What's your current obsession?

Post Reply New Topic

Hi All,

Thought it would be funny to see what we AS' spend our mental energy on. I know that it can be both enligthening and hilarious

I'll go first:

Current obsession: Online Poker!
Duration: about 1 year

Not in a ludomanic way, but in the "got to know everything and get really good at it" kind of way. Can spend 12 hours a day playing online.

Previous obsessions includes:

NLP
Genetics
AS
Psychology
Cars
Darwin
The Universe

Most of my obsessions are shortlived, about 1-2 years, but they are all consuming while they last. And they can drive my family and friends up the wall!

Side note: the funniest obsession I've ever heard about, was a man, who collected and cataloged information about household appliances

So what's your obsession(s)?

Gliders(sailplanes, paragliders)
auto
certain things that move on it's own(Force feedback joysticks, autopilots on aircraft moving wheel)
T-shirt transfers

previous
-barber polls(which are quite useless btw..)
-naming British locations in Monopoly

wwww, this is fun!

Currently:
Completley consumed by the desire to get another bike (push-bike); not just any old bike though, but THE bike for me!
I'm now obsessed with which parts the bike should have in order to be THE perfect bike! This has now been going on for 6 months or so and I can't see an end to it. I can't make a decision and I'm looking at even more expensive ones that I can't really afford!

Ongoing or repetitively reoccuring obsessions:
Learning to surf (this is ongoing for the last 4 years or so and tends to creep up on me every 4 months, but I never have enough money, if I stopped with the next one below, I might have enough money!)

Music (particularly finding new styles, upcoming artists, I can spend hours searching, and buy far more than anyone ought to!)

Researching and trying different diet approaches, for health reasons rather than weight.

Alternative therapies; knowledge of them, e.g. Aromatherapy, Bowen technique, Acupuncture, chinese medicine

Exercise modalities, Tai Chi, yoga, Capoeira, swimming, free and fell running

History, philosophy, languages........these tend not to last very long, because I'm a lazy book reader.

AS (myself also!), before I had my diagnosis I was obsessed with other conditions because I thought 'that was me'.

Animated and foreign films.

If something mechanical brakes at home, I will become obsessed with fixing it.


...........Ok, I'll stop now, sorry

I can relate

Ongoing obsessions--because I have not mastered them yet:

Juggling (6 years)
Calculus (20+ yrs)
Physics and quantum mechanics (3 years)
Astrology,Numerology, Tarot (6 years)
Languages (20+years)--Spanish, French, ASL

Computer Chess could also go on my stim list. It relaxes me so much. I actally noticed a new stim *while* playing computer chess-- nodding my head and rocking back and forth.

My current and ongoing (40 years) is music. Initially as a buyer of records and then at the age of 11 a musician. As young as 8 I would take whatever money I had and spend it on records. Christmas and birthday presents were all records or books on music. I've been playing music professionally for years. After high school I didn't have the support or the confidence to pursue it at the University level but finally at the age of 43 I went back to school to study ethnomusicology.

Other obsessions are anything to do with Charlie Chaplin. The history of film was also an obsession in my early 20s.

Hmm not many but they go on for a long time!

Making patterns in Photoshop. I've been at it for a week, and it's bound to be a short one.

Current:
Mountain Biking
Slot Cars
Programming (my profession too)
(edit) Modifying/upgrading anything and everything (always have this obsession, must be custom)

Previous:
Motorcycles
Muscle cars
Online games (MMORPG, First Person Shooters)
Drinking

Great, so I am not alone in being NUTZ

Maybe we just have too much focused mental capacity and not enough to use it on? "All dressed up and nowhere to go"

I forgot to add one obsession, of course the most important one: my girlfriend

I could sit and look at her for hours, if she would let me, not in an AS stare way, but more in a fascinated by her beauty, her features, her movements and all in between way.

This becomes, apparently to NT's, too much, so she had to tell me to stop doing that.

Darn, I loved that obsession .....

/AG

I totally understand that. I have had several relationships end for "staring." I am fascinated by every little detail down to the pores. Think it drives my wife nuts. It is almost analytical in nature.

There were countless obsessions as a kid that i didn't mention to as I figured they were just normal kid fads, but my wife says otherwise, lol.

I also find that this obsession is obvious to her before me. She knows weeks in advance before I am going to start another "hobby."
1) Websites gets bookmarked
2) Websites get left open on the shared internet devices
3) I tell her something looks or sounds cool
4) I start talking more and more about it
5) I send links to "cool" items
6) "deals" on items of said hobby start getting IM'd or emailed to her
7) Comparison of "deal" to something existing to show value
Request

aparently on #2 she starts to get worried. Not all obsessions make it passed #2, once #5 is reached she knows I am set and by #7 she knows she can't hold the acquisition at bay much longer.

Even being told this, I have yet to use it to my advantage.

My current obsessions are the CGI animated movies How to Train Your Dragon and Rango. They're brand-spankin' new too; I just became obsessed with them within the last couple of days.

My past obsessions were, from earliest to latest:

Dinosaurs
Beetlejuice (cartoon version)
Balto
Wolves
Anime (in chronological order: Pokemon, Digimon, Hamtaro, Rurouni Kenshin, Inuyasha, Naruto, One Piece, Trinity Blood and Hellsing)
Tim Burton movies (in order from most to least intense: Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd)

Oldest to Newest:

Barney
Power Rangers
Dinosaurs
Spider-Man
NFL
Star Wars
Yu-Gi-Oh
Pokémon
Naruto
MLB
NBA
NHL
the Simpsons
Futurama
Austin Powers
Scrubs
Batman
Star Trek
X-Men
Dragon Ball Z
Terminator
the Phantom of the Opera
Back to the Future
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Family Guy
Watchmen
Iron Man
Avatar the Last Airbender
South Park
Les Misérables
Superman
Dracula
James Bond
Sherlock Holmes
House, M.D.

The Kinks
The Beatles
Weight loss
You Tube
The weather
Friends and sometimes family
Dogs
My dog, Chico

Pretty simple stuff, really.

hey CockneyRebel, I went through a mild Kinks obsession myself. They were actually the first concert I went to way back in the early eighties. I saw Ray Davies two years ago at a small club and of course he was brilliant.

You've probably seen this, but just in case you haven't here's a documentary on the kinks from '72.

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/ ... ater_1972/

grocery shopping (last 6-8 months)
spanish pronunciation/phonology (on and off for 5-6 years)
AS (on and off for a bit less than a year)

I would probably be more obsessive about AS if there was more to know. At this point the only stuff I don't know is stuff I don't care about (genetics, causes, and biological foundations). I've read lots, but it is like reading thee same thing over and over again and what I really care about (treating AS symptoms in adults, how it manifests in adults, co-morbid diagnoses) there really isn't a lot of research about.

Currently

Kayaks

I'm actually getting one tomorrow and I'm so excited I can't sleep. At least its a good reason for insomnia tonight

Past
Cartography
Cars
Backgammon
Billiards

Ongoing:
Playing music
karaoke (quite a few aspies out there at the shows!)
HTML
Flash
Woodworking
Painting
Zelda

I think for me, once I've "mastered" something, I move on to a new one...

The ones that I keep on with are the ones that are challenging and I can't seem to "beat"..

I think that's why I'm so good at my job (another obsession) ... Its a challenge every day and I can't seem to "beat" it.. Its never easy and I love it!

Rita