Deprevation of special interest causing depression

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I still am having diagnosing issues, mainly because my bipolar is severe and it's at the forefront right now. But anyway, I have had a recent resurgence of my bird special interest that I have had for what I estimate to be 20 years now. I have plenty of books, song recordings, and the internet of course (recent taxonomy changes seem weird, but DNA doesn't lie!), but the only birds around my house are common city birds and the closest place for decent birding (I'm a birder, not a birdwatcher, there is a difference) is over a mile away. My husband doesn't want me to walk there, and I can't keep paying bus fare since I am poor. I also can't buy new books on the subject that I really want.

Basically this is leading to depression. My husband can't seem to totally understand this at all. When I am in a natural area, I find I can't remember some very basic vocalizations anymore that I once knew, even if I hear their recordings beforehand. I was at a natural area not long ago with an old birder friend and mis-recognized a few vocalizations and I was embarrassed.

Is this a common affliction of aspies? I'm probably right if I say probably so.

I experience this. When I can't be engaged in something related to my special interest for a long time, I start to feel depressed. This has been especially true during difficult times in my life. Like being stuck in a job that I hated and unable to change jobs for a year. My special interest gave me something to look forward to each day. Sometimes I would feel very worn out from dealing with things or working too hard, and I would take a few days off my interest. Then, the wind would slowly go out of my sails. Once I picked up the interest again, it was like the sails blew right back up.

However, I wouldn't worry too much about forgetting. I believe it will all come back to you. In fact, I have even heard that this "partial forgetting" is part of learning something deeply. We forget a little and relearn, and each time we do this the memory gets stronger.

actually it may be the other way around.

Autistic people develop special interests to cope with daily stresses and confusing social rules, its something concrete and researchable: something we can understand because we can't understand the world around us.

perhaps you are becoming depressed which is sparking you to peruse your bird interest.

I went through this, i was in middle school and i was bullied everyday, i was living with my negligent mother and my parents were separated, all i wanted to do was stay at home and draw sonic, talk about sonic, watch old sonic TV shows, and so on. it was when i was the most passionate and also the most depressed, i attempted suicide twice that year.

i would try and put as much research as possible on your SI, draw some birds, watch some documentary. it may help.

Yes I can relate to this. In my case I see it more as ennuie (a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom) rather than clinical depression, which I don't believe I've ever truly experienced. I guess the difference is that in depression one loses the will to do anything, to be awake, to even live. Seems a fine line to me, and perhaps ennuie is just a slightly mild version of depression. And I can see how it could be more serious for a bipolar person.

I guess I'm lucky that my main special interest is music, and that it can take many forms, most of which aren't difficult to enable. Your predicament seems harder to solve. Why doesn't your husband want you to walk? Road traffic danger, personal assault danger?

My husband doesn't want me to walk because we live in a bad neighborhood. He has a bad knee and can't walk with me. Looking it at that way, I am really stressed out by stuff maybe leading to the resurgence, but not being able to follow the interest to fruition is making it worse. I can't even get my husband to understand what autism is, all he knows about it is based upon low functioning people. He keeps telling me to "put yourself in my shoes" but he can't connect that deficit to something such as a bird interest, even if I try to discuss it with him. He refuses to see special interest behavior as anything but positive and he can't equate a positive behavior to a disorder.

Risk of attack on your person then. Difficult. I'd suggest a small motorbike, but the cost alone would scupper that. The only other thing I can think of is to carry a tazer and be prepared to use it. Though the idea would need thinking through.