Have you lost your "special interests"?

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When I was a kid, I'd cycle months between Naruto and Warriors as my special interest. It was to the point where I could not partake in life without attaching Naruto/Warriors to it. I had to pretend they were somehow involved in all my TV shows, videogames, even meals.

In high school, I was obsessed with creative writing, to the extent that everything I did had to relate to my stories, that includes walking around a store and hiking. It also got in the way of my schoolwork.

Lately, I'm more diffuse in my interests. I will go for maybe a week hyperfixated on certain things, it will be all I talk about, usually religion or historical figures. But this will go away in a week and the interest will turn into just a normal interest. Then someone will mention it and it will be a hyperfixation for a while.

I still spend a lot of time on creative writing but much less now, and I can relate to the world without my "special interest".

Has anyone else lost the intensity of their interests over the years? I wonder if I can still say I have "special interests".

Based on that description, I think it's probably true for me. I don't think I've been into anything with the intensity I was when I was a little kid into Pokemon, dinosaurs, and insects. I do throw myself into what I do but I feel like I've just gotten too tired.

I can relate to what you have posted. Special interests for me now come in spurts. I will latch on to a new subject and devour it, want to know everything about it, but when that process has exhausted itself, I move on. I have been doing this a lot with bands lately. Often times these short-lived special interests and even my long term ones of music and drumming fall victim to my depression...when that kicks in..... nothing gets done.

I have had many special interests over the years, but music, books and animals/pets have been constants for me. I have also been intensely interested in tennis for the past ten years and my interest led me to sign up for lessons myself. I have been taking lessons for two years and really enjoy them.

I lost my lifetime interests in London and England last year. They came back for a brief two week period this summer just to vanish into thin air, again. The disappearance of my interest were mainly my doing because I felt it was time to be a Canadian. Little did I know that there was influence left over from the German friends that my family had when I was young and still do.

I'd say so. I was so intense as a kid or teenager.
Does anyone else get the impression they're sort of growing out of their autism because of the diminished intensity of special interests and doing better socially as you get older?

I have lost some of them, but I still refer to certain ones as "special interests" if I know that they could come back at any time. Often, I lose them because I get depressed or I am scared that I will lose them. I would say you can still call your interests "special interests" because they never really leave, even if they are less intense at times.

Some of my special interests are more intense than others - I've definitely had some that are as intense as you describe, so that every single thought I had had something to do with it and it got in the way of school and everyday life. I've had periods of a week to a month where I didn't really have a true special interest, in the time between where one would decrease to the level of a normal interest and the next hadn't emerged yet. I also have times where my special interest fades after a week or so, but then later something draws my attention back to it and it gets back to that level. My special interests never completely go away - even the ones I never actually liked but still felt compelled to find out everything about will still catch my attention if someone mentions them, and the rest never drop below the level of "regular interest." Can't say my special interests have really become less intense over time - my current main interest, which I've had for a year or two, fluctuates in intensity, sometimes being as intense as I've ever had a special interest, and sometimes even allowing a "co-special interest" alongside it.

oh yeah! Special Interests rarely last a life time.

i ALWAYS had a general interest in animals, when i was younger it was Beta Fish and the poisonous dart frog, Now its Hedgehogs.

My Sonic interest has just turned 8 years old this month ( I CANT BELEIVE I FORGOT! SEPTEMBER 25th!!)) and i hope the interest remains for many more years to come

Once i learn all I possibly can about a topic of interest ill usually move on to something else. Every few months or years depending what topic lol

I've gone through special interests, but often find myself returning to them after a break.

I prefer to just call them "interests" rather than "special interests."
In any case, when I was 7 years old, I loved ...
Star Trek, astronomy, birds, Spanish.

Today, I still love
Star Trek, astronomy, birds, Spanish.

As an adult, I also came to love art ... painting and photography.

As of today, I have one framed photo in a landscape exhibition at an art gallery,
and was in an art studio today painting abstract art on a T-shirt.
Lots of fun!
...

I am the same way. I cycle through some of the same interests I've had since I've been an adult, gaining and losing interest, sometimes finding new ones.
No matter how much I focus on and talk about an interest now, the pursuit is nowhere near the intensity of interests that I had in childhood (like memorizing the dog breed AKC book, I can still identify breeds of dogs, where they are from, their usual temperament...).
Right now my intense special interest is fading from politics (modern and historical) and I don't know what the next one will be, I just know there will be one.