How do you know your obsession?

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I will answer this question based on my experiences.

As a child I was obsessed (and as an adult I still am) by electronic organs, roller coasters, and house plans.

I often spent hours a day with my Kimball organ with the door closed where it was just me and my Kimball. I preferred it over play with the neighborhood kids. I preferred it over swimming in the pool. I preferred it over the things that brought the other kids joy. I preferred it because it is a part of me---and no can take me away from it. (Now, I play Hammond organs).

I spent large amounts of my time deeply absorbed into roller coasters (books, pictures, postcards, brochures, etc.). I preferred roller coasters over play with the neighborhood kids. I preferred them over swimming and all the other things that brought the other kids joy. As a youth, I had memorized (without trying) the statistics of every roller in North America. I preferred them because they are a part of me---and no one can take me away from them.

I spent an abundance of my time obsessively studying countless house plans and categorizing them in countless notebooks. I preferred them over play with the neighborhood kids. I preferred them over swimming and all the other things that brought the other kids joy. I preferred them because they are a part of me---and no one can take me away from them.

To take these special intense interests away from me would be to take away a part of my living soul. My survival would be jeopardized without them. They are as much a part of me as my head or my heart. They were my best friends as a child. They are my only friends today.

When as a teenager on summer vacations to Myrtle Beach, I drew sketches of roller coasters in the sand while the other kids frolicked in the surf. And as evening fell, when other teens fulfilled their desires with dancing at the clubs or entertaining their friends, I could be found riding the Swamp Fox roller coaster over and over and over again. And then I would wander into Mr. William Parker's office (he owned the amusement park) underneath the shaking coaster framework and talk for hours about the history of roller coasters and the individuals who built them.

I was deeply saddened to hear of William Parker's death a few years ago. Although an aged man when I was a youth, he was a friend to me. Today I am surprised he took valuable time from his schedule to talk with me whenever my family visited Myrtle Beach. He never turned me away. He greeted me with a smile and never forgot me. He would warmly invite me into his spacious office and we would talk endlessly on roller coasters.

I'm not diagnosed, but here is the story of my obsessions:

Science in general was my first one. In Kindergarten they gave me lots of science books to take home because that's all I would talk about. Nowadays science is still a big one for me.

BIRDS... that happened in 6th grade when I checked a bird book out of the library. At first, it just involved trying to memorize the appearance of all the birds and also talking about birds a lot. Then it morphed into choosing a zoology major and also having several jobs related to birds. I know lots of about other nature stuff too.

Pokemon: This one faded away, but there was a point in time Pokemon was so much a part of my life it interfered with my school work.

Sonic the Hedgehog: I liked him as a kid, but it wasn't until late college that I really became a fan again after getting one of the newer games.

When I become obsessed with something, it's pretty sudden. I could be reading about a certain subject then a switch is flicked in my head then BLAM, I'm hooked. That is how my current obsessions started anyway.
My strongest obsession was started in psychology class last November. We were learning about the study where Susan Savage-Rumbaugh taught them bonobos to speak using symbols. And the bonobos learned a lot of it themselves by copying what the researchers did, and Savage-Rumbaugh had an idea that the differences between us and them is mostly cultural. We were shown this video and all of a sudden I was pretty much hooked. So I had a short obsession with bonobos for that month, but it wasn't until this spring I started becoming batshit insane about other apes as well.
My evolution obsession started with my religious dabate obsession, and when I became obsessed with apes that inspired me to look a bit deeper into evolution, so those 2 obsessions (religion and apes) started that one. And my evolution osbession is "evolving" (pun intended ) to include things like anthroplogy as well.

I have been super happy this week due to a brand new obsession.

Toxoplasmosis and cat s**t. NT's dont know what they are missing

From my first sentient thought, I suppose. I don't remember a time when I wasn't obsessed with drawing or art or television or movies, etc. According to my family, I once tore wallpaper off of the wall to use as drawing paper. I also used to draw inside books and on envelopes. I used to watch TV a lot as well and I once had this peculiar sleep schedule that I set up where I HAD to be in bed at a certain time (7:00pm exactly). I got up at roughly 5:00am and would watch hours upon hours upon hours of television. Mostly cartoons.

When I used to see movies, my mother would go to a corner shop to buy sweets and drinks (she wasn't prepared to spend loads of money on the food from the actual cinema, unless it was the very occasional ice cream). However, I thought that she was taking me and my older sibling away from the cinema and not allowing us to see the film for some reason. She had to reassure me every time went to the cinema that she had already bought the tickets and we were going back very soon. Before and after watching a film, I'd be obsessing over it for ages and draw pictures of the characters and stuff they might get up to (I also had this weird habit of drawing characters from different canon dying or being saved from potential death or being beaten up.....I'm not really sure why but it's not really related).

