I've done this too and I have no idea why.

For me, I think it's part depression/dysthymia keeping me from fully enjoying things, part ocd/ anxiety believing I'm enjoying things wrong if I don't give something my full attention, my anxiety and adhd keeping me from paying attention, and a general pessimistic belief that something might just ruin my experience of the thing. It ends up with me getting high to participate in things I enjoy, but not fully remembering parts of it.

It's not healthy and I'm trying to unpack why I am avoiding things I enjoy because I know there's something else going on, like I'm trying to save my good experiences for when I can better enjoy them, but maybe that's me just resisting the human experience.

sounds to me like a fear of something you become invested in coming to an end which I can understand

sometimes i'll start a game/book/series and i'll enjoy the start of it, and then i'll never pick it up again bc i feel like im too dissociated or fatigued to properly enjoy it. i don't rly have a fix for this tbh

I'm the same way, FWIW; I played about two hours of Disco Elysium and decided that it was too good for me to engage with right then. It's still sitting there, waiting. Same with the original Metal Gear Solid. I knew I was going to enjoy it, but there was a feeling of, "I can't give this the quality of attention that it deserves."

I'm AuDHD, and I feel like I've developed this. It could just be the place I'm at in my life though too. I'm recently divorced and all of my friends who I normally consume media with are crushingly busy. I have a list of about 500 movies that I would love to see, but I want to watch them with somebody. Same thing with games, because I want to play while someone else is there.

I can relate to some degree. When I have real-life stuff coming up thats tiresome or challenging, I tend to play simpler games or something that isnt too demanding.

Thats why I’m currently playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and leaving Rogue Trader for later (though im pretty sure I will enjoy Rogue Trader more)

Like Valhalla is fast food or popcorn kino but thats exactly what im craving right now (even if there are plenty games that I consider better)

I'm in a similar situation and I have been for a long time. I used to get games at launch and tear right into them. Now, I'll still buy them, but they'll sit, wrapped, until I "get around to it" which doesn't happen a lot.

Mentally, I'm in a tough space. I'm likely ADHD, both my mom and sibling are diagnosed with it. I grew up poor and did well in school so I was never evaluated for it. As an adult, I don't know where to start if I even wanted to get help with it. I've got something else going on too. I'm a maladjusted perfectionist.

I'm still exploring the causes on my own, but I believe my reward response is messed up. I have two weird hangups, one is that if it's a series of games, I feel like I have to play the entire series from the beginning. That's often so daunting, I never start. The second is that I got bit by the "productivity grindset" bug. Even if I don't want to, I feel like gaming is just me wasting time and that if I'm playing them, I need to be streaming and creating contact around it. Again, that's daunting so I tend to avoid playing things in the first place.

I feel you. I am saving the 2 other films in Edgar Wrights conetto trilogy for a rainy day

"being hesitant to start" sounds like the kind of procrastination I get from my adhd, but the "stopping partway in is unfamiliar to me sinced the focus tends to kick in if I've already started, so I can't speak on all the possible intricacies you might have

I've wanted to play Frog Detective for years (not as like a passionate aspiration, I just think it's a neat game), but I've never gotten around to it because I'm such a miserable person that I feel like it will taint my experience of it.

but the moment I start to like like it I just stop it and get afraid of continuing with it.

Wow! That's me with people I fancy! 🤪

Due to this post, I decided to rewatch a movie that I've been holding off of watching for a while now.

I'll give you this advice and I mean this in the most sincere way possible: find a new hobby.

Whenever something traumatic happens to me, I always try to subtly change something in my daily routine, whether it's what I wear or what I eat or what I do for fun. The point is to have a soft reset so I can distance myself from that traumatic experience. It's so I can say, "well, that was incredibly shitty, but at least that bullshit chapter of my life is finally over and I am turning a page to a new chapter and I can tell I'm in a new chapter because I eat/dress/do things slightly different."

My guess is that gaming has been tainted by your hard semester, and the reason why you can no longer enjoy gaming is that you still unconsciously associate gaming with that terrible semester. I don't know how bad that semester was, but I think you should change some things. You don't have to fully reinvent yourself, but it's a good opportunity to explore other hobbies and see whether they scratch the itch that gaming once did.