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IdahoRose
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12 Aug 2012, 4:32 am

Are there a lot of things that you enjoy to different degrees, or do you only have a couple of things that you are very obsessed with and are uninterested in anything else? Have you always been this way, or has it shifted from one way to the other over the years?

As some of you may have noticed, I have made a lot of posts this year complaining of a lack of special interests. But after an enlightening conversation that I had with my younger brother tonight, I realized that it's not that I lack interests- it's that I like different things to various degrees; I'm just not totally obsessed with any one specific topic. (However, I have noticed a pattern: my subjects of interest are all either live-action movies or animated TV shows. For some reason animated movies and live-action TV shows don't gel as easily with me.)

I know that my brother says that it doesn't have to be the extremes of either obsessing over something or not liking it at all; but that is how my brain used to work when I was younger all the way up until the past year. Maybe it's not my interests that are changing, but the way that my mind works. But I'm worried - does losing my ability to obsess make me any less of an autistic person? Is there anyone else who has lost the ability to obsess?

Sorry if this post is too disorganized/rambling; it's getting late and I'm starting to get tired. But I like to make topics before I go to bed so that I can wake up to replies in the morning (or afternoon, as is the case with a night owl like me).



icyfire4w5
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12 Aug 2012, 7:29 am

Hmm, I realize that I'm usually obsessed with one special interest at a time. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it seems to me that almost every NT I know can juggle multiple interests at once. Personally, I think that those who have diverse interests spread across several fields are very interesting--I envy them.



Rascal77s
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12 Aug 2012, 8:09 am

I've had a lot of interests over the years but never many at the same time. When I take something on as an interest, for whatever reason, it truly becomes an obsession and I don't have room for much else. There are some interests I've kept since childhood, like numbers, but other interests have been one time deals or have come and gone in cycles. There have only been a few brief times in my life when I didn't have some obsessive interest. I'm pretty good at switching from one to the next seamlessly.



KyleTheGhost
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12 Aug 2012, 9:05 am

I actually can have several interests at the same time. I've had some of them for a long time.


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