Being shamed into not liking special interests

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Has anyone ever had this happen to them? It happened to me years ago when I was about 8 or 9 and my special interest was the movie Chicken Run (which has become another one of my special interests again at the age of 22 - halpwhatamidoinwithmylife). It started when my aunt and I went to this indie bookstore near her house and found a book based on the movie and read it together, and then we both went to see it together when the movie came out in theaters a few weeks later. And that's kind of how my aunt was/is, along with my grandma....whatever her nieces and nephews were into, whether it was Power Rangers, The Lion King, Pound Puppies, Care Bears, Hamtaro, Finding Nemo or Cars, she was into it, as well. I had a few plushies of the chickens from the movie, as well, and my favorite one was Babs, the little round one with the blue "hair."



Babs went everywhere with me, and I would avoid sensory overload by gently smooshing my face into her tummy and letting her "wings" flop forward to face-hug me. My aunt also brought me the VHS of Chicken Run when she visited the following Christmas, and from that point onward, I watched the movie from beginning to end every afternoon after school (at my mom's house). It served as a way for me to emotionally regulate myself after a long day of having to be around people, different lights and sounds, and just having to do only what others wanted me to do. I later did the same thing with the Finding Nemo movie...watching it religiously to decompress.

What I'm getting to is, my stepfather eventually decided this was no good, and forbade me from watching the movie in the afternoons saying, "You don't need a daily diet of Chicken Run." Undeterred, I simply took to watching the show DragonTales at 5:30 pm every day.
Whenever someone tried to keep me from calming myself, I simply found ways around it until they put a stop to to the alternative(s) too.

But what this did to me was that it actually made me feel bad for enjoying Chicken Run as much as I did....I began to feel as if I didn't like Chicken Run as much, everyone would be happier. I can even recall a time when my mom and aunt and I went to Toys R Us to buy a present for a birthday party one of my half-sisters was going to, and they still had some Chicken Run merch left over from the previous year...my aunt pointed out, "Look, Coupe, Chicken Run stuff!" And I had to pretend I was no longer as interested when on the inside, I was stimming and giggling happily and doing whatever it was I did when in the presence of my special interests. I eventually stopped carrying Babs around, too.

With the benefits of time, distance, and learning from places such as these forums that it's totally okay to just be naturally drawn to what you enjoy and not resist, I let up on myself and realized that I still like Chicken Run as much as I ever did - in a way, ti was part of my childhood. I managed to find the rest of plushies of the characters at flea markets, but Babs is still my favorite. She has pride of place among my plushie support group with the Dorys, and she now travels with me again.

TL; DR - Did people ever make you feel bad, guilty, uncomfortable or ashamed of liking what you liked?

I went through this with 101 Dalmatians and it made me not like it anymore and wish I could get it out of my head but couldn't so it gave me distress because I was made to feel ashamed about it. I never took any plushies with me in public, that wasn't allowed because it was not appropriate.

I still like them but I feel so guilty

erm, I sometimes feel embarrassed by the amount of attachment I have to my interests, but I don't feel guilty, my family get tired of me watching the same things so I have to watch them on my laptop mostly but they know I do.

Such an adorable story, I love that the plushie travels with you again!

I had this happen to me too when I was younger. It wasn?t really a special interest, just a hobby, but my ?friends? at school used to make fun of me for going to choir practice. For some reason they thought it was incredibly embarrassing that I sang in a choir, and I remember having to walk several blocks in the totally opposite direction (toward my home) after school and walk back through some obscure route and past the school again to get to where my choir practice was so I could attend. The trouble of trying to get to the lessons without being seen and the shame I felt of having it as a hobby eventually got too much and I gave it up altogether.

Now that I?m older I don?t really care what other people think of my interests, so I go to my hobbies and get involved in my special interests as much as I want (never took up singing again though). But it is really sad that people have to make others feel bad for something they enjoy. I have no idea what kind of logic or justification people think they have for this kind of behavior. It just doesn?t make any sense to me. Your post made me smile because it's easy to tell how much your interest means to you and how happy it makes you, I don't understand why anyone would ever want to take something like that away from you or make you feel bad about the fact that it brings you so much joy.

From ages four to ten I had a kind of weird one (fascination with illness, especially incurable or terminal). It freaked people out, so I hid it, and eventually crushed it. Then got obsessed with more socially acceptable things like non-euclidean geometry and building small machines out of cardboard instead.
It's a bit sad how these things happen. (Glad I'm over the sick thing, though.)

I have been interested with playing and listening to alternative music and attending concerts, I don't know if they are trying to or not however some of my family tends to not get it, thinks its really stupid, criticize and just made indulging in it feel really awkward. It used to be a big issue however now as an adult I simply to choose spend my time with people who are ok with this, I need my interests and I need to feel comfortable. Its hard however learning to not care about what others think is a great thing.

My father despised the things I was interested in as a child (Science Fiction, Railways Geology) and would never miss an opportunity to put them down or to complain bitterly if he had to take part in any activity related to them (taking me to visit a preserved railway, for example or to a fossil-collecting site or to a movie).

If he came upon me doing something I liked- drawing for example, or model-making or writing stories- he would usually just roll his eyes and burst out laughing. He never gave me any praise for anything I made or did. I don't think he was impressed when I got good A Level grades and got into a good University - he would rather I had left school at 16 and joined the army or the police.

I don't think I was the son he wanted so I think he kind of lost interest in me, the way a child can lose interest in a pet after a time. He certainly never abused me or let me go without but he never encouraged me in anything and I think he resented having me around at all.

He passed on a long time ago and I've mentioned the above to mum and she says that he was proud of me. It never felt like it though and if he never said it or showed it it's a bit irrelevant I think.

I have a hard time letting people know about my special interests. I always feel embarrassed that I know so much about different topics. Though I'm trying really hard to open up more about what I like. I'm glad you and others have accepted that you like what you like. Cute plush by the way.

I loved Chicken Run so much when I was young. I once watched it 5 times in a row while running around with my sister.

Looking at your picture gives me a shock fuzz of nostalgia. XD

_________________
Unapologetically, Norny.
-chronically drunk

My special interest when I was a child was animals " Mainly Goats" I loved the goats and would play with them as often I could. They gave me a since of belonging that people did not. I learned a much as I could about them and even taught one of them to pull me on a sled. Everyone would laugh at me and thought I was odd. I went to school smelling like goats and was nick named stinky. After my goats died my mother would not replace them. "I still love goats"

It's like being a closet Trekkie and not wanting to be associated with "odd" people who take it seriously. I'm a geeky nerdy type who avoids the cliches, so people will take me seriously. I too am surprised by some people who want to "live it," but I don't make the same association others typically make.

Despite being hardcore conservatives, my parents would never lend me a weapon, nor buy me anything with even the likeness of one. They are afraid I'll hurt someone.

My special interest was the United States when I was 10. My parents shamed me for talking about that country, drawing maps of that country, drawing flags of that country and anything else that had to do with that country. The angry words played over and over in my head until 'Born in The USA' by Bruce Springsteen was no longer my favourte song a year later.

I've never experienced this personally, but my family has always been understanding. I do have a friend, however, who told me she likes to watch children's shows, but that her parents told her to stop. It really annoys me when people try to control totally harmless behaviors in their kids, just because it seems unusual to them.

I'm sure my parents wonder why they haven't heard anything about my special interests since I liked The Beatles when I was 13.