Do people you know view your obsessions as a bad thing?

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Such as I was looking up ADHD med posts on WP since my little sister got diagnosed with that the other day. Mom saw me and I told her. She then accused me of OMG! you are being obsessive about it! When I was just curious what other WPers with children with ADHD and the meds. they were on. SHEESH! IMO that's not "obsessive" at all. I get wrapped into a textbook for hours and OMG! obsession "that's not normal" People don't do that! etc. So I was wondering do you have people who put don't your countless hours looking into things or researching stuff?

A lot of people that I've known over the years have been that way towards me and I've been quiet about my special interests to my family members and relatives. I also do a lot of small talk with others in real life so that I don't end up talking about The Kinks a lot of people. It's good that the people that I interact with offline know what things I like, but it's also good that I make small talk 90% of the time. There are times that I let loose on WP because I've been holding it in when grudgingly dealing with the NT world.

when I was your age and younger my obsessions were WWII and then hotrods, specifically hot rod Chevelles. My dad and I were on the same wave-length. We built a car together. It was fast. SS396 bored 60 over, sps rod bolts, balanced and blueprinted, trs 10.25/1 forged aluminum pistons, crane fireball camshaft, double row true roller steel timing chain, 4 speed Muncie transmission power... argh argh argh.

But, I also picked up Dungeons and Dragons as I entered high school. He had no idea what to do with that so we never talked about it. The irony is that D&D provided me with my most loyal friends that I have to this day. The people who idolized my hot rod image are long gone, not to mention the many who looked down on me for various reasons.
Follow your interest and try to find others who share those interests. They will be the ones who stand by you and eventually your mom will come to understand this.

My brother views my anime and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic obsessions as nerdy and childish, respectively. But his teasing towards me is never malicious. I think my dad probably considers my My Little Pony obsession to be a little childish too, as he gets this weird look on his face whenever he hears me talking about it with mom. But he never comments about it, so that's good. Neither my brother nor my dad have any problem with my Tim Burton obsession. In fact, my dad likes Nightmare Before Christmas and my brother likes Sweeney Todd and sometimes they watch those movies with me.

Everybody else in my life is pretty much supportive of all my interests.

Apparently I am obsessive because I schedule my exercise routine into my diary every day and like to keep to it. Personally I just see that as commitment. In regards to textbooks I can spend hours with my nose in one but I am doing a degree and if I am going to do something I like to put my best effort into it. This means actually studying and setting aside sufficient time to allow myself to do my work thoroughly. I hate handing in sloppy work because I did not do enough research or leave myself enough time to complete it properly. There is a reason I got A grades at University the last time and it wasn't from handing in poorly done incomplete assignments. Partying can wait until I have completed the required work in my world thanks, I would rather have my degree than a hangover. Apparently this is obsession to people also.

I am actually starting to doubt that my hobbies are all that obsessive, I think I may have just met a load of lazy twats who want to do nothing else with their life other than sit down and channel hop on the tv.

People seem to think that I engage in substance abuse [As if I would ever make myself a dunce!] when I, "wake up," from studying and discuss what I was studying. Even those understanding me (and my father, who thinks he has AS but probably has only inattentive ADHD) think my focus is obsessive. It seems that the best way is to, "be obsessive," privately and memorize as much as possible so that the synthesis phase can be continued mentally at a better time.

Other people used to. When I was aged 13-16, I had this intense obsession over a couple who lived near my aunt, and the obsession was so intense that it became rather overwhelming. All of my family knew about it. All my friends at school knew about it. Some of the teachers knew about it. The actual people who I was obsessed with even knew about it!

At school I got banned from using the internet for 2 weeks, because I kept trying to search for these people's names and where they worked and everything, and I wouldn't obey the teacher's instruction not to do it, plus they were worried about me. I even got a detention for talking about these people in class (although that wasn't fair really).
My family viewed it as a bad thing too. When I went out with my friend in the evening (I had got him obsessed with them too, but he had ADHD and so was quite prone to getting obsessed over things too), and we used to hang around outside these people's house, and draw attention to ourselves, but my aunt used to be looking out to see if we were there, and then she used to ring my mum and tell her and then my dad used to come and pick me up and take me home, so we didn't hang about there any more. We still hung about up the town to see if they came up the town, which nobody could exactly stop us from doing. But my uncle had 3 small children, one was 1, one was 6 and the oldest was 8, and he didn't want them to be dragged into my intense obsession. They actually were a bit, since they were only young and so didn't really get the message that it was an obsession what was ''wrong'' (well, the 1-year-old didn't really get involved because she was too little to think like that, but she could say their names).
And my friends then started getting onto me, saying, ''you're so obsessed! You need to keep them to yourself a bit! All you talk about is them! Your mind is being overtaken by these people! What's so fantastic about them? You should be into boys!'' and so on.

