Why do you engage in your special interest?

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^ can relate to that, Mountain Goat. I too spend so much time just thinking and daydreaming about my special interests


I engage in my special interests (and obsessions and interests for that matter) for very simple reasons: they are fun, interesting and entertaining for me, they give me joy.
My special interests are a large part of my life, and I can't imagine or want it any other way.

To me, special interests are like love (while obsessions are like infatuation), and not engaging in special interests would be almost as bad as not engaging with my loved ones.

Presumably for the dopamine/serotonin/endophine hit, or some other chemical reward.

My special interest started out as collecting records, mainly vinyl. Then I saw an old Victrola from 1914 that was due to be cut up for a file cabinet--but it didn't because I saved it and gave it a mechanical restoration to factory specs, so now it's like a remanufactured Victrola. I fired it up this afternoon for some Edwardian-era Christmas carols and it sounded nice.

So I moved on from that to all the trappings of the early 20th century, 1900 to 1940. I live like it's still back in that time between the two World Wars, sometimes a little earlier. Yes, I have the stuff and yes, a lot of it's authentic antique pieces I fixed up...I can fix just about anything.

So my special interests are basically living in general, even if I live like an exhibit that escaped the museum.

WHY.

1) to save classic artifacts usually junked or repurposed,
2) to experience an era I otherwise would know only by hearsay,
3) for a place to which I can escape to recharge, to know what it really is to be human rather than be pushed and constantly stimulated by the technology of the modern world.

My own long-term special interest? It's one of the best ways to expand myself, both orderly with goals and limitations, and chaotically with all the aimlessness and endlessness.
To focus and perceive everything as a craft...

Outside of this; doesn't keep my 'fire' alive. I've been outside of this for too long now.


The rest doesn't do the same; a sanctuary, one filled with ideas to write stories with, tools to meddle with, but a closed off one.
Some are just obsessions I may as well toss out as it doesn't serve much other than just more data and mostly entertainment material.

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i feel... starved when not allowed to engage in them? like there's something missing that i absolutely need, and it's my special interest. they bring me a lot of joy, even if i lose interest in the topic later!

also i have depression and special interests are like serotonin dispensers

when i edit audio, the hours go by and if it was morning and daylight when i started, it would be long past midnight when i am finished.

I love the feeling of fiber in my hands, even scratchy ones that I would never wear. I am new to recognizing my Aspergers and didn't realize my finger-fidgeting is actually stimmimg. Knitting, crocheting and spinning provide a sort of stimming as well. It helps the jangly edges go away. I now think I understand why weaving has never worked in the same way for me ... it is almost all large muscle movements and my stimming is all fine finger movements. I could see one day getting interested in it as a fascination, but haven't yet.

And that is the other part. There is so much to learn and so many new rabbit holes to go down. Ask me anything about sheep. and things to collect. One of every kind of needle. One sample of every breed of sheep. Things to organize, and then pull apart and organize a different way.

Organizing may be a second special interest. I think about it a lot, read about it a lot, and it is something I can do at work and even get rewarded for doing.

I get other fascinations from time to time but always come back to fiber and organizing. My true loves.

I engage in my special interests (animals, art, cryptozoology, film, animation, shows and movies that I am obsessing over) because they are part of my way of connecting to the world. When I find ways to connect things to my interests, it helps to expand upon what I can engage in. With things that fall completely outside of that, I can get shallowly involved but if it has no connection whatsoever my threshhold only goes so far.

My special interests take up most of what is in my mind. Okay, my mind is a place of chaos and there is a lot going on there, but that part of my mind resides in a sort of safe haven that I never turn off. When I need to decompress from too much, I go to them and they are a place of comfort.

When it comes to areas outside of my special interest, there is a lack of knowledge that makes me feel vulnerable. I have trouble putting my thoughts into words but when it comes to my special interests and managing to connect things to them, it helps me to articulate things and express myself better. With work and dealing with people and the work world, there is a lot of anxiety involved but I have my footing and can navigate my special interests okay.

