Lost -> Special Interest

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Has anyone felt like they lost their special interest because those around them told them it was inappropriate?

Ever since I was diagnosed I have been reading a lot about my behaviours and spend days thinking about how to cure my defects. It has taken away a lot of time from other aspects of my life.

However, I still exhibit some unusual behaviours, and I am still socially awkward...

Recently I started to panic about finding a cure faster, spending hours reading articles and writing emails to people who have supposedly cured aspergers.

If anything, my special interest is trying to cure myself now. x_X. Vitamins, Herbs, Homeopathy, Scientology, Biochemistry, Ectasy, ABA and more.

I've lost my special interests before, but not for the aforementioned reason.

And there is no cure to AS yet, and I don't believe there will be one. You also might want to reconsider the need for a cure. Do you really think there's something wrong with your brain? I can't speak for everyone, but I actually like my aspie mind.

How should I write this:

I do not like myself anymore. ;-(

Difficult isn't it? I see nothing wrong with myself but when placed in the NT world, suddenly I'm eccentric and dysfunctional.

Don't dislike yourself. There are perks.

I have lost special interests, yes. I lost my michael jackson interest, and my weather interest has waned. I would still have a zoo of animals, though, if my parents would just let me. we have 3 cats.

I've lost special interests before, yes.

Anyway, I know you've already been told this - but please at least try to accept yourself. Even if there are no cures yet, there are tonnes of ways of 'easing the load' to speak, and there's many happy aspies out there - me included!

When there are important life issues to be dealt with, my special interests may lose their charms. More often it's simply that I don't have the time to devote to them at present. But they never really die. Years later, when I have more leisure and stability in my life, I may rediscover them or take up new interests that are closely related to the old ones.

The bad thing about this is that I can never throw out anything related to an old interest because I never know when I'll want it again.

I understand how you feel, JayCat. When I was first diagnosed with AS, my first thought was, "does this mean I'm mentally ret*d?" I became very self-conscious of everything I did, because I was painfully aware that most of my behavior is a result of having AS. However, over time, I gradually came to accept myself. I don't make any apologies about who I am, what I do, or what my special interests are. Eventually you will reach this point in your life as well. Don't despair.

Anyway, to answer your question - I have lost many special interests before, mostly through naturally getting bored with them. However, I did force myself out of a special interest once due to peer pressure even though I wasn't ready to stop being in love with it. That was when I was a member of another forum where a lot of the members were really cruel and becoming popular meant you had to act a certain way (in other words, much like high school).

Anyway, my special interest at the time was a popular anime called Naruto, and that's when I noticed that a lot of the other anime geeks were getting bullied for enjoying it. They were treated much like Twilight fans are treated today. Up to that point, I had kept my love for Naruto a secret, and I decided to force myself to end my obsession with it before anyone else found out about it so I could keep being a member of the forum.

Looking back, that was really foolish of me. Instead of forcing myself to stop enjoying something I really loved, I should have just left that forum and joined a different one where my interests would have been more acceptable. But in my defense, I hadn't yet been diagnosed with AS at that time and I had no idea that Wrong Planet existed.