ASD as a special interest

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Four yrs ago my youngest son was diagnosed with moderate-severe autism. I immediately dived straight in, and started researching. The wait list was longer for my older son, but he was diagnosed about a year later. Then, I noticed that I too seemed to be on the spectrum. I was diagnosed a couple months ago. I thought that maybe my interest in ASD would wane once the stress of getting diagnosed went away. Nope. Autism remains one of my main special interests without any sign of my interest in it waning.

Anyone else have ASD as a special interest? Please, don't tell me I'm alone in this.

Ever since my son was diagnosed seven years ago. Before that I was always interested in differences in perception and as a child I felt like I understood how someone could be autistic( by that I mean I understood the detachment because I felt it myself.). Back then higher functioning forms of autism were not considered.

I think you've posted in my thread about this earlier, but ASD is my special interest, with which I have a love/hate relationship. Even though it's not a very strange interest per se, I think it seems very odd to other people that I'm interested in something that is my own diagnosis. Over the past year, 4 people I was on friendly terms with suddenly stopped talking to me and blocked all communication with me out of the blue, and I suspect that it is due to my abnormal and fixated obsession with ASD. I read books about it over and over again, I dream about it, and I spend at least 90 percent of my time thinking about something that is at least remotely related to ASD. I think I disclose too much about my relationship with this interest, and people become freaked out.

Yes same here. Started with my son's pending diagnosis and then my own, but this summer it's been a year since I was diagnosed and it hasn't subsided. I'm even trying to fit it into my linguistic research applications, so I can exploit it for career purposes.

It's a problem because it makes me very monotonous in conversation. But it gives me relief.

ASDs have been my special interest, since I found out that I'm HFA, at the age of 15.

Nope, I had to go check, but I didn't post in your thread. Would've if I'd known about it, though.

I've had a few people keep their distance from me in the last 4 yrs., but for the most part it's been me that has stopped talking to them, because I want to talk about ASD, and they don't. (internet friends mostly, since I don't have any friends in real life.) Seems callous, and cruel, but I mostly choose my friends based on my special interests. It's not unusual for me to switch friends when I switch special interests. Though, I do have a few that have weathered the test of time.

I do very well with special needs kids, and my interest in ASD has flowed over to special ed, too so I've wondered if something in that area would work for me. May as well make money from something we like doing anyway, huh?

I am pretty certain that I am NT as I have always been very social. However, since my son was born almost 5 yrs ago, and we have been on this journey of ASD, I have been consumed with reading everything I can read about it. I am not sure if it is an obsession/special interest, or if it is just my desire to be able to help my son.

Even though I believe I am NT, I was always good with numbers, and have an excellent memory, and I do tend to get obsessive about things. I think I just may have some AS traits, but certainly not enough for a diagnosis. My husband seems to have a lot of AS traits, so maybe the two of us together caused my son to have ASD.

Since I've become older, I've started researching it more in depth and learning more about the disorder and how what is defined in the research relates to what I have. I've recently become very interested in learning as much as I possibly can about it, mainly one of the reasons I joined these forums (well and for some support as well).

You're not alone. Lots of people on the spectrum have ASD's as a special intrest. Whenever I go to book stores, I dive right into the phycology section to find books about AS but then they don't sell exotic animal anamoty books in regular bookstores. It's even hard to find them about domestic animals. I guess in a way ASD's are a special intrest of mine too but if there is something about meerkats (which is not affiliated with Meerkat Manor) or Titan A.E., I ditch ASD's and go straight for that.

I do the exact same thing. I really do hope that I don't grow out of this interest, because I've acquired a lot of friends through this interest and it would be really sad to let them all go. I've never been able to keep a friend for more than 3 years in the past. I don't think the friend I had for 3 years was a friend, anyway, because in the end she admitted using me to help her with her French homework. Being more critical about the definition of "friend", I don't think I've ever really had a real friend until last year. Which is really, really sad. People hung out with me either out of pity, or to benefit from me in some way. I craved any sort of positive social attention, so I gave in.

You remind me of my mom, and your husband reminds me of my dad. My mom is a perfectionist and very obsessive, but she's also very social and very keen on fitting in/being social. She definitely does not have ASD. My dad has several traits, and he might have ASD, but I think he's just very introverted because he also understands how to act appropriately in a social setting and can be very sociable for a short period of time. I thought he had AS, but then I asked my mom and she said "I don't know". I'd love to take him to a psychiatrist, but he absolutely hates going to doctors of any sort. So I guess my mom is OCDish, my dad has a couple of AS traits, and I have full-blown AS as a result.

Did I kill this thread or what?

No Mathgirl-you did not kill the thread! (for me anyway) I guess my husband and I could have been your parents! LOL! My husband is very introverted. He has a degree in math and computer engineering. He is fine in social settings for brief periods, but is definitely more of a homebody. I am definitely the outgoing one in the relationship. Anyway, our son who is almost 5 has been diagnosed with PDD_NOS, but that was when he was 2.5. Since then, more Asperger traits seem to be emerging. He is obsessed with car makes and models and churches. He knows every car just by looking at it's logo. He loves to draw churches over and over. He was a very late walker (almost 2) and has very little interest in playing with his peers. He is very social with adults however. His language skills are progressing, but he doesn't talk like a little professor (yet) . Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you, and hopefully I didn't kill the thread!! !

I have had a special interest in the subject for the last year and a half. Even though it is my favourite obsession it is also my most hated subject. How so? Well, I have always been uncomfortable saying the full title of AS as it makes me feel all weird inside. And I've never been to fond of my AS or at least the concept of it. But since I've developed a special interest I just want to read more and more, watch more videos, read more books, post more posts etc etc. So while I'm enjoying pursuing obsessions at the same time I'm annoying myself because of the *not-being-able-to-say-the-word-aspergers* thing.

Exact same thing with me! And I thought I was the only one! Wow!

I have to use nicknames usually like "thingymajig" or "you-know-what" or "the assss thing". It was killer trying to make my film review of Adam, whenever I started to describe the plot I was like "so there's this man with AAAAAA- oh s**t..." and I had to switch the video off a few times, so I ended up just mumbling "A.S." or "aspie" under my breath to get the point across.

I've made a couple of videos about Asperger's and I forced myself to say the word, because otherwise it would look lind of silly. But it's more difficult for me to talk about it in public. I try to say "autism" instead of "Asperger's", and even that makes me a bit uncomfortable. That's why I made private all of my videos on YouTube: I was embarassed about talking about Asperger's (and I have nothing else to really talk about), as well as of the monotone, autistic-like way I talk. If I ever post a video of myself on Youtube, it would be a video where my Asperger traits aren't showing, like maybe a music video. I think it's better to stay neutral on the Internet.