has anyone made you feel guilty about your special interests

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I refuse to let people control my passions; my mentor is allowed to have me moderate them. Otherwise, I refuse to take crap from anyone for who I am.

I've been made to feel guilty about a special interest on here a few years back. I've held a grudge for a while, than decided it wasn't worth it. I've completed the healing process that started in September 2009.

My special interests have always been very unusual for people my age (except my first two, dinosaurs and horses). When I was six I picked up interests in Inca and Aztec cultures, and Pompeii. Topics in historical anthropology have continued to be my special interests ever since, and they are often extremely obscure and specific, so it's really difficult to find people who share those interests. I correspond with a number of museum curators and researchers, who never seem to think my interests are off-base. But my family is another story! When I was younger, my mother felt it was unhealthy for me to be so obsessed with things none of my peers cared a whit about. I remember her saying to me in an exasperated tone, "Why can't you just be NORMAL?" And even as recently as a few years ago, my husband went through a phase where he never missed an opportunity to relay to me how weird he thought my current interest was: "Nobody cares about that," "Are we talking about this again?", "Can you find something else to care about?", etc. REALLY hurt. We went to marriage counseling, whereupon it was revealed that what he really wanted was for people to like me, and to see what a great person I was, and he was afraid they would only be annoyed with me if they heard me talk about my special interests. But what it said to me was that HE was the one who was annoyed. Once he realized it was hurting my feelings, he was much more supportive, and helped me recognize when people were open to hearing about my interests and when I should be less forthcoming. This said, it has been hard to continue that interest, even though I know it holds lots of possibilities for me--I was in the process of writing a book about it.

The point is, many of the people in my life who have criticized my special interests have had very good intentions where I was concerned. But the fact of the matter is, whenever I follow my special interests, I am extremely successful, and whenever I try something mainstream, I fail miserably. This is enough to tell me that I need to be true to myself, and be willing to defend my interests against the discouragement of others.

I feel anxious when people criticise my tastes in alternative fashion and other interests like video games. I feel a lot more less nervous at home, yet I still try to stop thinking about it in peace.

My fundamentalist family dislike D&D and Magic: The Gathering because they claim the games encourages witchcraft. Even 40K was considered the work of Shaytaan.

Evidently "normies" think there is something pathologically wrong with someone who has an interest in weapons systems and human anatomy as well. In fact, I have often thought about making a metal sign that reads "I possess an extensive knowledge of heavy weapons and human anatomy... Think twice before p*ssing me off!" and hanging it on my front door (the only one visible).