One of the most important times of my life was when a group of artists came to my primary school to do stop motion animation with us. I was never asked to participate (even though my entire class went to this). I had a mainstream class that I attended in that afternoon, but I was distraught when I found out that my peers were making their own films. I remember telling my mainstream teacher that I needed to leave and I came back to my regular teacher trying to hold back tears but failed miserably ( I was just a kid - don't judge!) asking why they left me out when they knew this was something I was passionate about. After a short chat with the artists, I was accepted into the production of my own animation. It was s**t, but it was mine, which only strengthened my obsession even further. Now I'm trying to do this professionally (filmmaking, animation, graphic design - pretty much a bit of everything but I want to study animation, mostly).

So the short answer is that I've always had this obsession. I call it my primary obsession. I have a secondary one based on learning about the mind (based on curiosity about autism and a general interest with acquiring knowledge). I guess it was also more intense when I became fascinated with fear (due to having a phobia and having had panic disorder) which made me fascinated with violence.

My special interest began when I was 14 and in a mental institution. I had no friends and I was picked alot by the crazy people there, so I began to learn to draw and write poetry.
After I got out, I took art classes and learned to paint in relatively short time, then I continued to paint. I then had my first gallery opening when I was 19, and taught art at a camp for kids with disabilities. Then I went to art school, and got burned out on painting because the teachers took all the fun out of it and the student critques were hell on earth. If you did a bad job, the students would complimement it because they felt sorry for you, and if you did a good job, the students would pick it apart as to why it was not perfect...out of jealousy.
After I left art school, I went to a public college and in one of my art classes there, the teacher taught me rope/yarn coiled basketry. Most of the other students hated the repitition, but I loved it and it was very calming. My special interest of art got turned in a new dirrection, fiber art. I love the fact it does not ruin my clothes like paint does, it is calming because of all the repitition involved...kinda like stimming but you make something at the same time. And I have learned how to spin fiber on a wheel, knit, rope/yarn coiled basketry, gourd art, needle felting, and traditional basketry. I want to learn how to weave...I have some looms, but I already have 3 projects going on at once, so I have to finish them 1st. My sister wants me to make her a basket for her wedding present, so I am going to put my all into it. I am thinking about combining medium: gourd art, rope/yarn coiling, and traditional basketry using kudzu or grape vine.

The good thing about being an artist, is I can be weird...it is expected and acceptable to be eccentric as an artist, so I dont have to hide my obession like some AS folks do. Becides if they think I am whacked...I dont care, art is a jealous mistress.

What happens when I dont create...like now, I am in a creative lull and something inside of me aches like a spiritual hunger pain...just gnawing at me to create.
I think I will work on my project...soon.

I found my obsession(s) at aged 7 and 9. At seven pokemon became my 'thing'. I could look at pictures of every single pokemon, and name them all easily. I traded and collected the cards, DVDs, books, toys, figurines, everything.
At 9, I started the violin, at which I progressed normally, but I utterly refused to miss a lesson. At 12, I began the flute and recorder, at which I progressed at an astonishingly fast rate, getting up to grade 7 in two years. (that would normally take seven or eight years). I have never missed a lesson, practice three hours a day, every day, go to three orchestras, a choir, a theory lesson, two different lessons a week... I love it.

My mum's BF thinks I'm a right baby, still loving Pokemon, but he can go die in a hole for all I care. (No-one in the house knows I have AS). I am 14 now.

My obsessions change, yes, but they tend to be in a specific field or area rather than an all-out obsession. For example, in second grade, it was books and medical things (of infectionous nature). In third grade, it was books and psychology. In fourth grade, it was poetry. Fifth grade was dogs and psychology, sixth was mental disorders, poetry, anime, glitches in Pokemon, and video games. Seventh was the same as sixth with an addition of Mario and The Legend of Zelda trivia, along with racial and women's studies. Eigth grade was literature, poetry, rare diseases, psychology (I'm currently learning cognitive therapy and play therapy, as well as DSM-IV), poetry, anime, manga, genetics, and racial and women's studies, so basically my obsessions stayed in the same or similar fields of study. (In first grade, it was science, mostly zoology, by the way.)

Hope this helps!

I know my obsession because I got lucky and discovered it.