How strong is a special interest?

Post Reply New Topic

I just want some examples of what lengths you have gone with your special interests. I described what I do with certain subjects to people on an OCD board, and they pretty much said it could be "normal".

But I don't know if drawing Pokemon on chalkboards in school or carrying around a bird book everywhere is really normal behavior.

NT's will NEVER be able to understand let alone appriciate the power of a special intrest.

eat, breathe, think, ruminate, research and pursue most if not all of the time. when not doing things related to it, one will be thinking about it. It completely defines me, and so when the special interest changes, I change. This is very confusing for others, but not a problem for me at all.

They are distinct from OCD in that they enervate and energise and also calm a person, whereas OCD can be a kind of negative experience and not a positive one.

considering my special interest is anime... yeh

I would also add that the fusion between special interest and the ASD person has a rapturous and ecstatic quality to it, which is precisely what is often not understood by others who do not experience this level of intensity.

I get like that in spells, then it diminishes to where I can think about other things, but actually, vast majority of the time, I think about something I like.... recently it's the aspie stuff again, but it's mixed in with Sonic and Birds about equally, ehh.

Lazytown can take up my entire day. At one point I used to watch Lazytown all day, RP it, read fanfics and fansites on a daily basis. I still LOVE LOVE LOVE Lazytown, but I try to focus on other things now.

No matter what else I'm supposed to be doing or thinking about, my current special interest is always on my mind. I am able to talk about other things besides my special interest, but whenever I get an opportunity to bring it up in the conversation, I do so. It is my entire being. When I am separated from my current special interest for more than a few hours, I suffer withdrawal. It is all that makes me truly happy. That is something that you're not going to find in mere fandom.

Another thing that I think distinguishes a special interest (at least in my case) is the ability to come up with references and trivia about the special interest at the drop of a hat. This shows just how pervasive the special interest is. It's as if your whole mind relates back to that one thing, like it's on a continuous loop. For example, my current primary special interest at the moment is the YouTube series "Is it a Good Idea to Microwave This?" In the Silly String episode, #165, there is a quote that says, "I had to find the Fountain of Youth, just so I could maintain this appearance." If I would hear or read something about the Fountain of Youth in daily life, I would automatically think of this quote. Another example was back in high school when I was obsessed with Ed, Edd n Eddy. I once took an SAT practice book, went to the vocabulary list, and wrote down a quote from the show for every word that I could.

Almost all of my special interests have been TV shows or movies, and I have this need to write down or recite quotes I like all of the time. You can tell which special interest reigned supreme by looking through my notebooks. I have written quotes in the margins since high school. It's a way for me to do something with the quotes that are forever in my mind, and when I'm supposed to be paying attention to something else, I can always have a reminder of the special interest by quoting it. For some reason, when the obsession's intensity dies down, so does the endless quoting. Like, during my freshman and sophomore year of college, I would quote A Beautiful Mind everywhere, but once the intensity died in mid-2007, so did the need to quote it.

Like jocundthelilac said, it takes up your entire day. You are almost consumed by it. I certainly see the OCD connection, as I have both AS and OCD. While all aspects of OCD are horrific and unpleasant, whereas AS special interests are wonderfully pleasant, my mind does work the same for both OCD obsessions and thinking about my special interests. It's that continuous loop I mentioned earlier. I hear the same thoughts in my head (and quotes in the case of the special interest) over and over again throughout the day, and nothing can make it stop. The whole metaphor about your brain being "stuck" on "repeat" is a very good one, because that is what it feels like. It really is like the broken tape recorder that often is used to describe OCD. I hear a thought/quote, and it will inevitably return shortly thereafter, no matter what else I try to think about.

It should also be noted, Angnix, that AS-like obsessive interests often are part and parcel of the hypomanic/manic phase of bipolar disorder. The euphoria associated with the interests, as well as the hyperfocusness, is seen during hypomanic/manic pursuits. I see that you say that you're schizoaffective. If you end up not having AS, I would bet that your obsessive interests are a result of the bipolar half of your schizoaffective disorder.
-OddDuckNash99-

I eat, breath and sleep The Kinks.

To me it's like, I just want to think about the special interest almost all the time, and it's a dominant theme in daydreams, drawings (I like to draw a lot) fanfiction, and creating props and such.

