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MinorAnnoyance
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12 Feb 2011, 11:02 pm

MrMagpie wrote:
My friends call my obsessions 'the topic of the week'. :roll:

They can fluctuate from domestic politics to mind/body philosophy to Japanese culture to healthy cooking - honestly, I wonder if collecting knowledge can in and of itself be an obsession? I like to make myself as knowledgeable as I can on as many subjects as I can. If a topic comes up in conversation that I'm not familiar with, I'll research it until it is familiar.

My obsessions do tend to change every few months, though. I don't have one overwhelming topic of focus, and I find that I can be enthralled with something for weeks and months and then suddenly become bored with it.

I definitely have the 'rambling about special interests to the detriment of reciprocal social interaction' thing down pat. :oops:
Sounds like you should be a video bloger (or Vloger). People who ramble on youtube get quite popular for no clear reason.



IdahoRose
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12 Feb 2011, 11:40 pm

My primary obsessions for the past year have been the Tim Burton movies Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd. I know a lot of trivia about all four movies, the actors/actresses involved in them (especially Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter), and Tim Burton himself.

I have also "adopted" several of the characters from those movies as imaginary friends, namely Alice, the Mad Hatter, Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovett, Edward Scissorhands and Willy Wonka. I have "conversations" with them almost every night, with me voicing their responses by imitating their voices and manners of speech.



silvskaterdude
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13 Feb 2011, 3:36 am

right now
mosh pits of punk and metal and post hardcore
music- rap/metal/punk/post hardcore/classic rock/altrutive/ grundge/ post grundge
video games- figthing/ rpgs/skate 3/rock band and guitar hero games
anime- naruto/bleach/one piece/shaman king/dragon ball/ death note/yugioh/gx/r/5ds
video edting- if posaable video games/anime/xtreme sports
skateoboardin
bmx biking
facebook
my freinds
my girlfreind thats all right now



ffsjeyuu
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30 Nov 2011, 5:23 pm

Many of my obsessions are just regular interests but more "intense"
Like I'm obsessed with video games, particularly older games. The difference here is I get obsessed, my mind focuses on it intensely. I end up buying a LOT of retro games off ebay.
Or I might go into studying game modding.

Some may be about building a skill. like my obsession with sport and fitness. I'd obsessively develop at a certain sport, which I guess is a good asset for a team ;)

And then theres obsessions with knowledge, thats about collecting information rather than developing a skill.



CocoRock
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30 Nov 2011, 5:39 pm

I think the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria says the interest is abnormal in focus or in intensity.

I have hundreds of laminated A3 pages covered in catalogued pictures of my interest and could speak on each at length. I remember the table being covered with them as I shared it in my diagnostic assessment.

That one trait alone however, does not make an Asperger's diagnosis, of course. It is placed deeper in context when it's placed next to other traits. Tony Attwood uses a metaphor of a jigsaw to describe the occurrence of various traits. Some people have some of the 'pieces' of AS, some a few, some have enough to warrant a clinical diagnosis. It's possible for someone to only have the 'special interest' trait, I guess. So, yes, alone, the interest could belong to someone without AS, who perhaps has one trait in similarity to AS. However, obsessions of an AS nature really are generally unusual in intensity or focus, I think.



artrat
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30 Nov 2011, 6:04 pm

IdahoRose wrote:
My primary obsessions for the past year have been the Tim Burton movies Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd. I know a lot of trivia about all four movies, the actors/actresses involved in them (especially Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter), and Tim Burton himself.

I have also "adopted" several of the characters from those movies as imaginary friends, namely Alice, the Mad Hatter, Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Loved, Edward Scissorhands and Willy Wonka. I have "conversations" with them almost every night, with me voicing their responses by imitating their voices and manners of speech.


I have had an obsession with music and have had many favorite bands. I have imagined that I have played in the band or worked for the band and that they were my friends. It seems very simple because I know everything about the band memebrs and even the people that work for the band. I am so obsessed that I read interviews with the singer of my current favorite band and remember word for word so I can imagine a perfect conversation betwwen us.
The conversation is all in my head but I can hear his exact voice in my head and see his face too. We talk about everything.
I am well aware that this is an imaginary conversation and I am not hearing voices.

I do this because I feel lonely and socially isolated.



Eloa
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30 Nov 2011, 6:11 pm

My special interest lasts now for 20 years, which is longer than half of my life and I only cared about that and forgot to make friendships and to "build on a future". Now I am been telling I should have children and work, but it never occured to me. Though I start worrying about it, but I just don't know how to manage that.
Before I started to worry the SI was my life. And it is still, but people tell me to "get normal".
I don't know how to do that.
I think in pictures and I cannot picture to "get normal".


