Special interest vs Everything else.

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Is it usual in AS to be an expert at your special interest(s) but to be crap, or mediocre, at everything else?

I am an expert in psychopharmacology, and I'm also pretty good at clinical pharmacology, medicine, Acts (like the Human Rights Act, which I memorised) and learning train maps.

However I have a biochemistry module this year in University, and I can't get it into my head! I try hard to focus and learn it, but I feel like there is a "no entry" sign for biochemistry in my head. I also found English Literature and history pretty much impossible at school.

For most Aspies it is, but for me it's not. I used to be obsessed with Spanish (it was a special interest of mine) but I still struggled at it, even at home when I learned on my own in my own way. I brought some tapes to help me learn Spanish, but I ended up only using them once then getting bored.

I think I was more obsessed with Spanish people and wanted to be Spanish myself. That's the problem with me - it's people I get obsessed with, not the facts.

I think the problem is how you direct your obsession. If you just stay in your comfort zone your interests, will always be narrow repetitive and rather useless. However if your able to steer your interest into something real, graduallity you'll get much more productivity out of it.

As I child I love to make up imaginary worlds, where there were difference races of people, different technologies, etc, every detail was thought out.

As an adult I've learned to direct this into learning, and spanning my imaginary worlds into much broader and more important concepts.

My old worlds were simple fantasies. Nowadays my worlds, are complicated machines that account for cultures, economics, science, etc and make it possible for me to visual real world scenarios in my head.

This makes every new detail I can learn I find fascinating.

The big capability is to know and be able to make your mental processing to take in knowledge that you find irrelevant.

I pursue my interests because I like them, not because I can quote facts accurately, be the best at a skill, or whatever. I'm no expert at anything and would never pass as one. That may have masked the part my special interests play in my life, making my diagnosis harder to have been arrived at. I can also be passable at some of the things that don't interest me, simply because they are things I have some measure of capacity for. But I can't make myself pursue them and keep my mind on them, because my attention is always pulled away, either in my head or by some activity or related thing around me, and I can't seem to tolerate being kept from my interests for too long. If I have to do something that I don't care about instead, I feel a great pressure and frustration that just keeps building. I can't stand it!