Obsession or passion?

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Aspies often get extremely into certain things. i dont think this is a bad thing generally. would it make more sense to refer to aspie 'obsessions' as passions?

I prefer the term special interests.

I was actually thinking they should do research on our brains when with our special interests vs. an NT socialsing with friends to see if there's a similar activation in the brain. I know the there's an area in the brain that doesn't light up for us when we socialise that should, but there might be when we are engaged in our interests.

I also prefer the terms passions and special interests over the, obsessions. Obsession is such a clinical word. I hate it.

I like obsessions.

Obsessions, passions, special interests - I use all three interchangeably. When talking about them in a thread, I use whichever term the OP used so as not to offend them by accidentally using one they dislike.

I like special interests. Passion can refer to love.

While I don't really like the negative connotation behind "obsessions," I think it is the most accurate. Interests doesn't really make any sense, because everybody has interests, but not necessarily obsessions. I guess passions could work too though.

There's a negative connotation with "obsessions"? I never picked up on it. Passion reminds me of romantic love.

true but isn't an obsession/special interest a kind of love?

"Obsession" works for me.
Accurate.

They have different levels of emotion and definition which would place them at different extremes, That's why they exist as seperate words so
Special Interest would be a low level extreme
Passion would be a mid level extreme and
Obsession would be a high level extreme

other examples would be
like, love, adore
good, great, brilliant
etc;

I think obsession is more accurate. In general these obsessions are great, because help them excel in an specific subject or area, but everything has a down side. The problem with these obsessions, in our case at least, is that our daughter only wants to do the things she is obsessed with and ignore everything else, and when she does that at school that usually generate trouble. We are working on teaching her not to "disconect" while doing the things she loves to do, so she can fuction while doing them. It is hard to achieve, but needed.

Each word implies a different level of self-control.

Well, I guess I am obsessed with The Kinks so maybe obsession isn't such a bad word, after all. It's just that I'm still cheesed off at that ex-friend of mine for telling the ambulance to take me to emergency, just because I'm obsessed with an old group and she didn't like anyting that's old. That happened almost 2 years ago. I should get over it.

Music is both an obsession and a passion for me.