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NZaspiegirl016
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30 Nov 2011, 11:44 pm

As others have said, Aspies have intense focus on their special interest and must know about it. Mine is the U.S. TV series "Survivor" I have even been on Wikipedia reading about seasons I didn't see, having only started watching a few seasons back, and becoming obsessed two seasons ago, and will probably read more Wikipedia. So yeah. I also tend to say that I will never stop obsessing over Survivor, ever. That's just me.


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pensieve
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01 Dec 2011, 12:59 am

NT's have control over how much time they spend on their interests while an autistic will be completely absorbed in it and not be able to turn away from it, and most of us don't do well with change to begin with.

I think having your special interest on your mind constantly, even when not with it and needing to talk about it is something NT's do not experience.

When I spend a long time on my interests my basic needs get forgotten about and when I stop I'm just really nervous to do anything else.

My special interest in my novel and sci-fi. I have lots of others including astronomy, physics, the air force, art/painting, music/live gigs, photography, etc. But my novel is all I think about.

So, I think autistic special interests are different from NT's because they are more intense, passionate about them (it could become a part of their personality) and because we get stuck on the details we might only focus on one part of that interest.

Personally, I find it really hard to balance my interests with a social life (don't want one anyway/ going to gigs is ok), keeping my house clean and if I worked I'd probably find it really hard to spend time on my special interest unless it was my job.

NT's don't tend to have 'unusual' interests too. They all seem to be socially acceptable. Mine don't seem to be unusual except for my Kinder toys and spinning tops, but I tend to get very very very very obsessed and absorbed in my interests I get stomach pains, bladder pains, dehydration, mental exhaustion and I forget that I actually live in a big house with people. Even when I write I listen to music with the playlist on repeat but I'm so into my writing I don't hear a single song.


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01 Dec 2011, 2:21 am

pensieve wrote:
NT's have control over how much time they spend on their interests while an autistic will be completely absorbed in it and not be able to turn away from it, and most of us don't do well with change to begin with.


Well then, based on that, my special interests (in no particular order):

1. Flutes of every variety and shape and size (since age 7)
2. Animals of literally every variety (since age 1) - The first word I ever said was "cat" actually
3. The visual arts (since age 0 probably lol!):
-- age 1 - would not leave the sand box. I wanted nothing to do with anyone or anything other than making shapes in the sand.
-- age 2 - my mother tried to get me to bake with her, but all I wanted to do was make off with the muffin tins and fold them into the shape of little dogs.
-- age 3 - I would hide my moist towelettes from finger-painting in day care and put them up on the fridge when I got home. Now I know that what captured my interest is called [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibui]shibui[url]
-- age 4 - I tried to turn a big box into a car without parental supervision, which resulted in accidentally stabbing myself in the thigh with a steak knife.
-- age 5 - my grandmother taught me to watercolor.... it was all over then!! !
-- age 6 - Making my own 4-page picture books out of a folded and cut single sheet of 8.5x11" printing paper
-- age 7 - I went through my pastel and colored-pencil phase
-- age 9 to 12 - I discovered polymer clay and became OBSESSED with producing miniature sculptures of EVERYTHING! Flowers, dogs, cheetahs, turtles, dinosaurs, koi, every known species of poison dart frog (see item 2), cars, trees, jets, motorcycles, footballs, etc. I still have three large boxes of this stuff, and that's what's left after a flood washed most of them away! All summer long I would just listen to the television and make figures breaking only for food and bathroom.
-- age 11 - I began my first wood carvings
-- age 12 to 13 - I painted a 30-foot-long 8-foot-high wrap-around mural of the Amazon river basin across my bedroom walls in acrylic and house paint
-- age 14 - Began making hand-illustrated calendars (which took for-freakin'-ever!)
-- age 15 - I took my first ceramics class ... mmmm
-- age 16 - I began painting sets for local plays
-- age 17 - I studied abroad in Japan, and discovered Japanese ink painting ...MMMMMMMMMM!
-- age 18 - I took up digital art and began making my first comic book series Communication Confusion (180 pages)
-- age 19 - I went on the road to conventions doing artwork by request
-- age 20 - I began work as an undergrad scientific illustrator for an entomology lab
-- age 21 - I went to Japan again to study Japanese art history and this time Japanese ceramics MMMMMMMMMM!
-- age 22 - I began my second multi-media comic book "Shizentai" Currently about 50 pages in
-- age 23 - Worked as a freelance textbook illustrator
-- age 24 - Began doing guest sequential art for literary magazines and online blogs
-- age 25 - Took up flute carving, delving more into colored ink paintings, fostering tentative plans to purchase a kiln and pottery wheel.

And there we have it up to the present. I think it's safe to say that art in general is my special interest.