emimeni
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02 Oct 2012, 7:13 pm
Ettina wrote:
To me, 'weird' and 'bad' are separate things.
A special interest is weird when it is shared with very few other people, or you express your interest in a way that differs a lot from most people. A lot of people are prejudiced against weird special interests, just as they're prejudiced against anything weird, but really it's just part of diversity and they should accept that. In fact, sometimes these interests can be quite useful - pretty much every person who is autistic or suspected-to-be-autistic and highly successful made a career out of a special interest, usually an unusual one.
A special interest is bad when it leads you to do things that harm yourself or others. For example, if your intense interest in poisons leads you to start poisoning people, that's bad. Or if your intense interest in World of Warcraft leads you to regularly forgo eating and sleep in an attempt to take down the hard bosses, that's bad too.
Remember that a lot of what is written about AS is colored by prejudice. We're an oppressed minority - people want us to rewire our brains for the convenience of NTs. Take what the mainstream says about AS with a grain of salt.
A special interest is weird when it is shared with very few other people, or you express your interest in a way that differs a lot from most people. A lot of people are prejudiced against weird special interests, just as they're prejudiced against anything weird, but really it's just part of diversity and they should accept that. In fact, sometimes these interests can be quite useful - pretty much every person who is autistic or suspected-to-be-autistic and highly successful made a career out of a special interest, usually an unusual one.
A special interest is bad when it leads you to do things that harm yourself or others. For example, if your intense interest in poisons leads you to start poisoning people, that's bad. Or if your intense interest in World of Warcraft leads you to regularly forgo eating and sleep in an attempt to take down the hard bosses, that's bad too.
Remember that a lot of what is written about AS is colored by prejudice. We're an oppressed minority - people want us to rewire our brains for the convenience of NTs. Take what the mainstream says about AS with a grain of salt.
Thank you.
I often use the term "special interest", or something similar, too.
In my opinion, it's okay to be weird. Everyone is a little weird!
ImAnAspie
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02 Dec 2013, 6:42 pm
CockneyRebel wrote:
If your special interest is all you want to talk about, or 90 percent of the posts that you make on WP are about your special interests and you don't take an interest in the special interests of the other members here.
Funny you should mention that. After seeing your special interest is (and has been for a long time) The Kinks esp. Mick Avory, I actually looked into this a while ago. That's quite a good special interest. Very interesting history - and he's still going strong!
My latest one (for nearly a year now) is the Common Myna or Indian Myna (Acridotheres tristis).
Good on you CockneyRebel
03 Dec 2013, 1:29 pm
03 Dec 2013, 1:42 pm
ASPartOfMe
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03 Dec 2013, 2:24 pm
04 Dec 2013, 9:15 am
