to make sure I’m not getting into a dopamine loop, I feel like when I do my enjoyment of games diminishes very quickly when I do.
Most modern games (like BG3) have such good quest logs/journals that I can just look at that and know where I left off. If it’s something like a Dark Souls game, I have a word document on my desktop that I write down what I want to do for next time (location I was going, quest, etc). I’m also not opposed to using guides/Googling if there’s something that I really feel like I’m forgetting.
Don’t feel bad about not finishing a game/book/movie though. It really is a lot to do with ADHD’s dopamine disregulation. We just produce less of it on average, so when we get a hit of it our brains try to squeeze every last drop out of the activity that’s giving us that high as fast as possible, and that can lead to the burnout boredom.
The last paragraph is really important - don't feel pressured to be a completionist in your leisure. Most of your life will give you constant pressure to complete things related to work or school - let your brain enjoy your leisure time and if it wants to move on don't try to force it to stay or stress out about how you'll restart it. In most of life you'll need to learn how to cope and conform to societal expectations around task completion, but it's probably healthy for us to let our brain indulge when we're unwinding.