How often do your special interests change?

Post Reply New Topic

The bathroom hopping is over six years now

Going to different bathrooms

Bowel movement

Aikido, eleven years

Although I am not obsessed with it

Aikido is not an addition, magic, mystery, important or fun

But I have zero special interest

I have two hobbies. One I have had since I was about a year or two old and the other since I was a similar age in a way. I am not obsessed but the one hobby I think about and daydream about sometimes most of the day almost every day and always have been involved in that hobby. If I talk about other things to people I will be often eelatinb to the other things by bringing in my hobby into the conversation. I also have my second hobby which has also been more ofa work related hobby though I first became involved in this career through the hobby. Actually about 95% or my working life has involved either working in one hobby or the other I have in some form or another. Not that I am obsessed in any way...
The first hobby is trains and model railways. I am cutting back a little as I have changed scale, but in the last scale I had over 100 locos, about 200 coachss and I think about 300 to 400 wagons. I spent £1000 on a nice DCC system. Had quite a lot. Not that I was obsessed though. But that scale I am slowly selling as I absolutely love building my own trains and things in 7mm narrow gauge.
I also spent 9 years working on the railways as a guard and prior to that spent time volunteering on a preserved line in my late teens. Also was a member of a model railway society.
The other hobby. Cycles and cycling. I have always been into this. Not quite as much as the trains but nearly. I have had several jobs in various positions in the bicycle industry. Also used to be a member of a cycling club. I am a good cycle mechanic though I became one before the new qualifications came out and as I already know my stuff I get no chance to get qualified. What took me several years training, they now give out qualificatios for just a day (Or at the most two weeks) training, and the youngsters are not only on much higher pay, but as they don't know how to do the work, I had do almost double up my work to cover for them which adds so much stress. I am not working at the moment as stress which causes energy loss is an issue. There is not that much I have not covered from helicoil inserts to wheel building. I am rather good at wheel building and trueing. Something that for some reason many of todays cycle mechanics don't seem do, but when I learnt my trade one wasn't allowed to call oneself a bicycle mechanic unless one could build wheels as it was one of the last things to learn. I used to also assess crashed frames for damage ans at times was involved in straightening the old steel frames and even forks (Though forks were normally changed).
I have been involved in time trialing, quite a bit of mountain bike racing and a little touring. I am always tinkering with bicycle parts and custom building myself freewheels and chainsets to cover specific gear ranges etc. Used to repair and recondition 3 speed hubs as the first place I worked at had Britains largest stock of Sturmey Archer hub gear spares. A new owner of the business after I left chucked the lot in the skip which had a collection of very early spares datinb back to around the 1920's to '30's.
I am not obsessed with bicycles but at one time I owned over 100 of them.

I am not sure if the above two hobbies qualify as special interests or not, but I thought I would add them.

I tend to maintain interests for a very long time, especially music and politics. I've picked up others over time in varying degrees of intensity.

As it relates to hyperfocusing obsessively, this is inevitable and doesn't always have to occur with a special interest although it often does. I will think about one thing non-stop for anything ranging from a day to a month, and sometimes more. I'll typically burn out, although an interest will remain afterwards. It could take weeks to many months before I have the psychological energy to obsess in that fashion again.

I've learned an immense amount of information through this, but I also tend to have issues ignoring hunger, thirst, and physical exhaustion as I go through that state of mind. I was I was better at moderating it and sustaining it stably. It can also be a negative fixation as well, which is unpleasant.

Answering the origional questoon. If my hobbies are special interests, then they don't change. They have stayed the same from a very early age.

My SIs don't change. They just go away for a while when I am really depressed. When I come back up again I pick up where I left off.

I used to acquire a new one approximately every six months when I was younger. One interest has endured throughout my life-cats and pets in general. For me, my cats weren't just a special interest. They were a lifeline to me and my special friends.

I have been following tennis now for about fifteen years. I have been taking tennis lessons for nearly four years.

All of the information gained in the study of my special interests has been stored in my memory.

It varies for me - they can last anywhere from a few days to several years. I also tend to rotate through them rather than developing completely new ones, although that still does happen occasionally.

Well I'm about 25 years into liking bugs, including 13 years as a paid entomologist.
Martial arts is a bit more recent, only 19 years.

Not very often...

Have not had an interest, much less special interest, for a long time

Depression, $$$, no friends, no skill

My interests are reading and writing. The most recent form of my SI lasted fifteen years. It wasn't helped when I got really bad and applied to go to university. I was asked to leave the premises of the first university which I visited because they thought I was a workman and they weren't sure what I wanted. I ended up at one of the top five universities in the world, but it was weird because I didn't have any real qualifications and I couldn't work out what I was doing there. It's like I was supposed to be a student doing a masters degree and I had to pretend to be a student. The emphasis is on social activity and networking and it was exhausting. I assumed writing was a solitary activity, but it's not.

The domestic staff, porters and dining hall staff, sometimes thought I was a workman and that I was stealing the students' food in the dining hall or I was in an area where I shouldn't be wandering around. I asked the cooks if I could have some of my meals on my own, quiet time and they went (usual neurotypical BS) "Yeh, yeh, sure we can do that..." but they always made me sit down at a table and brought them to me, and then I had to get up and leave. The other students thought I had some issue with them and it turned into a mind game between the staff and me, which ended when one of them shouted at me, yelling at me to get out of the dining hall and that I was rude. I haven't been back since, because I think everyone is angry with me and I don't want to go back. I am finishing the course from home.

A special interest can cost you years of your life and huge sums of money, and it's always like some stupid daydream that you use to block out the world. I could have used that time and effort building up my small business, landscape gardening, or spending time with my family. Universities encourage special interests, but they don't grasp the nature of them, and they think they are like neurotypical interests, but they aren't. The worst part is when you make them understand, then your interest is perceived as less valuable than if you hadn't explained things to them. You work becomes examples of 'autistic writing'. I am supposed to keep two copies of my dissertation in the university library, but when they put them on the shelves, I'm going to go down there and take them out. It's my hard work, my property, and my copyright, and I don't see why I should have to give it to them.

I have been a fan of Denis Istomin now for almost five years. I began following his life and career on June 30, 2014. It was really funny how that came about. I turned on the T.V. to watch Wimbledon. He was playing in his third round match against Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland. Istomin was ill and was being attended to during a medical timeout. I watched the rest of the match, and noticed Denis Istomin's gesture of good sportsmanship toward his opponent when the other player slipped and fell. I began researching Denis' story and was amazed by all that he overcame to make the professional tour.

I have been an Istomin fan ever since.