Feeling the need to hide newer special intrests

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When I was a kid, I didn't want to talk to anyone unless it was about my special intrests. Meerkats have been my main obsession for years and I don't mind talking about them as long as people don't ask stupid questions or ask me if I like meerkat manor. I notice that whenever I develop newer obsessions, I want to hide them from everyone in real life. I don't mind sharing them on the internet.

My own mother dosen't even know about my newest obsession with Sonic the hedgehog and his cute little fox friend. Whenever it comes up, I change the subject as quickly as possible. When I was a kid, I was always told my parents needed breaks from hearing about my obse
ssions. I was also constantaly told I needed to "widen my horizons".

I have no idea what sparked my obsession with Sonic the hedgehog. My brothers played the first two games as teens but they were too hard for me. I was never aware of SonicSatAM until very recently and the other Sonic cartoon I thought was stupid. I have no idea what sparked my obession with Sonic. I perfer his cute little fox friend, Tails (Sonic X version) over him but I think it's because I can kinda relate to him.

Anyway, I avoid talking about my newer obsessions with just anyone where as a kid, I would yack away to anyone who would listen. I don't even feel comfortable talking about my obsessions with my own parents. Perhaps because of how they reacted to them when I was a kid. I'll talk about meerkats with them whenever I feel like it. I guess I did finnaly "widen my horizons" but I did on my own terms. Anyway, why do I feel the need to hide my Sonic obsession from my own mother?

My mother trashes my interests and says they're what caused all of my problems, and never fails to rub it in. For this reason I never tell her anything personal, either. Maybe you just don't want anyone judging your interests anymore, because rejecting your interests is like rejecting you.

To get back at my mother I started trashing classical music, just because she's a classical pianist and not because I dislike classical music. It worked, she hated it.

Besides telling me to "widen my horizons" and telling me she needed a break from hearing about them, my mom was usualy pretty nice about my obessions.

Hello?

I have always been fascinated with technology (computers mostly) and cars. My parents always told me that computers were a waste of my time and I would rot my brain from being on the computer so much and playing video games. It eventually landed me a job in the computer/technology industry and cars are the hobby of my dreams. They still don't get my fascination with them. I have been into motorcycles along side with cars and did not for the longest time bring it up with my family because my parents told me they'd disown me if I started riding. Of course they didn't when I told them I was, but they still weren't happy, that was years ago.

It was REALLY frustrating to me when I was a teenager because I enjoyed video games and technology so much and no one seemed to really get why I enjoyed them so much.

If my family disowned me for my meerkat obsession, I could care less. I have an older brother whom I am considering legally disowning anyway. I never really felt like my "family" loved me as much as they loved the other members in it. My bearded dragon is the only thing that truely feels like family to me. My mom says it's because it's not recipical but perhaps it's also because I don't feel shuned by her.

Meerkats are pretty cool, I couldn't imagine anybody disowning anybody else over a meerkat obsession. Snakes or rats on the other hand...

Family is what you make it. If your bearded dragon feels more like family to you, then it is. I'm sorry that your relationship with your brother has deteriorated to that point but I'm sure that your bearded dragon can make up for it. NTs can be so cruel.

My brother was always mean to me...years before my meerkat obsession. He was always mean about my sensory issues and weird phobias (he would phycological tourture me about those). My mom says it is because he subconciously resnts me because as a baby I needed so much more attention...my mom says that like it was my fault. I was just a baby. He said very mean things about my bearded dragon when he first met her. He kept saying he was going to throw her into the walls and things. He was always downright nasty about my meerkat obsession. I was always the black sheep of the family or at least felt like it...espicaly around him. If I ever do have to disown him, I don't think it will hurt him the least bit. My bearded dragon is more like a little sister to me than he is a big brother. I do want to get some pet snakes in the future (I think I could somehow develop a cruelty free food for them) and I would like my snakes even more if they kept people away. I want to get a HUGE ball or ryticulated python and call it "Cuddles".

Whenever I try to break the ice to my mom about my Sonic obsession, such as how it used to annoy me when animal characters had five fingers, but most animals really do have five digits on their frount paws. She tried to tell me it wasn't a fith digit, but a dewclaw and went on and on about it and I figured it wasn't worth it to try and tell her about my latest obsession. It's so hard to talk to my mom about pretty much anything these days.

I'm always embarrassed by the fact that I even have obsessions. I've said it before, but it's my strongest autistic trait and the one thing that makes me feel like I am most different to other people. I have bad social skills, but the obsessions make me feel like I'm stuck in my own world even more than my lack of social skills does.

I have one friend I talk about my obsessions with in real life. That's it.

Obsessions is my strongest autistic trait too. It never embarrassed me to talk about meerkats or Lion King before and I don't mind talking about StH online but heaven forbid my mum finds out. I think she already has but she never asks me about it or anything. But than what could I say if she did?

Last edited by MagicMeerkat on 19 Jun 2011, 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'd say this is a bigger problem if your "special interests" will be seen negatively by a significant number of people, if they attract controversy.

My meerkat and Lion King obsessions were seen negatively when I was a kid.

Yes I do this. I often feel too embarrassed so I don't talk about it. People may not realize I am talking about my special interests because I use it as part of small talk and never mention it again to them. It's my husband who hears about it but it's always different stuff than about a same place or something.

I used to have "secret obsessions" when I was a kid. It was really strange. It was typically with stuff that had a "special quality" to it that I really could never define. The three big interests I had like this were Dragon Ball Z, Big Wolf on Campus, and Inuyasha. I don't know why I felt the need to hide them. Beyond Inuyasha which came on Adult Swim, it wasn't like my parents would have any reason to make me stop watching them. But I still felt this desperate need to keep my interests secret due to the "special quality" they had. I think it's interesting to notice that all of these interests were about people who weren't entirely human. I think I read something about that in The Complete Guide to Asperger's. Something about how kids who feel different are attracted to supernatural characters as a way of dealing with their different-ness.