Do you all have special interests? What are they?

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There are a great number of artist that use straight lines for their works and only lines. There are plenty of people who pay good money for them too. I also think that it's very probable you have a skill or talent I don't possess.

Computer role-playing game design, and internal martial arts. I'm obsessed with both in-depth, though my progress in the latter has been inferior to people who trained 3x less time than me.

Time-wise I should be an Nth degree black belt by now, but the movements are so organic that for the first 4 years I couldn't even grasp the idea of realtime sensitivity/adaptivity to the opponent. AS-style mind rigidity, attachment to patterns...

Norny, I would like to hear more of your ideas on this issue
I agree that SI's are poorly understood and the term misapplied.

eg. an SI is NOT merely something a person strongly likes or has an affinity for

...If this is " what is the ' all-consuming interest ' that Aspies are supposed to have that you have " question , perhaps comics are mine ~ Except that I hardly read any now ! !! !! !! !!

I like the enthusiasm. XD

I will probably create a thread about them soon (I'm more interested in comorbidity ATM). The only way I have successfully being able to distinguish between a special interest and a typical interest/obsession is through how restricted or intense it is. I would never regard playing a video game for hours on end to be a special interest, but I can see a part of a video game being a special interest if that aspect were an all-encompassing obsession. I will outline what I mean:

Likely not a special interest:

. Playing World of Warcraft all day
. Playing Starcraft all day and researching/developing strategies
. Playing Pokemon, collecting Pokemon cards, movies and toys

Potentially a special interest:

. Constantly researching, thinking about and relating everything to a video game, or specific aspect of that video game - incessantly, not sporadically.
. Becoming obsessed with a particular video game mechanic to the point where the video game is played exclusively for that small aspect of it

Even then, it's hard to tell. I've seen people that definitely do not have autism become completely obsessed with video games, anime, and/or their characters. It is because of this that I am under the impression that it is not the intensity that makes something a special interest, but the restrictive and/or perseverative nature.

When a 'special interest' is not highly focused, it must be absolutely all-encompassing (as a result of perseveration); a special interest that is not restricted must dominate the thoughts and desires of the individual to exclusion of almost everything else.

In my friend's case, he doesn't think about his special interests 100% of the day, but he almost always interjects in conversations with them, and they are restricted and perseverative as compared to a typical interest. He once had a less restrictive interest which was Porsche cars, but the interest was all encompassing: he created posters, bought models, played very boring video games simply for the sake of the existence of the cars, would stay up all night researching them etc.


The DSM 5 criteria:

3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g, strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interest).

This is open to interpretation, but it would seem that a special interest is not necessarily an actual interest in the way colloquially thought of. A special interest could refer to a fixation on parts of an object, for example, 'feeling love' for one's internet modem and thinking about it more than what is typical. This would probably turn into a special interest in modems, however I'm not certain.

Hey Norny,

You REALLY should study Neuroscience.

@ Norny

Norny is very very smart and perceptive

me likey

In all seriousness though, I believe your interpretation of the DSM 5 descriptors is FAR more accurate than that which is commonly understood by many WP users.

Please do start a thread on this topic. If you got more, I'd sure like to hear it. You will raise our collective understanding if you do.

Many thanks.

@ norny and slave

Do either of you mind if I PM you?

I remember as a kid I had periods of fascination with certain subjects, like geography, then human anatomy, then came cartography, world maps. I also had an abnormal fascination for M. Jackson' s music back in the 80s.

My special interests change with time but for the past few years they have been:

Photography and art in general (my own and others)
Autumn (the things associated with the season).
Autism (Lately it has been particularly women with autism, before it was children with autism)
Natural living (healthy food, outdoors stuff like camping, survival gear, and hiking equipment, living off the grid)
Old world shamanism and witchcraft

When I was pretty little I was obsessed with two movies for many years (The Never ending Story and The Last Unicorn) and my fantasy world I dreamed of living in.

I once ran up a $600 phone bill (in 1971) because of my obsession with the weather.

