Why is it so hard for NT's to comprehend special intrests?

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I have always been ridiculed or scolded because of my special intrests which were always a certian animal species. My parents were told by doctors that my obsession with meerkats or manatees was worrying, disturbing or potentialy dangerous and that it was in my best intrest for them to remove anything related to that pitcualir animal was removed and that I shouldn't be allowed to talk about it at all. I was teased by other kids for it. I tottaly despise animae because there are some people out there who are so obsessed it's scary (or should be by NT standards). Yet everyone is okay with them being obsessed with it. Why is it so disturbing for a person to want to know everything there is about a certian animal but it's seen as "normal" for them to want to watch animae all the time? Why is it wrong to love meerkats but is okay to love Inuyasha?

Ever since Meerkat Manor got so popular, it's now veiwed as okay to like meerkats or even be obsessed with them. It's sickning to go out and hear everybody talking about how they are "obsessed" with meerkats when I know they are just pretending so they can be considered "cool" because Meerkat Manor is "in" right now. Fools! You do not know what kind of hell I had to endure because I liked them for real when they weren't the "in" thing. It feels as if my special intrest is being stolen from me when things like this happen. NT's think that is a "silly" thing to think and it's impossible for someone to feel as if an intrest can be stolen. They say that I should be happy that there are so popluar now.

My understanding is that NTs think that our special interests are a waste of time, and that they're not healthy. They also think that if you spend a lot of time on that special interest, that you're screwed up in the head. They just don't understand why we have to be intensely interested in things that aren't mainstream. My mum used to call it getting hooked on things, as though they were drugs, instead of special interests. They are not drugs...they are interests that I held near and dear to my heart. That's how my parents turned me away from The Beatles. If they would have kept their fat, superficial NT curbie mouths shut, I might even be more of a Beatles fan than a Kinks fan, today. Who knows? The Beatles didn't look like street drugs to me. They looked like a band that I had a special interest in. Surely, The Beatles will be #1 on my list, again. I don't know, just when. Maybe, as soon as I forgive my parents, for that one last thing. I don't think that will be, for a while. I can see myself really getting back into The Beatles, as soon as the last of my two parents die. I will feel free to do so.

Not sure I like the term "special interests". The word "special" has negative and clinical connotations here. What so special about having a particular strong interest? Non-mainstream interests are to be valued for their non-mainstream-ness in part because their uncommon current following makes them one's own. Interests that were once popular may lose favor and then you can pursue them on the interests' own merits rather than following a crowd.

Last edited by sgrannel on 25 Jan 2010, 1:26 am, edited 2 times in total.

I agree with what CockneyRebel said. They view it as unhealthy and almost as a drug.

Sadly they can't see their own obsessions with socializing and spending money on useless and overpriced items such as clothing/jewellery as unhealthy...

Socializing I view as unhealthy because they do it in excess and it causes so much stress and misery to them.

My mum calls my special interests "phases". Hmm, like my 6 year phase on band photography that I've gone quite far with?
Other people find me nerdy or geeky for being obsessed with astronomy. If you don't socialize 2-3 times a week then you have no life to them. I tried socializing but I prefer my science books.

Isn't using internet forums socialising???

I used to be really interested in nature when I was in school, particularly insects and plants. When I started high school there was a couple things I like to observe which ended up with me being teased a lot for it. Just one of many reasons I hated high school so much.

That would suck to be denied your special interest. I guess for me it wasn't a problem because I never got interested in a specific thing, rather just general knowledge was fine for me.

I still am interested in plants, luckily nobody at my house minds the pots I have all over the place with plants slowly but surely growing in them...

It's not like face to face socialising at all. Sure you're talking to people but it's a whole lot different in real life. By socialising I mean actual socialising. The people I described above don't view talking on forums as actual socialising.

I think it's not that NT's don't understand your special interest, it's just general bigotry. In high school I've had a perfectly NT friend who, being perfectly normal in all other aspects, was WAY into dinosaurs - he was teased and attacked for it exactly the same way any aspie would.

So, I'm NT but I get obsessed with things for real, and not just to seem cool. I understand how you can feel like your special interest is being stolen from you as well. I've been obsessed with zombie books and movies since I was a kid and now suddenly zombies are all the rage and I feel like it cheapens my authentic feelings.

As a step-mom to a child with AS, I have to say that what annoys me about his special interest is that it's ALL he'll talk about. It's something very technical and he'll rattle off a bunch of numbers and technical terms that no one his age (or most adults for that matter) know or care anything about. It's something I find totally boring but I used to humor him in the beginning until I just couldn't take it anymore. And no matter how many times I tell him I'm not in the mood to talk about it (and it is never a two-sided conversation, it's him doing one looooong monologue) he can't stop talking about it. He'll find a way to bring it into every single conversation, no matter how much of a stretch.

And we have been very supportive of his interest. I have purchased lots of books and movies about it. He has a set up for working with it in his bedroom, custom built by his dad. He has been taken on many trips just to enjoy his interest and to meet professionals in that field so he can talk to them about it. It's not that I don't respect and admire his devotion to his interest, it's just to the exclusion of everything else.

There is one song that is about his interest and he plays it over and over and over again. When he doesn't have the song playing in his room (or in the living room) then he's singing it, or humming it...this has been going daily for nearly a year.

I need down time. Time to just have some quiet to myself and my thoughts...after awhile his inability to keep from talking or singing about his interest just makes me feel like screaming. And I see the way other kids (or relatives) eyes glaze over the minute he starts going into all the minutia of his interest...and I admit it embarrasses me a little.

I want to be a supportive, kind parent, but I admit in this regard I really don't know what to do!

Short version:
They can't empathize!

Long version:

NTs don't have Theory of Mind and, because that, they can't understand that other people have thougths and motivations different from them.

I'd love for our "Loved Ones" in our lives to be reading this thread, right now. They'd probably feel really guilty about the things that they did to us, regarding our interests. The thing that I said about The Beatles being #1 on my list, again is a nice thought, but it might never happen in reality, because the memories are too painful.

Yeah, that's quite ironic... or they only use their Theory of Mind on persons who are like themselves. The psychologists who describe AS just forget to mention that and say that ToM is understanding that "other people" have different thoughts... but which "other people"? With that way of putting it, they make it sound like it's other people in general, maybe "all" other people?, but obviously it isn't.

It's funny, even in such a small thing as which food you like or don't like, I've heard NTs say: oh, I don't understand how you can eat that, I never could...
- when I on my part certainly understand that they can eat things I don't like, eg. boiled eggs, because I know that different people have different taste, so I don't go "how can you eat that?", when I see them eat it?

It seems like they tend to switch their Theory of Mind off in smalltalk situations... Strange that one NT trait switches another off...

Better having an impaired (?) Theory of Mind that you use, than having an uncorrupted (?) one and not using it for other than some of your own kind or for mere decoration.

The way i explained it to my wife is that special interests are possitive happy things, obsessions are negative things.

That's an easy black/white one for me and i'm the one who gets to decide which is which. I accept for younger aspies and some less self aware you may not have the ability/maturity to accurately catagorise them.

It's really interesting to read that you sometimes feel that others are stealing your special interest. This may explain why my daughter gets so angry when one of her friends starts to have an interest in her special interest. She doesn't want to share it in that way.