Blasting the World with your obessions:

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Does anyone else not keep their obessions to themselves?

I am so engrossed by them that if anyone talks to me in any way, I will bring them up. I am ALWAYS reading about them in public and do not try to hide them at all.

It does not seem to make people annoyed. I think they have found me to be weird indeed, but funny. There are several situation in which it does not go over very well, but in order for me to be out in the public or have any social like, I need to bring them with me as a way to feel safe and also like I am not wasting my time.

I am just wondering if anyone else has gone way over the top and brought them into the light?

During my teens and up to the year before I got my diagnosis I did that all the time, spreading my obsessions around me everywhere. I guess my wish was to find anybody who might be able to share them with me. In my early teens I was also bullied for one of my obsessions because it was provoking my environment. I didnt understand people wasnt so thrilled as I was. But I understand it today and keep my mouth shut. I dont want to disturb anybody with whats important to me anymore.

Today Im the complete opposite. I dont talk to anybody about my obsessions

If I may ask, what are your special interests?

I'm normally pretty shy about telling people what my special interests are. I won't even talk about them unless my mom or brother are around. However, when I'm out in public, I like to wear little accessories related to my special interests, such as wristbands or necklaces with anime logos/symbols on them. One time at the store, I was able to talk to a cashier about anime because I got the conversation started by commenting on the fact that she was wearing a Domo-kun necklace. So, I figure if I wear little accessories like that, other anime fans will be able to talk to me as well.

I will give you an example from my life. I had my first date when I was a senior in high school. The girl I dated is now my wife. On this first date I told her all about roller coasters. I guess she must have liked me to put up with that. I also use to take house plan books on dates and traverse through all the hundreds of house plans with her.

So even to this day, when the opportunity arrises, I still tend to converse about my interests. I use to always think that what I was interested in---others would be too. I realize that isn't the case today, but I still love to talk about these interests.

I don't understand what is so special about my interests. What is so different about my like of music in comparison to someone else's interest?

Why is it that people who aren't as sociable and have something they are really good at labelled savants meanwhile others are labelled geniuses and why isn't someone who is only good with sports not labelled a savant nor a genius?

I find alot of people engrossed in their own activities it's just some people choose activities or really like activites that involve others and socialization. So therefore somehow their activity is deemed normal and acceptable.

Some people even go so far to say that children who play the piano very well need to go out and play soccer and accuse the parents of abusing their child yet are there any such problems if a child is playing sports too much to the point of not doing homework or not interested in learning?

I hear more and more parents complaining if their children are reading too much. When did this all start happening because it used to be parents were complaining that they couldn't get their child to do their homework.

I don't consider my interests "special". I like what I do. If I barged in on a person who had no interest in fixing computers and told them they were problematic for not doing it and being capable of doing it, telling them they have to do it to fit in, they would probably feel inadequate. If others were laughing at them and the person was treated poorly over it, may eventually develop ptsd.

Some of these psychiatric additives that come along with being different are actually quite normal considering the circumstances because anyone who has been through prolonged mistreatment would have a very high chance of having low self esteem and ptsd.

Normality is all about blending in, conforming even if you have to be fake and even if you have to push other people down to boost yourself up.

Last edited by kittenmeow on 19 Mar 2009, 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

LOL I also do that! Its a smart way to let others bring on the issue first as Im also very shy in telling people straight out. I have such an wristband Im quite proud of. If Im using it among people I dont know, such as a course or something then I try to hide it. But if with family only I dont mind if its visible, Its a good reason for them to simply get to know what Im up to as they tend to not ask anyway....







Cool story of yours, I like it. I taped on VHS many years ago a documentary about people obsesed with Rollercoasters. One guy made his own in his backyard and his wife didnt mind it at all. And as you say it. Of course I also found my husband first with sharing an by then intense obsession we happened to share together. God knows what would had happen if I didnt speak out about!! So of course it can lead to positive meetings talking about obsessions

One of the greatest things about having kids is being able to bore them to death with your obsessions. Especially as they get older.

I love to yammer on and on to my kids about the civil war, or geography, or politics, or sharks, or Alfred Hitchcock movies, or cars, or bread, or viruses, or 90's rock, or plaid, or Pokemon, or the Nasdaq...and they have to listen to me! When they come to me with a project I'm interested in, I go nuts with enthusiasm.

As far as the rest of the world, I have a knack for finding common obsessions - because my interests are so wide and far. But not too deep - if I run into a hardcore expert, I get bored eventually.