Wow, that would be roughly $3,500 in today's market! Thankfully they now have all sorts of apps for weather.

Yep...think of it:

In 1971, touch-tone phones were rich people's playthings.

There were video games--but they certainly weren't widespread. 1978 was the year where video games really acquired universal visibility. There was a mini-craze circa 1975 with the Odyssey Game--but it cost $100--and it was difficult to install the game with the TVs which they had at the time.

Even in the "major markets," people in the US had about 7-9 channels from which to choose. If somebody was really resourceful, one could pick up 5 or so channels which lied within the "ultra high frequency" (UHF) domain. The way to get those channels was very "low-tech": one manually manipulated the channel dial.

A few people had remotes--but most people still got up and changed the channels manually.

One couldn't buy one's own phone--one rented it from ATT. An ATT man had to install the phone. One couldn't take a phone out of the room where it was installed. If one wanted a touch-tone phone, one had to pay about $10 more per month.

Some people had car phones--but cell phones didn't exist yet.

My special interests rotate around a lot:


Airplanes and jets - Interested in mainly third and fourth generation military aircraft. I think 5th is boring and the F-22 is the most overrated jet ever that everyone says is their favorite. Ugly, ugly plane without the elegance of the F-15C, even the PAK-FA looks sweeter. I have a bias toward French and Russian planes, have a really excellent book on the Mig-23 flogger by Yefim Gordon. I pine for the day a really good Mig-23 sim comes out, I would finally attempt to learn the intricacies of my more "technical" aviation books. My favorite American jets are mostly third generation. I tried making a military aviation thread in 2012 but people became wrapped up in politics and suggesting I was a war monger because of my passions . Really, I think it was just one poster and no one was really venomous toward me but I got the idea and bowed out with dignity. To a lesser degree I enjoy tanks but I have a fraction (see: next to none) of the knowledge about them. I care less about what is a "good" plane and just more about learning about them. I hate aviation "debates" and arguments. And no, I do not like Top Gun.

Bosch paintings - Garden of Earthly Delights is my favorite painting ever and I really couldn't tell you why. I find his depictions of Eden/Paradise as eerie and unsettling as his ones of hell (which are awesome too!). If I could ever paint well I would want to do stuff like Bosch, my dreams are a lot like his paintings. I use to really enjoy H.R. Giger too and I still do but that's mainly because of my love for the Aliens franchise. Zdzisław Beksiński is more interesting to me than Giger, but I admire all their styles.

My Dreams - I never cast aside any dream I have, I see each as a gift, even if they are painful or make me sad. I spend days thinking about one, wishing I could replay it. I use to try to find meaning in them but don't anymore. Many of my other interests stem from a desire to replicate emotions I find in my own dreams.

Occult/mysticism/supernatural - This is a weird one, I love reading about the occult, tarot etc but have no desire to actually practice magic(k) or perform rites and ceremonies. I really just love the aesthetics behind pagan altars and just..weird, creepy looking stuff. Remember the stickmen hanging from the trees in the Blair Witch Project? Stuff like that. This interest would sometimes put me at odds with my ex, who is a christian and its unfortunate because I would try explaining the extent of my interest. For example, I have zero interest in satanism but had tons of pictures in a folder on my old computer of dark altars that people would post on old "magic" forums I use to frequent or on /x/. I love the look of sigils and glyphs in the Lesser Key of Solomon too.

Warhammer (chaos and skaven) - I both love and hate warhammer for a number of reasons but an insta-hook for me is always anything involving the chaos gods or chaos in some form. I'm obsessed with the events of the Horus Heresy and the traitor legions, especially the Thousand Sons and Death Guard. I want to read more of the HH but the books are so damn expensive right now, I've only read A Thousand Sons.

Skaven are an obsession, largely because I love the minatures and because I think an army of plague rats/mice with blighted siege vehicles and other contraptions is absolutely awesome. Its why I will pick them over Warriors of Chaos if/when I ever make a fantasy army.