New Video: Obsessiveness and ASDs.

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I think this advice is stupid and dangerous.

While this woman seems lovely and well meaning, she is absolutely wrong on this. It doesn't matter whether that person has AS or not - if they are making you feel uncomfortable, you need to be tough on them. You need to make it perfectly clear with unambiguous language that you feel uncomfortable with their obsessiveness.

This is ESPECIALLY the case with AS because we might not even know that we're making anyone feel uncomfortable.

You cannot be gentle with a stalker and it's not up to you to help your stalker.

My advice: RUN THE f**k AWAY. Don't take the advice from this video. Avoid them because your well being is more important than their self esteem.

And if you know you have this problem, YOU need to seek help. YOU need to take the initiative, not anyone else.

Personally, I have never experienced this problem with being obsessed with people. I have a friend who is sort of like this but these people tend to be celebrities or generally high profile people.

Agreed.

I would say that it's not really a crush for me, either, since I don't have to be romantically or sexually interested in someone to obsess over them. Rather, I'd say most of the time I'm not interested in them in that way. Though, from the outside perspective, it would look like I was. For me, I'd say it's closer to being "fixated" on some aspect of that person and not being able to let it go. I may not be autistic, but I certainly do have an obsessive personality. It can wreak havoc on a social life, even at "sub-clinical" levels.

Over the years, I have toned it down and learned that people just aren't safe targets to obsess over. People don't take kindly to stalkers and stalker-ish behavior. It isn't socially acceptable, as you've pointed out. Maybe that's why I'm so indifferent and detached from people now too. It's just not worth the trouble and inevitable rejection.

I agree with being clear in communication. It is much more helpfull for me when ppl tell me they want or do not want contact. If things are left blank you have to push way further to get the answers you need and at that point things can get uncomfortable for other people.

Yeah, I can really relate to this. Usually, when I become obsessed with a person, I do my best to hide it and never get in the person's face. In fact, I become really intimidated by the person and don't want to turn a neutral relationship with the person into a bad one. I am the same way with my other special interests, too. I am not keen on sharing them because:

1) I don't see the point in taking the extra effort to talk about them, given that it's really hard for me to formulate things in spoken words in general and it is much more pleasant to just think about them in my head.
2) I don't want to hear anything about my interest that is unwelcome. People's reactions are unpredictable and I don't want any bad associations to go with my interest. Which is why things are always better if you just keep them in your head.

For these reasons, I never seeked contact with my special interest people, aside from one exception - the person who started this thread. It took a lot of guts for me to admit to her directly that she is my obsession and I was very relieved to find out that she was understanding about it and totally okay with it.

Such obsessions are very different from crushes. I have a boyfriend and I love him immensely partly because we have a lot of similarities and I feel extremely comfortable with him to the extent where I feel like he's another half of me. However, my people obsessions usually are with those people who have something really amazing but very different from me and I admire it, but there is more to it. Usually, my people obsessions did have a part of their life story in common with me, but now they are very different in a way that I look up to and I just want to understand how they got there. Just like a special interest, they become fascinating to me and I want to explore every single bit of their existence. Thus, I spend hours watching their videos, reading their writings, etc. I want to find out what school they went to, where they live, how and with who they spend their time with, etc. It's pure collection of facts about the person, just as I would collect facts about my non-person special interest. I also unconsciously end up trying to emulate that person in the way they look, the way they speak, how they spend their time, etc. And it's not always a high-profile celebrity. I was fascinated with Britney Spears for a period of time because of her charisma, but that's the only high-profile obsession I've ever had, really. Most, if not all the time, all of these obsessions of mine have been with women, even though I am 100% straight. And I would always talk non-stop about them with my friends. I still do...

Of course you can, why not? Just as people like talking about themselves, people also like it when you devote your attention to them. If you talk only about them in conversations, it shows that you are interested in them and that would make them feel good. But perhaps an NT would feel creeped out by that, I don't know. I don't have much experience with NTs...

I do not think this advice is dangerous and stupid, as long as you can stand your ground. There's nothing wrong with telling the person gently that they shouldn't be contacting you non-stop and that they should limit their contact with you to a frequency you both are most comfortable with. However, if the person does not listen and still keeps pestering you, then it is time to tell them that you have had enough and let them go.

A lot of people with AS, while being aware that they have the obsessive tendency, do not have enough generalization skills to apply it to specific situations. I know first-hand how it is possible to do something and then months later realize what exactly you have done. Aspies are known to lack the ability to apply a piece of information to their day-to-day interactions and experiences. So it is very, very important for an Aspie who may have perfectly good intentions to be told gently and calmly first as to why their behaviour is inappropriate before you just remove them from your life for good. If you explain it and they just don't get it and their behaviour really interferes with your life, then it would be time to just let them go.

