Special interest

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When I first joined WP, I expected to find more special interests/obsessions people. Special interests/obsessions have always been my main AS/Autistic trait and I assumed other autistic people would be as well. I've only come across a few special interests/obsessions posts here, and most of them were created by me.

What's your special interest ?

I assume that most WP-ers do have them, but don't really talk about them too much because a) we're conditioned not to and b) the fact we have special interests is what we have in common, not the interests themselves.

My main ones are folklore & fairytales, fine art, languages and ballet, but I do have others I get obsessed with for a time and then drift away from.

The Kinks
London, because that's where The Kinks are from
Technology that has to do with computers and television
The 40s
The 60s
Germany
Canada
WWII
The Holocaust because I believe in Disability rights
60s Television
40s music
60s music
Autistic fictional characters

I do mention mine. If anyone is really paying that much attention to me, they would notice how I was often talking about abusers or narcissists and talking about my ex possibly being one because of his (now her) behavior and how I was treated by her. Then talking about overlaps with autism and personalities or with other disorders.

Wait, what? We're not conditioned to talk about our special interests? Since when? Obviously we might not get many occasions to do so, but if we have a chance or create one I thought we would have a hard time to stop talking about them. That's my case anyway.

Here's mine:
S. King's books
Crime fiction (mainly A.C. Doyle and A. Christie)
Fine art, computer graphics
Manga/Anime (horror genre) also Kuroshitsuji (duh, the avatar, can't escape obsession)
The AS itself

Meerkats & veterinary medicine

I used to call my special interests 'obsessions' back before I knew anything about autism. I have had obsessions for as long as I can recall. Generally I just keep that stuff to myself since no one ever really gets into the things I get into... I tend to bore the hell out of people

Right now I am in the process of slipping back into full blown drawing mode. I am also apparently leaning away from online/digital drawing and going back to those ultra fine point pens. The site I where I used to draw a lot changed and I dislike the changes... the zoom option sucks now and thats annoying since I go detail heavy. I'm back into the zentangle thing now and away from bizarro/abstract people. Though I do stick abstract type people/body parts into the zentangle stuff. Oddly enough, as obsessed with drawing as I get, I rarely get into art history or artists... except Hakuchi. He is frickin amazing and I heart his stuff so much.

I often enough get obsessed with religions. For awhile I was into voudon, voodoo, and candomble to a lesser extent. Sometimes I get obsessed with similarities in old school gods (ie sun and grain gods) and how that all plays out in more modern religion, namely the big three monotheistic ones. Most recently though I got obsessed with the Tao Teh ching and the Principia Discordia. Oddly enough I find those two to jive really well with the book of Ecclesiastes in the christian bible... and each other. I get into numerology as well.. not religious, but I got into it while going full blown Wicca obsessed, specifically nroogd. The numerology obsession quickly took over and stopped the wiccan thing for me. I freakin love numbers...

I also tend to get obsessed with songs and play them over and over. Sometimes one song will nudge me to getting obsessed with a singer/band which nudges me to get obsessed with any and everything else they have done. Most recent music obsession was with Godforbid of That Handsome Devil. That led me to getting obsessed with American Style Cardboard... Godforbid's and Doc Delay. Alaskan Fishermen (a band with Godforbid) was okay... but that stuff he did with Doc Delay is like an eargasm to me. I got into Les Claypool like that awhile back as well and went all out obsessed over Of Fungi and Foe. Lulz the Mushroom Men song... heh.

I have been obsessed with genealogy, pythons, russian blues, people, sexuality, interpersonal communication, nail art, gender bending and androgyny, myself, autism, making beaded jewelry, crocheting, sewing stuffed animals, painting barbies to look like day of the dead dolls, the list goes on and on...

Anyhoo... yeah, I do have my fair share as well.

Everyone here knows mine by now
So probably no need to beat a dead horse with mine.

Agreed. Unfortunately individual autistic special interests seem to be just as boring to other autistics as they are to others. No one is going to find Japanese cooking as interesting as I do, nor be interested in me going on and on about it. My newest one being ultralight foot nomadicism, and that just makes people uncomfortable.

That's interesting that you were obsessed with yourself , how do you research yourself?

Not sure how to explain it. Do you ever get an idea in your head about something and try to figure out how or where you fit into that idea, how it does or does not impact you, how you relate or don't? It's more like that. Sometimes it seems to come across as more self care/understanding to me. Other times I think I just spend too much time in my head overthinking things that don't mean much of anything, but for whatever reason seem to amuse me.

I don't think there's that much difference between an autistic person's special interests and anyone else's. Except that for someone with autism it might be more to the exclusion of most other things.

For me the most dominant one is playing the Lord of the Rings Online video game. Others are exploring and photographing the city I live in and learning it's history. And also all the types of plants, trees, animals and birds native to the region. Plus studying maps, doing a lot of Google Earth viewing. I also have a special interest in numismatics and know quite a lot about US coins and paper currency. World history in general. Old world maps.

I get it , especially spending too much time in your head overthinking - my head is like the 'matrix' where everything is safe.

Yeah, I like it in my head as well. It's nice in there. I'd probably be in my own mind/world all the time if I would not neglect things like food, sleep, that whole life thing people do...

It's hard for me to hide mine I think the main things everybody here knows about me is that I really love Doctor Who and that Clara Oswald is my favorite character.