The general case here is that engaging feels like play. All the unrooted creatures seem to enjoy playing, because if they didn't enjoy it, they wouldn't practice moving and thinking, which are eventually needed for survival after being honed in play.

Because my special interests make me happy. I have some special interests that I've known for a long time. There are also interests that keep me busy as well. My interests keep me happy and mentally grounded.

Developing/improving reasoning skills simply feels satisfying.
I like analysing thinking/arguments and seeing/identifying patterns of thought.
Creating intellectual constructs is a hobby of mine with the payoff being the enjoyment of exploring new conceptual territory.

Probably the main satisfaction in intellectual discovery these days is the fact that, for a significant part of my early life, I lived in abject confusion and despair.
Being free of the feelings of helplessness and desperation is euphoric by comparison.
Q: Why did the guy hit his head against the brick wall?
A: Because it felt so good when he stopped.

Being able to see through the fog of confusion is empowering.
Being able to reject the oppression of malevolent social influence denying the realities of this life system allows the satisfaction associated with the self-actualisation process.

As I said,
It essentially boils down to:
Biochemical reactions.

Football feels like one of the only (real) places where the good guys tend to win

I like that

They become obsessions for me, and I can’t think about or do anything else (or it’s really hard to).

I am so thankful for everyone who is responding. I was thinking about my own special interests and trying to understand where they come from and why I engage in them. Right now I am obsessed with ocean liners and submarines. For me, I think the my special interests provide a refuge and a sanctuary. When I am in real life, I always feel attacked by everything and almost everyone. I am constantly neurologically assaulted by noise and other stimuli and it is very difficult for people to communicate with me on my level so I am always feeling vulnerable whenever I am with other people. With my special interests, I feel like I can really have deep engagement without feeling attacked or vulnerable. I can also be very analytical and deeply intelligent and profound as I research and learn, which many people can't tolerate. They tell me I am too analytical or I think too deeply for them. But with my interests, I can be as deep as I want to be. I can also engage with them as a small child would when I am in those younger modes and they don't judge me or bully me. And I do love learning new things. But I think the greatest part is the safety factor and having them allow me time to take breaks from dealing with the real world which is so overwhelming for me.

I am doing a workshop on Autism next month. It started out with me talking to an Autism parent at kayaking practice and we talked for a couple hours. She then went on facebook and told some of her Autism parent friends that she had learned more about her 21 year old non verbal Autistic son from me than she had ever learned from any doctor, teacher, or therapist in his entire life. Our talk also changed her relationship with him. Her friends on facebook all wanted to talk to me and so she asked me if I would do a workshop for them. I said ok and word of mouth has spread and within two hours of her saying this on FB, we had over 20 responses. Well that was three weeks ago and now, last I heard, there might be almost 100 people in attendance and most of them will be school officials, teachers, therapists, and Autism professionals as well as some parents. It has even gone so far as Autism Society in my state has asked that it be filmed so that they can put it on their website. I am asking the parents to bring their Autistic children who are capable of attending so that they can speak as well as if they want to and share their experiences.

Even though this is a public forum and anyone in the world can read our posts, I would love your permissions to share some of your posts at this workshop. I think it is super important for Autism parents and for people who work in the field to understand why we do what we do. It is not enough that they know that we do these things, they need to understand why we do them. It is only in understanding why that they can respond to us in healthy and productive ways. Thank you so much for responding to this thread and please continue to. I am really fascinating by a lot of your answers. If anyone does not want me to share what you have said with the group, please let me know. I will completely respect your wishes. And that goes for anything you have said on any thread, not just this one or other threads that I have started.

If by some chance I have said anything helpful, Skibum, you can certainly use it.

If you have any questions let me know by private message and I can sit down this afternoon & write.

Good luck with the conference! I'm glad the officials are actually listening to an autistic person like you instead of their books of theories and A.B.A.