Thank god I got a new obsession at 17, what nobody thinks is a bad thing. I keep them to myself a little more now, and my cousins are older now and so wouldn't get sucked into it so much, and I don't make myself look obvious with the people I'm now obsessed with either. So that's good.

i get the ops experience a lot. it's why i never tell anyone what im interested in anymore. it really confused me as a child- why woudnt you want a kid who reads and researches as much as i do for fun? it's what every other parent wants their kid to do. thing is people think im obsessed with stuff that isnt even my special interest just because i look at stuff related to it ever once in a while. and theyll put it down to autism and start explaining about special interests like they know what theyre talking about too.

Having obsessions is part of the learning process for me. What seems like an obsession is my brain trying to comprehend something to fullest and then some. Which is excellent and healthy. An obsession that is not part of a learning process that ultimately generates negative and harmful emotions or anxiety is more of a true OCD thing. I think Aspie obsessions and the avoidance of things that cause sensory overload are often mistaken for OCD by people who don't have a spectrum disorder or are uneducated on it. My parents complained that I had OCD for years until I got my DX and then once educated their opinions changed.

I guess I should thank God that he gave me the parents that he did. They liked to study and learn things too. They thought I was just fine, and were happy and proud that they had a smart kid. Mostly people don't know about them at all, because I don't get into conversations about them. My parents might not have been happy if the obsessions they saw had been something trivial, like movie stars or musicians or boys, but as it was, everything was okay.

All the people I care about the most and who are the closest to me gladly accept and encourage my special interests. They are an integral part of my life and personality. If somebody doesn't get it, they don't fully get me. That's why so few people DO get me...

Yes. Generally I give up because people are unreceptive, however I don't have much else to say because I don't think about or do anything else so I just end up not saying anything. I find small-talk stressful and I resent people for not making an effort to show interest (family members that is, not strangers) so I have stopped making an effort to engage with them.

As my obsession was classical ballet, people accepted in a way, that I had to work hard for it. Still they pointed out, that I was a bit too odsessive about it, but a) I couldn't really tell what they meant by saying it and b) I would have had no chance than to behave the way I did, as I couldn't controll being obsessed by it, though I rather refer to it as profound passion. A big depression and burn-out and too high anxiety-issues because of having been severly abused (because I am too naive) stopped me four years ago.
I used to wake up at 5 am to practice at home before going to balletschool. I was entering the studio to continue practising and stretching at 8 am, when class started at 9.30 am. Teachers always told me, that they have never ever seen a student working as hard as me, still I wasn't able to finish my study because of AS-related problems (coordination-problems as my body has no memory for movement, I always had to analyse while doing, shutdowns when I got stressed out or teachers were talking to me, anorexia and much more). Though I have a brilliant memory for music and if a teacher asked what exercise we did like 3 month ago I would remember it still and the teachers said, I had an amazing memory, because even they could not remember anymore).
I practised while waiting for the train at the station, just being in a corner and doing exercises. I practised everywhere and all the time. People were finding it "exaggerated" and "obsessive" and asked, if I could never stop. No, I could not. In examens on dance- and musictheory I got straight A's, because I knew the protocols of Waganova and Tarassov by hart, the history of dance and reading of music.
But: I could not understand, that other students were not obsessed like me, that they would enter the studio 10 minutes before class, that they were wasting their time with friendships and shopping and going out. I could never understand it and thought, they don't care about ballet, what made me being judgemental on them (not that I said it, as I hardly talk, but I was thinking it). It's by getting diagnosed end of 2010 and learning about ASD, that I started to understand.

Oh god yes. My obsessions include but are not limited to lockpicking(I love how locks turn data into physical mechanisms) Pressure systems(I can tell you a funny story about the time I tried to put a paint grenade together, needless to say trigger mechanisms are finicky) electronics (three words, home made defibrillator) and books, not that I've done anything dangerous with books yet. Anyway, you get the idea that me and my little projects have landed me in a lot of trouble and seen me spend a lot of time with therapists. I'm generally regarded by those who know me as that dangerous genius guy who acts like an idiot. A title I think I've earned. Am I going to change my interests because of this? Absolutely not.

Nah, I don't think so. They might want me to shut up at most.

In the NYC railfan community, other railfans and some transit/railroad employees look down at some people that are REALLY into transit.

whatever someone shows a over the top interest in transit, and there story make its make to to one of the transit message boards, even though they might be NT I've heard phases such as, "perhaps he has a touch of Aspergers", or "Aspergers obsessed foamers".

This one dude on a transit forum, was making some kind of post explaining what railfans are about, he took a jab at aspies calling us "weirdos" which is ironic as hes a NT and has his fair share of social issues.