Did your parens ever try to limit or remove your obsessions

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My parents were wonderful, they would ask me to stop talking to them about my interest when they were overloaded but never discouraged me from having obsessive interests.

My school, on the other hand? Anything I liked was something to be stamped out as much as possible. One of my early obsessions was pretending to be an animal. I can understand why they got mad when I used it to avoid schoolwork, but when I pretended to be a dog cruelly forced to act human, I don't even know how they realized I was pretending, much less why they complained. I was being compliant for once!

Plus there were my twist tye people. The teachers would confiscate them and never give them back (once I found some in the classroom garbage!). The first couple times I handed them over willingly, but once I realized my teachers wouldn't give them back I started adamantly refusing to ever hand over my twist tye people. It got to the point sometimes of them sending me home from school because I'd gotten into a fight with them over twist tye people. Plus they totally freaked out about me claiming to be the God of the twist tye people, and called my parents telling them I'd claimed I was God. (It was a French immersion school and French Canadians are usually very Catholic.)

And the long arguments they'd get into with me insisting Animorphs was real and them trying to convince me it wasn't - I knew it wasn't but I wished it was. I suspect they thought I was delusional.

I count myself really lucky - my parents have always pretty much accepted me.

They liked my obsessions, because they saw they obviously made me happy, plus they liked to see me motivated and passionate, so they supported me through them. They would also get quite proud at how much I knew whenever it was appropriate to 'show that off', the "Oh look my kid's so intelligent!" proud when I vastly out performed my age group in my areas of interest.

They even tolerated me talking 24/7 about them half the time, heh.

They aren't that stupid.

As far as I can remember, my parents never tried to stifle any of my obsessions. In fact, looking back, they`ve often supported them. When I was OBSESSED with Judaism, my parents were very encouraging. They didn`t quite get it, but they knew it was a huge part of my life. I was basically a hermit other than going to the synagogue, and every waking moment revolved around something Jewish. They even celebrated Chanukah with me and drove me to synagogue (and they are Catholic!)

My dad try to make me stop watching anime when I was in high school. He was all like" You need stop watching cartoons and read the newspaper." My mom was more like sure you can watch your shows I don't care, lol. Guess what I still watch anime and I still watch shows on Nickelodeon, lol.

My dad was always really understanding of my special interests (and even enjoyed some of them himself) but my mom did try to limit my special interests and take them away. I can remember her taking away my Calvin and Hobbes books and putting some of my stuffed animals in bags if I "wasn't using them" and sending them to "poor kids." My stepmom used to get mad if I bought stuffed animals, but now that I'm in college, she doesn't seem to care much anymore.

My Mum once threw away something I was collecting, but it was just a misunderstanding. When I was about 12 I was obsessed with Anne Frank's Diary and I read it every day. My parents (who didn't have any idea about AS at the time) took it away and hid it because they were worried about how obsessed I was. I quickly found it and that was that. I have been very lucky to have such understanding parents.

I don't understand this belief on the part of parents and psychologists that special interests are a bad thing. Every aspie I've heard of with a successful career got it by following special interests. It's our best chance to balance our lack of social skills by perfecting skills in other areas.

My parents never really tried to get rid of my special interests, but they did try to limit them enough that I got my work done and would tell me not to talk about them after a while. I don't blame them for that: I needed to learn to switch gears when necessary and not be too annoying. I have a daughter with some AS traits, including special interests, and I try to encourage her to pursue them, but even so, I don't want to hear about them constantly and make that clear.

Yes my mother frequently gave away toys I was too 'old' for all the time. There were a few much I fought to save at all costs (my Nintendo collection) and I still have that obsession to this day.

I didn't have to worry about my mom taken my computer privileges away, because back then there were no such thing as a personal computer. Otherwise I have to admit my mom was quite supportive and let me sleep with my objects.

Only thing I can think of that my mom tried was limiting time I spent on the computer - she had some sort of timer/locking device put on which shut it off at midnight, and you couldn't turn it back on until noon the following day.