Do ALL Aspies Have a Special Interest?

Post Reply New Topic

Interests are supposed to be one of the things that separates schizoid disorder from AS. Schizoids do not tend to have intense, narrow interests, whereas aspies do. The other main difference is that aspies struggle with nonverbal communication, but schizoids do not.

My special interest is: everything. I suppose there are some exceptions to "everything", but in general it is true. I consider myself to be an Aspie generalist, a jack-of-all-trades so to speak. I have intense and deep focus on my interests, but my interests themselves are mercurial and expansive in breadth.

Good fortune,

- Icarus seeks to understand the universe...

Lets see.....if I even count as an Aspie...blah blah blah....I have gone from one major obsession to another.....

Ukulele has been a big thing for me for the last few years..i think it is gonna stick....i have been singing since i was about 5 and that counts as a major obsession that has followed me throughout my life...I have always been in bands....
I am struggling with mantaining my sock monkey career...but there was a time when I was ALWAYS making one....now it is a total struggle to churn out one measly order....but at some point during my heyday, I managed to collect thousands of pairs of socks....have been going through major burnout lately.

For a few years my whole life revolved around putting together these elaborate theme concerts and once I was done with one, I would start on the next....and channel my whole being into it and then go on to the next...

I was teased when I was a pre and early-teenager because not only was I totally emotionally immature for my age, but I was so singularly fixated on the Beatles as a band that I was like a walking Beatles billboard...John Lennon shirt and glasses, beatles buttons beatles watch etc etc etc.....i scootched out of that phase but had to struggle really hard to catch up with the other kids my age...(actually they were mostly a year younger than me because I repeated 3rd grade )
...I was always very clueless as to where other kids got their influences from....I guess it was from other kids...it always seemed like a big mystery to me...I eventually branched out into other directions but kinda sorta years behind everyone else....this meant feigning knowledge of things that I truthfully had very little knowlege of which resulted in some really akward and embarrasing situations.....sorry....rambling......

Interests are a big part of it. I've always had some topic of interest that would jump into my mind like a flash and then I have to spend endless time researching and learning everything I can about it (let's see....sci fi, languages, travel destinations, maps, history, folklore, it goes on and on and on and.......).

I think this tendency can be a strong point for us-- we can be jacks (or jills) of all trades that know a little about a lot of things. This is useful in conversation. A topic comes up and we can join in with an interesting tidbit (though I tell myself not to dwell on one thing too long!). =)

1973 rocks
1974 horses and fossils/rocks
1978 making stuffed animals, fairy tales, ghosts, murder and mystery stories,fossils/rocks still horses
1984 computers, horses and murder/crime solving, fairy tales fossils/rocks
1986 serial killers/crime solving, computers fossils/rocks
1989 pine cones(this was an odd on and lasted surprisingly long),lichens and moss, fossils/rocks
1992 serial killers/crime solving historical crimes,ghosts vampires, fossils/rocks
1994 making dolls, fairies, fossils/rocks
1996 pokemon, fossils/rocks
2000legend of mana ,neopets fossils/rocks
2003making stuffed animals, neopets, monster and me, pokemon,fossils/rocks
2005 world of warcraft , pokemon ,fossils/rocks
2007 pokemon fossils/rocks

I still can't pass up a neat looking rock and obsessively look for fossils at any opportunity (although it's not so much a scientific interest in rocks as liking the feel and shapes and colours of them and sorting them).I still play pokemon , sometimes my obsessions overlap I feel weird without one some I revisit and others never quite go away I still like reading how crimes are solved its not so much the crime as the detail of how they solve it I actually get quite upset by thinking about people being hurt or killed. I tend to think of them as groups of interests that are related, like folklore , fairies ghosts and vampires, Pet based games pokemon, neopets and monster and me. Stuff that is neat you find out side rocks fossils,pine cones lichens moss, Crime solving /forensics. I liked horses a long time because riding was a way to move around painlessly and freely, after I had corrective surgery and could walk my interest faded some, also we could no longer afford to keep my horse. I also still make dolls and stuffed animals.

I think the definition of Aspergers has having circumscribed interests as an integral part.

mine were dinosaurs for ages mr bean for a while iwas younger plus dismanteling stuff later on it was little britain championship manager and music warious periods i just keep it on most of the day usualy 1 band

I definitely have special interests. Currently, I like Roger Bannister. Cats and other animals have been a constant in my life.

i am definitely obsessed... no excuses... i admit it... i am totally obsessed... been since i was in kindergarten...

my obsessions are powerchairs, assistive technology, stock market, neurological diseases and disabilities, sensory integration disorders.

and a whole bunch of sensations i really find calming and comforting

my sensory integration disorder / autism is calmed/relaxed/comforted by the following i love soft silky straps and restrainy thingies!(see what i mean at http://bodypoint.com) tight warm things and places, deep pressure, sensory deprivation, being mummy wrapped, extremely tight hugs, blood pressure cuffs.

_________________
check out my website at {redacted by admin - domain taken over and points to a porn site}

When in doubt, ask an autistic. Chances are, they're obsessed with what you need to know.

Autism Speaks will NEVER speak for me

CLASSIC AUTISM

I have interests, but none that could be classified as "special"

My fixations come and go mostly, but some stay.