Last edited by MathGirl on 12 Dec 2011, 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I had a friend like that. She decided not to talk to me anymore because I was so "obsessed with her". That's what she said. I felt really lonely and still grieve for it.

I'll get to the other comments later, as my mind is very flighty and fragmented right now, but I do want to say this:

You've explained this better than I ever could. Mine are the exact same as yours...only I get them with men and women...and, of course, you are one of them, so the feeling is mutual.

There are a whole bunch of them, and we all have commonalities, but the main similarity is in how we express ourselves. The people I like are original, creative, intelligent, articulate, and generally very interesting...but usually the main difference is that they seem to have much more social success than I do, and have substantially more confidence.

I also take interest in people with ASD who live near me. I especially want to know what their strengths and difficulties are and how they `present`. I also have a running list of people I find randomly who I suspect have ASD.

I always also have a `number one` or `crush`: someone who I especially like and want to model myself after as there are so many things I like about them. They are always male, and they are the only person I`ll have sexual feelings for. Fortunately my current crush is attracted to me as well, which is awesome, because that has never happened before.

MathGirl:

I know perfectly well what aspies have a tendency to do but I firmly stand by what I said. Nobody should have to compromise their well being out of fear that they might offend or upset someone. If anyone violates your privacy/comfort/wellbeing, they have already violated that bond. That person will not trust you ever again and you just have to accept that.

Think of it like this ; some people are abusive by their very nature. They can't always help it. They need that stability and the only way they know how to get it is to control someone elses' life and treat them like dirt. Now, should that mean that the victim should be their abusers therapist? Absolutely not.

Now I don't think "aspie stalkers" are necessarily the same, hbut how is the other person meant to know that? All they know is that someone is sending hundreds of messages to them and it freaks them out. Sorry, but this advice is enabling a serious addiction.

I think this is a serious illness that needs to be dealt with by professionals. Nobody else should have to take on board someone elses' mental problems like that. It's not fair and it's not their responsibility.

I have anger problems - I know precisely how important accountability is.

I also want to establish that I have no animosity towards addicts of any kind, but I don't want to be complicit in enabling it.

Aren't you 52 years old? You should be mature enough to be encouraging our youngsters rather than tearing them down.

I do agree with the above posters in that if someone's feeling uncomfortable with the actions of someone on the spectrum, you should explicitly state what the reality of the situation is and what the boundaries are around it. The person needs to be firm and assertive in their interactions with the person, to ensure that they get the same response every time (enforcing predictablity and adapting to difficulties with generalization).

The girl in the video is someone who is just being introduced to this concept of her having people obsessions, and as well, she doesn't have a lot of self-awareness (though we are working on this!). As such, I would not suggest you take her advice too seriously.

I decided to take a logical, systematic approach with her regarding someone she was obsessed with. While I advocated for her to the person involved (at her request, I sent her the conversation afterward), I gave her very clear guidelines for how to contact this person again, as well as when, where, and what to say to him. For example: wait one week before talking to him again, and after that, comment on one status update of his per week. The same approach also allows me to keep my "#1" interest from becoming too overwhelming. My current rules are that I can only look at related pages of his when I'm online, and I have a strict limit for this (once every 2 days)...the exception is when he emails or texts me.

I also asked her to apologize to the person, allowing her some accountablity and an awareness of her behaviour as potentially upsetting someone.

Fortunately, the person involved was extremely understanding once I outlined the situation for him and what actions he needed to take. He was unaware of the connection between AS and people obsessions, and he was thankful for my guidance and insight.

As someone with these tendencies, I do take an issue with MindBlind calling this a "serious illness" and an "addiction". This behaviour exists on a spectrum, just like any other AS traits do. There are people, who, yes, have a very serious issue with this and wind up in mental facilities and jails for their crimes.

For people like the girl in the above video, these things will hardly venture into criminal or legal territory, but will instead go the route of having the person be alienated, shunned, and even be bullied by other people because of their obsessions. There is a clear distinction here between true mental illness and AS.

This is just one behaviour that may come part and parcel with having AS, and I've seen it in countless case studies of people with it...as well as with people who I've met personally. It just isn't discussed as much as I would like it to since it falls under the general category of "AS obsessions". However, awareness of this phenomenon in general could really assist with NT understanding and support with this issue.

Through this approach, we are not enabling an obsession, but instead, allowing it to decrease and get under a reasonable amount of control. When clear limits are set for exploration of the person involved as an interest, it is less likely that the person with AS will give in and indulge in it. When talking to the person involved about how the other person's AS affects obsessive behavior, it is not meant to be done as an excuse. The person involved is still accountable for the behaviour.