My interests usually focus on a single character or species, and it gives me such a thrill whenever I see something that is related or about that character.

When I used to play old Doom on the computer as a teen, the Zombies were my obsession. Nothing else. I sometimes drew them, but mostly I liked to daydream about them. I also had an milder interest for zombies in general.

Then I moved onto Duke Nukem 3D, but it wasn't Duke that thrilled me. It was the PigCops. Their grotesque mutation from human police officers to gun toting pig creatures loyal to their alien overlords, was fascinating. Their story was horrifying and tragic. These I drew also, but more as a background character to a story about a police officer who was lucky to not get mutated, but gets to watch her mutated comrads do horrific things.

After that it was Star Wars.
I wasn't too interested in Luke or any of the other 'main' characters, but I did like the Reborn in Jedi Outcast. They were neat because of their backstory, the way they were created. I did draw one or two pictures of these, but not much then that.

I still have an interest in Star Wars, and my major obsession now is with Darth Maul. I seem to share most of his personality traits, so maybe thats why. Plus he is so darn sexy! I am making a dummy of him, also I have drawn a few pictures of him.

I have a obsession with G1 Transformers too, but this obsession tends to be almost soley with the Seekers. They are another sexy looking bunch! These have a few pictures done of them, and I have the Masterpiece figures of them too.

These make me happy when i am sad, and keep me from being bored most of the time. They are just so thrilling to me.

too far. I have completely freaked myself out with paranormal. I was watching "The Haunted" on Animal Planet the other day (the first new episode) and they had this part where a girl got momentarily 'possessed' by an evil spirit they were trying to remove from a house. And afterward she said that she didn't remember any of it, she just closed her eyes and when she opened her eyes, she was outside. (It took two guys to remove her from the property when she started acting weird). And then my mind made the connection between this and multiple personality disorder, and my own out of body experience, and how similar her experience was with the 'switching' that occurs between personalities, and how if someone is repeatedly traumatized in childhood and keeps going 'out of body' to escape the sensory, well, there the body lies, a sitting duck for stray spirits that might want to hitchhike onto a body, and how people who are victims of severe trauma could literally have a dozen or more spirits in them, if you have no conscious memory of what is going on during like that girl did, because apparently someone else is using your brain. I had a friend who was traumatized in childhood by occult (devil worshippers...she actually was tattooed and still had the scar where it was removed) and she was MPD...bad.

To be making deductions like this freaks me out. It probably sounds like the craziest thing anyone has ever read, it's certainly the craziest thing I've ever written. Another thing that bothers me is twice I've seen 'actual footage' where something like this happened and both times they show the before and after of the 'possession' but the actual events themselves are not on film. I know I'm going into skeptical mode now, generally with interests (and people too) I proceed from a point of complete absorption and belief, because of aspie gullibility, and then I observe. And then I start to pick things apart and notice patterns. So it will be interesting to see where this goes. But with the above paragraph it really scared me that such a thing makes so much sense to me. I'm going back to physics and psychology.

I don't have any problem with the intensity of my special interest. It's the majoity of the human population that does.

I don't really h ave special interests that I pursue for an extremely long time like years or so. Rather, I tend to get strongly absorbed into a certain topic for a relatively short while, like several weeks to months, and then mostly focus on tha tinterest.

The key feature, diagnostically spForeaking, is that the special interest is so intense that it interferes with other activities. Re your Pokemon example, it could be that if your interest in Pokemon is interfering with your schoolwork, it could be a special interest. However, if you only do it for a short while cause Pokemon is popular now (I am clueless about trends), that could be normal. I remember huge amoutns of NTs taking their Tamagotchis (remember those little bleeping animals on mini electronic toy screens from around 1997?) everywhere and constantly playign with them even during classwork, for example.

That's exactly how it is with me & my special interests, but I've never heard it described that way before. It's definitely true.

My special interest has to involve anything to do with computers.. But my interest in computers seem abnormal in some peoples opinion and also manga, would that count??

However, i spend long hours doing it and might turn them into a career. Because some people did, but i don't see what's stopping me, i would keep going and going until something amazing happens with it which i won't expect.