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Do your special interests keep you from bettering your life?

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Do your special interests keep you from bettering your life situation as a whole, the way you (looking at it logically) think you should be doing?
Always. 3%  3%  [ 1 ]
Almost always. 7%  7%  [ 2 ]
Often. 20%  20%  [ 6 ]
Sometimes. 37%  37%  [ 11 ]
Rarely. 3%  3%  [ 1 ]
Almost never. 10%  10%  [ 3 ]
Never. 20%  20%  [ 6 ]
Total votes : 30

Frankie_J
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30 Mar 2013, 1:33 pm

I don't know. Is an interest a special interest that interferes if it's something that distracts you at work every 5 minutes? And takes your concentration?



qawer
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30 Mar 2013, 4:34 pm

Frankie_J wrote:
I don't know. Is an interest a special interest that interferes if it's something that distracts you at work every 5 minutes? And takes your concentration?


I would definitely say it is. That's the asperger mind saying "I want to do that!", fighting the rational mind saying "but I should be doing this!". I believe that's why it is commonly stated that asperger people have a hard time really concentrating on other things than their special interests (or whatever their mind is on right now).

I know the feeling. The asperger mind can be extremely forceful when it comes to special interests. The only way to work around it is to think less autistic.

So I think lack of concentration in every day life is a manifestation of the same asperger characteristic as obsession with larger "actual" special interests is.



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01 Apr 2013, 12:57 am

qawer wrote:
arielhawksquill wrote:
It's not the special interests' fault that you can't manage your time and prioritize your activities better. That's just executive dysfunction. Special interests are what makes life worth living for most Aspies.


I think you are rigth on that!

It's more that since the special interests are what makes life worth living for most aspies, the effect of executive dysfunction might be that they spend too much time on them - more than what is good for their own lives. I did this before I was aware of aspergers.

This obviously does not include the case where a special interest is turned into a career. That's a great thing.


Well, personally my special interest doesn't give me too many problems with executive function. It's my emotional attachment to it that causes the biggest problems for me. I am torn between two sides of myself: the side of me that feels as though my special interest has grown stale and longs for something new, and the side of me that still loves my interest and is reluctant to allow something else to take its place. It is this internal dispute that makes me wish that I had not become so attached to my special interest, because it tends to cause me great emotional turmoil.