Do these things sound like special interests typical of asd?

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For example, I have been obsessed with mental health/disorders about 2 years or so(which ultimately led me to the suspicion that I have asd) With the mental health obsession, I can't stop thinking about it, at every opportunity I get I will research as much as I can about it, lately I've been searching a lot about autism and things related to autism. I also tend to re-visit and re-read the same sites over and over again, I like to hear people's stories about mental health. The combination of these things has actually made me decide I want to be in the mental health field. I don't necessarily catalogue this information but I do remember a great amount of it. I also have a side obsession in raising chickens, though the mental health thing definitely occupies most of my internet research. (Also I have not been formally diagnosed with asd)

Autistic people each have different interests. They could be normal, or they could be unconventional.

-LegoMaster2149 (Written on September 22, 2017)

Yes, it does sound like a special interest.

I had the same special interest starting in the late 1980s thru most of the 1990s. I read every psychology text book I could get my hands on, mostly from thrift stores and yard sales, trying to find out what was going on with me. I read Intro, Developmental, Abnormal, Organizational and even one Social. Then branched out into graphology and birth order. This was "before internet" days mind you. But once the internet got going (in the 00s), my focus shifted online where I eventually learned about ASD.

So yes I can appreciate having that as a special interest. Once I retired, I considered seeing what I needed to do to teach Psychology on the collegiate level. Then I remembered how I hate speaking to groups of people and got over it.

Medical and mental health topics are an interest of mine as well.

It does sound like a special interest typically seen in ASD. I have a special interest in AGT (you can't make a thread about a special interest without me talking about one of mine! ).

Absolutely I think it sounds like a special interest, but I wouldn't say it's ASD unless there's something else to anything else to lead you in that direction. It's entirely possible to be overly interested in certain topics without having ASD too.

Have you done any of the ASD screening tests such as the Autism Quotient test (https://psychology-tools.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/)? I would say that would give you a better idea than just looking at one possible aspect of ASD.

Be careful though: this isn't a diagnosis; this test just lets you know whether you have traits typically associated with ASD. It's possible to have these traits but not have ASD, and it's also possible to not have these traits and yet still have ASD.

I have those two interests as well. I also do the same type of research.

I wasn't sure if you mean "typical" meaning the amount/intensity or if your topic of choice is typical. If you meant the latter, which hasn't been addressed as much in people's posts, literally anything can be a special interest. While there are topics that are more common (e.g., science, computers, trains, video games) and there is some research evidence that the topics may differ between males and females, again, anything can become a special interest. That is what I find so fascinating about the nature and development of special interests. We all have our own unique story about how we found our main special interests and why they are so near and dear to us.

Unless I'm missing something, you've already been diagnosed with ASD awhile ago. In either case, that would be a typical ASD special interest. I'm interested in mental health myself, I just don't have the time to pursue it because I'm going to school for physical therapy which is eating up all of my free time.

StampySquiddyFan,

I'm the same way! I love to talk about tennis and my cats.

Hypercoaster,

You described it perfectly! (In my case, it would be PURR-fectly!)