Special Interests?

Post Reply New Topic

Do all autists have special interests? I know it is a common thing but I myself, can't seem to find one thing that I am super infatuated with. Another question, what even defines a special interest? How far must it go? I know I feel still strongly of something from when I was younger but I can't say I know everything about it.

Sorry if this wording is confusing... rushed a little bit! :3

Interests are always such an interesting topic haha!

As a kid / teen, I found special interests easier to make sense of.

I didn't have 'adult' problems consuming so much of my attention.
I wasn't so bogged down with tons of life experience and all these little learned nuances of life that distracts from the simplicity and purity of just falling in love with a thing and engaging with it.

Adult life and my cynicism and frustration around how the world treats people has certainly impacted my ability to engage with the 'little things', which has made it harder to understand what my special interests even are anymore.

But I can look back through my life and find patterns. What did I do when I was 5 that I still hold on to in some way?

When I really break it down, I see two things pop up, which I consider my special interests:

1) Making stuff that I can engage with my favourite people with. Think modding a game, making house rules, setting up a social space in my home, or being a Dungeon Master in D&D.

2) Interacting with music, specifically particularly impactful video game soundtracks and select other music. This can mean learning to play stuff by ear, writing remixes, wishing I could join a casual band, all sorts of things.

What things last? What things keep me grounded in my core values - In my case, one is meaningful social connection. Those help me understand what special interests are to me.

It’s more like something you just really enjoy and keep coming back to. It doesn’t mean you have to know every little detail, just something that sparks your curiosity or makes you happy when you think about it.

In my case special interests are things I'm majorly interested in or spend a bit of time on when able to. My overall interests are majorly limited when compared to NTs but I spend more time involved with my main interests than typical NTs do. I don't need to know every thing about my special interests.

I find that 'special interests' seem to range from fascination to obsession about some subject or thing. One of my special interests that I've had my whole life is music, I absolutely love listening to a wide range music all the time. It isn't a full blown obsession for me, but it is probably close. My obsession isn't with knowing things about the artists or anything like that, my interest strictly lies in the thoughts and emotions within and coming through and from the music itself.

While some special interests last a lifetime, others come and go. I have found things that fascinated me to the point where I felt compelled to learn as much as I could, then once I felt I had learned all I could I would drop it and start to look for something else to focus on mentally.

Some interests are physical, others are not. My biggest lifelong interest has always been the meaning of life, a vast and deep fascination that has grown and evolved as I have. Some interests are fun to share with others while others can only be experienced when we are alone.

I used to. Plenty of it as a child and as a teenager. Crafting was my longest running special interest.


But I lost it.
Or at least do not have one for more than 6+ years now or so.

I still have interests, but I'm losing that, too when my focus is disproportionately about "self care" or an attempt to just have the breathing moment to "ignore myself".

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Music, history, and science! Particularly, emotional or unique pioneering music. Regarding history, it usually starts with some spark, and then I want to learn more about it, which spreads because the initial thing I wanted to know about rooted in what happened before, which creates a rabbit whole. But also, the period of focus also interacts with other matters, and that has interactions with other topics...and boom! Never ending learning. For some reason, I like fundamental science, like...What is everything? What are we in? What are we part of? Why do things happen? What are things? What is time? What are we? I'll get lost on that topic for a long time.

Another fun thing about special interests is the infodumping. I think I use infodumping to socialize. It's something deep to talk about as opposed to small talk, it's interesting enough to maintain attention, and for some reason, I find it super rewarding.

I'm having trouble engaging in special interests lately because they are consuming. Self-care, mental health, and all that is a constantly ongoing process. When I get the urge to engage, it's great, but distractions such as interruptions and unexpected changes take me off track, and refocusing is quite difficult. I find myself unable to engage as if I'm waiting for the next thing. I think I'm noticing that the issue with interruptions is a thing with processing speed. I can't process like everyone else. I take a few days for what other people seem to do in seconds or less. Even for the most minor things, such as getting home. When I get home, it takes me several minutes to feel like I'm home. In my head, I'm still not home yet. Is that the transitions thing everyone is talking about with autism?

For the past year my interest has been postage stamps. Before that I went for years without having any special interest. So it can happen that you don't have a special interest, there's nothing wrong with that.

I get intensely interested in a subject for a while then it gets replaced by another interest. Always been like that.

It's sort of annoying because of I could sustain that level of interest in one subject for longer I could've been an expert in something and that might have led to a decent career.

As it is I just end up knowing more than the average amount about some very disparate subjects, but not enough to be useful.

One thing all my special interests I've had over the years have in common is that they're usually a niche within a wider subject/area and a niche which has a greater intensity to it in my experience of it than the wider aspect does, and there's usually a level of skill to be developed in partaking in it. I sometimes give them up when I get to the point where my intellect, physical ability, creativity, or social skills, or simply lack of time, let me down and I am no longer able to develop to the level where I feel I need to be. I want to be above average, but usually just down here below average, looking up at peers wondering how they make it look so easy.

I have three life-long special interests. The Kinks, the Summer and Winter Olympics and computers. There are other interests that I'd have until another one took its place.

A tip-off that it's an autistic special interest is the oddness of the interest in combination with how it manifests. So for instance I was once very fascinated by wood chipper deaths (real life). This was sparked by a fatal wood chipper accident in town. Something about it just hooked me, and I began seaching online for all the wood chipper fatalities ever recorded and read every single one. My interest spawned a fascination with the tree care industry to the extent I joined an arborists online forum and hunted for anything related to wood chipper accidents.

What the sam-hill was I doing on an arborist's forum when I have NEVER had any interest whatsoever in trees other than (like anyone else) appreciating a beautiful or cool looking tree? A few years into this fascination, when I was 45, I trespassed into someone's backyard to observe tree trimming in the backyard that abutted theirs. The resident came out and asked who I was. I then realized what I had done and immediately left, feeling embarassed.

I'd hear a wood chipper in the neighborhood, drop what I was doing, and race over to where it was, following my ears as I drove around, so I could witness men "chipping." I read up on the mechanics of how a wood chipper operated and how it could have a safetey device to recognize when a human was being pulled through the intake vs. a pile of brush. I got excited whenever I spotted wood chippers being towed by trucks and always had to get a look at the driver. I once heard a chipper down the street; could see the chipping from my window. I stood there for 20 minutes watching, having pulled myself away from client work I was doing on my computer that had an approaching deadline.

Now if this all isn't an autistic SPIN I don't know what IS.

Yes I'd say that qualifies as eccentric.
What's the thing about how it manifests? Is that about it interfering with normal life and survival?

I've always had a revolving door of niche special interest in history, but my longest special interest spawned from the time I was possessed and wrote for a whole month.

Well, I believe everything is a spectrum and it's probably indeed possible to not even have a special interest as an autistic individual, but I don't know because I'm not qualified to say one way or the other.

With someone who is AuDHD (which I believe I am most likely), I can imagine you could have shifting special interests, as your ADHD side may crave novelty and not be able to hold on, but again... I'm not qualified to say one way or another. (We probably don't know a whole lot about AuDHD, though).

For me, I think I have a combination. I have one special interest that tends to stick with me through all of time and that's woodwind instruments, their history and music history. But I have other interests that tend to come and go, they often kind of cycle?