Special Interests

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28 Apr 2012, 1:04 am

I don't go actively looking for my special interests, usually it's something small that catches my interest and makes me look deeper into the subject as a whole. Once established, my interests can keep me going for years, and they take up all of my free time. If I'm ever between interests it makes me feel a little lost, like an important part of me is somehow missing. My interests never really translate to the real world very well because they have always involved either books, cartoons, or, currently, sci fi. My most useful interest so far has been my intense study of Asperger's, something else I'm currently fascinated by.

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FishStickNick
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28 Apr 2012, 1:24 am

I've had one of my special interests for as long as I can remember. But I can say that I don't look for special interests; I find something interesting, and I just become engrossed in it. Aspergers itself has occupied much of my free time for the last month or so.

IdahoRose
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28 Apr 2012, 3:07 am

With every one of my special interests, I have come across something by chance and the moment I lay eyes on it, my heart skips a beat and it's love at first sight. Then I proceed to obsess over it for about 2 to 3 years (typically). My longest obsession lasted 6 years and my shortest lasted 4 months.

Kiseki
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28 Apr 2012, 9:23 am

I'm a bit worried as I haven't had a proper special interest in over 6 months. I don't know why but my brain doesn't seem to want one right now I always know when an interest is becoming a special interest because my curiousity in it is MUCH stronger than anything else in my life. I feel like I need to know everything about it, from every angle, and I literally am IN LOVE with it. Then the love fades away and I start to feel lost and depressed. This is pretty much how I feel right now. I wish that something would grab me again...

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minotaurheadcheese
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28 Apr 2012, 11:35 am

OddDuckNash99 wrote:

Once an intense SI has found its way into my life, the first phase is a short period of increasing excitement and obsessional thinking about the new subject. I'll get what I call "excited panic attacks," which are pretty much what they sound like- I'll have a panic attack from excitement about the new SI, and in order to stop the panic attack symptoms, I have to engage in the SI. This tends to happen the most for movie/TV show SIs. Then, I slowly begin to search for and print out pictures of my new SIs. And do Internet research and/or read books. By this time, I'll also casually mention it to my mom, and then casually drop the subject here and there in conversations with people I'm close with. By this time, I know deep down that it's going to be an SI, but out of guilt and loyalty to my other SIs, I don't admit this at first.

Slowly, the intensity will grow enough and last long enough that I feel the subject is worthy of being deemed a true SI, and once it's "official," the next phase, which usually lasts 1-3 years, is what I call the "rambling phase." This is the "most Aspie" time, where I literally will talk about the SI and nothing else if given the chance, and I will try to bring up the SI in conversation whenever I can. The SI dominates my thoughts during this time, and if allowed, my brain will re-visit the topic whenever able.

After the rambling phase has ended, the SI will become a permanent fixture in my life, along with my other SIs. They stay with me for life, as do their passion and intensity, but post-rambling phase, I only will ramble about them when they are brought up in conversation somehow. I no longer have the obsessive need to talk about them every chance I get, but I still delight in talking about them when relevant. However, every so often, whether by reminder, nostalgia, or something else, I will have a resurgence of the rambling phase for a particular SI. Only, the resurgence of passion only lasts from a few days to a month before it goes back to the permanent fixture.

I was really happy when I read your post. Virtually every detail of what you describe equates to my experience of special interests. I smiled when you mentioned the guilt and loyalty to your other SI's. That is an extremely familiar sentiment to me. I am happy to know that there are others who have the same experience that I do because I have felt since early childhood that one area which made me appear most eccentric and unlikeable was my fixation on certain topics, my unabated thirst for knowledge pertaining to them, and my sometimes inappropriate compulsion to discuss them in technical detail.

My SIs agonize me for two reasons. First, because I am aware of their social implications and feel embarrassed by their abnormal intensity and depth, yet feel helpless to control how I express them. Second, because during the early period when I am the most desperate to learn everything that I can about a topic, it can be a genuinely painful experience for me. Sometimes the information is not available or sometimes there are reasons why I have to wait to obtain it and I feel very frustrated.

That said, I would not know who I was if I did not have my SIs. I do not know how NT people go through life without the consuming intellectual passions I feel. I do not mean that as an insult to any NTs, just that I am not capable of conceiving what that life would be like. My personal motto is "amore Studii," meaning "for the love of learning," because I do not think I would continue to live were it not for my hunger for knowledge about certain subjects.

Night_Shade917
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28 Apr 2012, 2:01 pm

Wow thanks so much for all your replies! It was really interesting to see all your perspectives and it's amazing how you all have such a great knowledge of your Special Interests! I really liked reading about them and it's so fascinating how you can remember such large amounts of information about your Special Interests . I have an Aspie boyfriend and when he talks about his special interest, he sounds so smart because he can tell me so much information about one subject, it truely is amazing.

SpongeBobRocksMao
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28 Apr 2012, 7:35 pm

Well, I've had my special interest in SpongeBob and other cartoons for quite a while now. It's not like I want it to become a special interest, it just happens. I remember I used to just watch SpongeBob once in a while, then daily, then I found myself collecting hundreds and hundreds of its merchandise. The collecting has stopped now, but the obsession is still there.

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raylit20
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29 Apr 2012, 11:14 pm

I'm glad to hear that others follow a similar course with their SI as I do. I typically follow a pattern like OddDuckNash99 mentioned.

For the last few years my SI has been vehicles, and while I love talking with enthusiasts about them, they often bore of the conversation and move on long before I do. I found that rather than being specific about things I get a better reaction if I am more general and don't fully finish explaining an idea. Seems very odd to do at first, but I see people doing it all the time around me.

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