I just became aware of the possibility that I might have AS after reading about diagnostic difficulties and symptom differences in girls, and it made me think about a part of my life that is so bizarre and yet has become so normal for me that I barely even consciously think about it anymore. While reading the symptoms list for females, I thought to myself, "Wow this sounds exactly like me...except I don't really have an obsessive interest." But I do. I become obsessed with individual people, sometimes for years on end. I have read a few things about this online, and like other people who experience people obsessions, I mostly fixate on teachers or mentor figures.
The first instance of this that I can think of was my near-worship of my cousin when I was little. She is a year older than I am and when I was little, I always tagged along with her and copied what she did. She hated it, so if I dressed to look like her, she would change her clothes, and then I would also change my clothes to look like her again. I couldn't understand why she didn't want to be "twins" with me. This also led to me being bullied by her and her friends from around ages 4-7 because I was so desperate for her approval that I could be easily exploited and abused. Also, because she lived far away, I would imagine that she was around when I was at home. In my childhood, she was literally my imaginary friend. Nowadays, I find her an unpleasant person and rarely see or think of her, but that may also be because I moved onto better people.
Perhaps that example was just typical childhood, but ever since, I have had regular obsessions with my teachers. When I was 5, I became obsessed with my swimming teacher. I filled an entire sketchbook with drawings of her and never spoke to or around her. When I was in first grade, I became convinced that my teacher was an alien and would follow her everywhere to see her transform, even "working on the case" outside of school by just thinking about it in my room. I also became obsessed with a male teaching aid who used to tease me and became obsessed with impressing him, leading me to do over-the-top things to show off. This trend persisted - my obsessions tend to gravitate toward people I initially feel threatened by or aggressive toward. In high school, I became obsessed with my history teacher after she yelled at me once and could not stop thinking about her until I finished the year and was no longer in her class. The same has happened with a few of my college professors. While the obsession exists, I literally never stop thinking about the person. Every song I listen to is about them somehow. Everything I do is done for them or with them in mind, even if they have no way of ever knowing about it. They become like an alter ego of mine, who is always floating just outside of me and watching everything I do. I become incredibly curious about their lives, dreaming up elaborate back stories for them. I literally develop them like a fictional character until I have a vision of them that probably only bears marginal resemblance to who they really are (of which I know very little). I do not necessarily want to know them well or be their friends, I just want to know ABOUT them and I kind of want them to know ABOUT me. Also, I never EVER talk to or about them unnecessarily nor do anything to let on that I feel anything more than a tepid like or dislike toward them. Also, once the person is no longer "accessible" to me, in that I no longer see them frequently or ever, the obsession wanes quickly - usually within a few months - only to be replaced by a new one.
These obsessions are usually not sexual in nature and often the idea of sex with the person repulses me. They manifest as a deep desire to really connect with a person, to really know another person, to knock down the boundaries of my ego. I am not sure how the selection process works - why I choose the people I do and why it seems that minor conflict sparks an obsession. Usually I feel that the person I am obsessed with actually has a lot in common with me, but perhaps I am just projecting myself onto them, since that is after all the whole nature of how I obsess. Because this has become such a natural part of me, it is almost something I forget to bring up in discussions of my emotional and psychological problems. But then I realize...I don't think most people do this. Can anyone give me insight into the nature of these obsessions?
24 Nov 2013, 6:06 pm