My strongest AS trait is the special interests, and I ramble on and on about them all the time. Everybody knows me for my special interests. Most of the things that I got signed in my high school yearbooks dealt with my special interests, which I find funny. I'm not as intrusive about my rambling as I used to be. I no longer drone on and on about a special interest to anybody I meet; now, I reserve the intense rambling for family and close friends. But I love to wear things related to my special interests, too. I probably have at least 20 Cedar Point T-shirts that I've gotten throughout the years. My favorite is a Magnum one from 1999; my mom bought me a Cedar Point charm bracelet this Christmas, and I wear that, too. I also have a great abundance of "I Love Lucy" T-shirts and many geeky chemistry T-shirts. I have a Periodic Table shirt, one about the Third Law of Thermodynamics, and many more. And for two years, I also used to wear a "bracelet" that I fashioned out of my organic chemistry model kit. I made a cyclohexane ring, and I just wore it around my wrist.
-OddDuckNash99-

Well, my main one is computers. No one understands me, so I don't. It really pisses me off when people talk about something and they know the other person doesn't understand, so I just don't.
However, when I do come across someone who knows a lot about computers I can talk to them for hours on end. Today I spent all lunch time talking to my aspie friend about servers and I _really_ enjoyed it.
I also go to a social skills group every Wednesday 3 of us(inc. me) know a lot about computers, so we talk about that a lot(I'm aspie, the guy I talked today is aspie and another one is probably has some form of autism, IDK though).
I guess to answer your question:
I can tell when someone isn't interested, or doesn't understand, but when someone is interested, I can and will go on for hours on end about them.
EMZ=]

If it wasn't for my obsessions, I would have probably been labled bipolar or schizapal. For years people wanted me to be more social and intrested in people. Everyone thought I was depressed because I wanted nothing to do with anything but meerkats. Just meerkats. I think the obsession part makes me throw my heart into everything I do which is why I am so good at meerkat art.

I have absolutely no problem sharing my obsessions. My obsessions have given me my greatest memories in life and I am so much happier because of them. If I didn't have anything I could hold onto like this, right now I'd be lonely, miserable, and absolutely bored to death. And if I am upset, I can just escape into them so I can be happy again.

i only talk about my interests. i do not know what else to talk about.
it helps that one of my secondary interests is human analysis and so people in 12 step programs ring me to get my view on things.

all my interactions are functional really. why else does one mingle?

I have to agree with you millie, why else does one mingle? Like you, if I am trying to talk about something that is not an interest, then I get that feeling like I have a window between me and the rest of the people. I just do not fit in at that point. But as long as it is an interest, I tend to do fine.

The area where I was born and raised, and in which I still reside, has always been one of my special interests. My wife was actually the second girl I ever dated, and the second girl I ever had sex with. And we met online just like the only other girl I ever dated and had sex with ... go figure.

Anyway, from the start, besides showing my interest in her, I only taked about my city. She'd come here and visit me and I'd drive her all around showing her developments and such. Now she actually knows how to get around my city better than even I do, because she is apparently very observant! I'm a creature of habit, so I tend to drive the same routes to get from place to place and she's not opposed to trying new routes. Because of this, she sometimes will tell me shortcuts I never even knew, and it surprises the hell out of me.

And Glider, one of my fixations has always been house plans and such as well (hence my job as a residential designer) and whenever she and I would be in a bookstore, I would always go straight to that section and just look at all the plans.

These days, however, my constant talk about AS (being one of my main interests) or World of Warcraft actually annoys her but I simply can't help it ... it's just bound to happen everytime I open my mouth!

My poor partner is bored-to-death of my special interests (geology) but she still humours me.

I try not to talk too much about my special interests incase I bore anyone else. It seems completely incomprehensible to me that anyone else could find geology dull let alone boring, because I could sit here and go on about it for days!!

I tell people to bring me back a rock from where they go on holiday, I don't care what rock, just something you pick up on the street, and get very puzzled looks.

To settle things I explain to them that a rock is a unique gift from where they've been, it's actually a teeny piece of the place they went, and best of all they're free, and that I collect rocks. I don't go into detail about why, and what I do with them (I like to play detective and work out the geology from them, great fun for me!)

I'm just known as the chick who likes rocks to most people!

I don't talk very much about my special interests unless I am with someone who likes the same thing. I find it delightful if they do share my interests and a nice way to share something that feels very special with someone else. For example, I've stopped talking with my family about peacocks because they are a bit bored by the topic, but if I make a wall-hanging or a glass painting of one, they do show an interest (maybe just being polite )

Last year I went to a big public park and there was a peacock sitting on a wall, so I sat down beside it and a woman came along and we started talking, having an 'admiration of the peacock' chat, hehe, it was nice to be able to share this with someone else and I think she felt the same way.