The obsessions I've had through the years:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Batman
Music
K'Nex and Legos
Writing
Band
X-Files
Law and Order: SVU
Oz
Synaesthesia
IBS
M*A*S*H (the tv show)
Sudoku
Art/Drawing
Autism spectrum

Those are the big ones. Obviously, some of them are more prevalent today than others. And there are more, but it's nearly midnight here and my brain doesn't want to tell me. But whoo-ee, you should have seen me in my X-Files phase. I'll have to scan some pics or something. lol

3-present: drawing and mythology (greek, roman, celt, christian, indian, native american etc.)
5-9: computers (dos)
4-13: horses I could tell you absolutely anything about horse, and I could correctly name different breeds of horses in person, though I'd only seen them in books before.
11-16: plant lore (flower, herbs etc)
17-present: autism, autistic spectrum, AS
11-present: religions. Particularly mysticism. (this kind of mixes with the mythology)
I'm still interested in religion, and study it every chance.

I had "little interests" that lasted anywhere from a week to a few months(at most 3mths) at a time. It was completely random: plants/hiking/animals, camping, water life, night sky (and zodiacs and aliens) "arts and crafts" (like candle making, sewing, seems to be geared toward survival) thus plant lore. Etc.

I didn't take any interests or interest in my interests for a few years after a "family disaster"

I didn't have many "interests" like some people, but the ones that I did/do have, I made sure to learn absolutely everything I could about them. (still learning as far as religion)

Speaking of which, I'm having trouble finding anything on eastern religion. I'm looking particularly for ancient japanese religion. And i anyone knows what china's religion was before buddhism that would help too.

Edit: nevermind, i forgot there was a religion/philosophy forum here

Routemasters
Art
Music
History
Computers
Christmas
20th Century London
The Weight Watchers Points system.
Antiques
Quasi Futuristic things
Vintage TV sets
Vintage toys
Dog breeds
Cat breeds
The history of the Olympic Games
Stuffed animals
Children's movies
Greeting cards
Budgeting
Jigsaw puzzles
Bingo
Science
Biology
Writing

I'm newly self-revealed, just since Oct 10, and I've been wondering about this, and felt it must be more complex than the NT diagnostics would seem to suggest.

I've been thinking this over for this past couple days, and realized I have very broad general interests, but a couple specialized interests; as has been said before, one must pick and choose, there isn't enough time in one human becoming to specialize in everything.

These two topics come closest to obsession, bagpipes & submarines!

I had a little black plastic submarine 60 yrs ago, loved it, loved swimming underwater, loved pix of submarines, sub movies, or related stuff, Frogmen, movies with old sub pix clips in them. When Disney was making 20K Under the Sea, I clipped the Look magazine photo spread, and stuff like that.

I've got about 1 dozen books on the subject, including "Construction History of the Fleet Sub" (Naval Institute Press) and "Submarine Design & Development", though I've never been a nautical engineer, and two old related 1929 books on hardhat diving and submarine salvage, about 12 - 16 hours VHS off the air, docu's, old British & Hollywood sub movies, and related underwater stuff ( not at all organized though, scattered amongst Dr. Who, Panama Canal, and other off-the-air stuff). If I see a new sub book, I have to stop and check it out, and I'm always tempted to buy another.

I gave one of those school stand-in-front of the class reports in the eighth grade on the first American submarine attack during the revolution, with the blackboard and a cardboard cutout "Turtle" (Bushnell's boat). I joined the Maritime Museum in SF CA just because they had the WWII Pampanito as a memorial boat, and love to go through the boat and smell the diesel fumes. I was like a kid in heaven when I got an invite to a member's open house; I got to climb into the conning tower and look through the periscope, and go in the areas normally closed to the public!

Any time there's a new sub pix, I want to see it; I'm disappointed that an old 50's movie with old sub clips isn't available on video unless I want to fork over a ridiculous price for an old OOP VHS. I've written an email to a fellow that had a copy of John Ford's "The Seas Beneath", a B&W silent with lots of shots of our early 'V' boat fleet protos, to find out if there was some way to see it.

I took up Clarinet in school, but was never happy with that; I had an interest in bagpipes since very young, and can remember making a make-believe bagpipe toy, sewed by myself on my mother's Featherweight when I was about 5 yrs old, of unbleached muslin, with rolled up, scotch taped notepaper for a blowstick and chanter and tied them into the bag with string, just as 20 some odd years later I helped tie in an actual Scottish pipe bag using the exact same technique.

I took up the Scottish bagpipe once I was on my own and working and could buy one, and still play it, mostly for family picnics and memorials. I've got about a dozen or more books on that subject, including tutor's , tune books, bio's and related stuff, but the pipes don't feel quite as "obsessive" as the sub thing. I also made my own Irish Uilleann pipes in the early 1980's, and have recently made a small start on making a set of English Northumberland pipes.

Aside from those specialties, I've always been curious about lots of stuff, and my bookshelf overall is varied in regards to literature, SciFi, arts & crafts, Dr. Who, guns, mythology (the "Albion" trilogy, Harry Potter; I'd have Mahabharata too, if it wasn't the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica!), and a few other odd ends.

Note to self, enough already!! !

(sorry, no sig, something's broke and I can't enter one)