How do you know your obsession?

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Hey,

I've been reading around the forums and apparently everyone has a 'thing' or an obsession. Can anybody describe their 'thing' to me and how they found it.

I don't really know if I actually have Autism just yet. But I used to be obsessed with specific video games. Now days I kinda get obsessed with one specific thing that I try and then move on to another. Like, once I did/thought of nothing but built old arcade machines for a few months. (Random, I know) Then I'd play nothing but one specific video game for a month. And so on...

Basically, I don't really have one specific hobby/interest because now days they seem to change all the time. Sometimes I just lay and think and don't do anything at all.

Is this like anything you guys have experienced?

I've found my obsession, in the January of 1994 when I've signed out a Kinks album from my college library.

Not everyone with AS has just one special interest their whole life. There are Aspies who, like you, have changing special interests. The main thing to determine if it's a special interest is exactly the symptoms you described: it's all you can think and talk about. If you do have AS, I would consider what you described about video games to definitely be a special interest. The main thing to remember is that not everybody with AS experiences SIs the same way. With me, my biggest special interest is I Love Lucy, but my current SI dominates my time and thinking, not Lucy. However, my obsession with Lucy is always there and always will be there. My SI with it just has to be stirred up by conversation or something, unlike my current SI, which I always am talking about.
-OddDuckNash99-

Hey, I don't have a formal dX, so don't quote me.

But for me, my special interests are what I love talking about, thinking about, especially learning about...
I have a main special interest which is quite broad, and which I've had all my life, but over the years, I've gone into different aspects of it. I am obsessively interested in any military intelligence.
I've gone through a few aspects, but am currently obsessed with programming and hacking.

Things that makes one interest "obsessive" are mainly:
- daydreaming about the interest
- I get a massive rush when I can talk about my interest
- My interest calms me down
- I just have to find everything out about it

Hope that helped

It seems as if my special intrests chose me.

Yes, exactly. I'll randomly come across something and then it just takes over and all I want is to immerse myself in it and any attempt to ignore it just makes it worse.
Some of them don't last too long - like a TV show - I'll usually get really into, watch all the episodes and then be done with it. Some last years and some I've had all my life, though with varying intensity.

It's just there. My obsession with cars probably started with toy cars as a small boy but I really think that is hardly even a stepping stone to where I'm at now. When I was about 10 I saw a commercial for a Mustang. It was blue, probably the 2000 model. I obsessed over that car for a while and in late middle school I started getting supercar crazy (Lamborghini Diablo at first), high school is where I came down off of that and devoted myself to simpler cheaper cars.

Coincidentally I also like biking, rollerblading, and pretty much everything with wheels and an engine. I was obsessive with my bike as a kid, I loved locking up the rear wheel on the sidewalk and skidding to a halt and I loved going an amazing 17mph on my little 5 speed. So again my interest really has always been there in some form or another.

I also really play the s**t out of certain games. I've played Missionforce: Cyberstorm since I was in elementary school. Kal Online I've been playing for 6 years. There are many more less notable ones.

I noticed my obsessional nature during the 1980s when I got my first VCR. I had a sinking feeling while buying it, then I ignored my wife for days while I explored the VCR. Somewhere during that process, the word "obsession" came into my head, and ever since then I've been somewhat on my guard against getting too heavily involved with anything. I figured that I could either learn to curb it, or spend the rest of my life buggering about alone with complicated gizmos until I didn't have a friend left. I kept up my interest in music but it's been 100% collaboration for a few years now (I used to record everything myself on multi-track machines).....I don't rate the collaborative results as highly as my own stuff, as a rule, and my perfectionism often sorely tempts me to chuck out the other musicians and get the results I want by myself, but the social price would be too high so I refuse to pay it any more.

It's not as difficult as it sounds. Every time I contemplate a long, lone project, it's as if a warning bell sounds in my head. Maybe I'm using the autistic "start-stop problem" to my advantage.....the thing that makes us reluctant to begin a task until the conditions feel perfect. I hope that one day I'll have enough social confidence to return to the fascinating world of nerdy stuff in a limited way, without fear of wrecking my social life.

Sweet, thank you so much. I actually think I might still have the obsession that I had when I was a kid. (Gameboy) For some crasy reason I've been thinking about buying a rare $100 gameboy off ebay for a few months now. I've also been looking up all possible things I can do with/to them. Like installing a back light or making 8bit music. The only reason I'm not getting more stuff is because it all cost so much.

What happens when you don't 'fee'd your obsession?

I think it's like avoiding a person you have a crush on - you pine for a while, but eventually you start to wonder why you were ever so enthralled. But if you dabble again, you may find yourself back in Obsession City.

Video Games can be a common special interest/obsession for those on the spectrum, I think it was for me at one point. Experimenting like you mentioned, and/or taking things apart, is also common for autistic. I do the same (though I'm not formally diagnosied, I have been unofficially) regarding money. I don't have the money for so many things so I just look up tons of ways to mod things too.

As for the other question, it depends if it calls you back or not. My special obsession used to be art, but eventually I lost interest in that, "it didn't call me back", so I stopped feeding it and nothing bad happened. But now my special obsession is music, and if I didn't feed it, I'd go crazy.

You stay miserable and spend time debating which gender is more evil on wrong planet all day instead of what you want to do.

I guess it is kinda 'calling' me. But idk if I want to feed it. Playing gameboy was funner back even everyone did it. And for some reason I hate the new DS crap. I had a little phase about a year ago when I bought a gameboy on ebay; I started bringing it to school and basically everywhere. My friends, like usual, thought it was just a joke and laughed, but after about a month or two people started to take it seriously and think I was weird, so I stopped.

I don't know if I really want to have to do that again.

Not dx'd, probably on the border between NT and ASD ... maybe.

I didn't use to think about it too much. As I'm borderline gifted, I just tend to remember more about topics than other people, as long as I can bring up the slightest interest. And I tend to compare my own knowledge about a topic to real experts, which means that I always think I know/can do next to nothing.
But recently, my mother told me that when I was a teenager, she was pretty intimidated by the intensity with which I pursued my current interest.
I also tend to become very excited when I can talk about my current or former interests, and forget how anxious I usually feel in social situations. And I talk too much. I can tell when my listeners aren't interested any more (they look more to the side than at me, fidget) but I still can't stop talking.
So, I guess I know I'm going over the top when I get direct feedback.

Oh, and I think I also have some internal 'don't get too involved' rule which makes me change my subjects of interest and tells me that some things are NO-NO, like staring into coloured bottles with water in them for hours. I also tend to switch between topics I am interested in to keep everything at bay.

The easiest way to know if i'm working on a special interest is completely losing track of large amounts of time. Often working for 3-6 hours without break, then sort of 'wake up' to realize that:

- day has turned to night
- someone is standing in front of you but you did notice them enter the room or approach you
- someone complains they have been calling your name, but you don't remember hearing them
- that you have missed meals and commitments.
- you are very hungry or really have to go to the bathroom but hadn't considered it before
- you are injured but don't remember how

These effects were all stronger and more frequent when I was young, but they still happen now.

One thing that confused me about the diagnostic criteria is the way they seem to describe a special interest more as only research based. Having to know everything about a specific topic, mine have usually been project based (building, designing or programming something not always sane).

I have had research based ones where I have to take something apart and understand every piece of it, but I find them less common.

My aunt once pointed out that my interests are always seasonal and proceeded to list everything I'd been temporarily obsessed with.

I guess someone is obsessed with keeping track of the things I'd been obsessed with.