Not realising you had a 'special interest'

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After doing my usual searching for stuff about the 18th century on the internet, I realised that perhaps my interest in 18th century fashion, culture & events might be seen as a 'special interest'. Have any of you experienced this, where you didn't realise how intense your interest was?

Yes. For instance medicine. It is one of my all time favorites since kindergarten. I research everything about any condition I read or hear about. Then came seventh grade when I sneaked the merck manual to school. My teacher was so surprised. I realized then how weird it was for a kid to read that thing.
Another example is my current obsession about Asperger's syndrome. I came over it in a gifted education book. As it has the word syndrome in it, I looked it up on google(naturally), and was shocked to find that the description to fit me 100%. A couple months later the diagnosis got confirmed.

That, was when I became aware that all my hobbies were much more intense than normal, and much weirder than normal...its called a special interest.

I didn't realize that I had a special interest my second summer on WP in 2005. I was very interested in London and devistated by the bombings that took place in the subways that summer. I've found that I did have a special interest when I thought I was between special interests. London. It actually occured to me now that I had a special interest from the summer of 2004 until late 2005.

I was in denial about having aspergers for years, and one of the reasons was no special interest, but in hindsight I was out of my mind obsessed with cars growing up. I lost the interest at 15 when I had a breakdown and lost interest in everything and never really got it back. I still love to talk about cars and driving when the topic comes up though, but I don't know every minute detail.

Also, when I used to play with my matchbox cars as a kid my idea of playing was lining them all end-to-end up on my car mat (a slightly furry mat with a road layout..I'm pretty sure every boy gets issued one of these at birth), not driving them about.

I usually realise straight away. I get an 'Oh my God this is the most amazing thing EVER!! !' feeling, which I like.

My boyfriend has pointed out to me both when Kindles had become a special interest and when AS had become a special interest. In both cases I just hadn't noticed, despite spending all my time on the subjects...

Other ones I have noticed - I was fully aware of turtles becoming a special interest.

The ones before I had heard of AS I just didn't know that it wasn't normal.

I can tell I want to research something, but I don't necessarily know how long I'll stay interested in that thing. Partly because I don't know if my research will turn up some really fascinating question.

I didn't realize that when I was a small child, I had a special interest in dinosaurs and The Land Before Time movies. My mom remembers it well and calls it my "first special interest".