Childlike Enthusiasm

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I've been told that I have a childlike enthusiasm for things. I mean it's difficult to look at myself in an objective way but I think I understand why people would say this.

I'm wondering if this is a common trait amongst pw asd and/or adhd.

I seem to remember hearing about something of that kind for ASD, and I suspect my own enthusiasm can be quite childlike. Children's enthusiasm tends to be intense, they feel most things more intensely than adults generally do, and I think Aspies retain some of that after they've grown up.

I’m enthusiastic about topics that especially interest me, but in general, this doesn’t apply to me.

^
Yes, come to think of it, my enthusiasm is very selective too. I don't know how selective the enthusiasm of children is, compared with adults. I guess Aspies tend to be either intensely interested or intensely disinterested.

And I always like other people's hobbies as well.

I never stopped feeling like a child inside.
Everything I love makes me overtly exuberant and giddy.
I still blow bubbles and play with pinwheels.
I watch all my childhood cartoons as a stim.
I set up my life to recreate all the sensory joys from childhood.

"Adult happiness" is hard to feel or express because there aren't visual cues.
I'm not good at smiling or showing I'm excited without a full-scale Happy Dance.
The way I see it, happiness is Go Big or Go Home.


Charlie Brown Happy Dance

I dance like the twins. ^ Especially right now.

I've been told that I'm "childlike" before, and I enjoy a lot of things that "kids" like. I think part of that is due to my autism and the other part is due to the lifelong forced isolation that I experienced up until the past few months. I'm "stunted" in more than one way, so I don't act how people expect me to or like the things they expect me to.

That's me too.

I feel the same way. Maybe it's a form of refusing to "change", but I still enjoy a lot of things that I enjoyed as a kid, so I still seek out those things. Cartoons, games, (adult appropriate) toys, etc. I never hit a "point" where I stopped "being a kid" on the inside, and I don't know how or when people are supposed to hit that "point". lol

I’m considered overly childish.

I’m also “stubbornly naive.” I try to be optimistic even when logic points to pessimism. Logic isn’t always “correct.”

I think it is a common trait but most of us, including me, get it teased and silenced out of us.

'Calm down!' 'Stop talking!' 'It's not that exciting!' 'Grow up!' etc.

People don’t usually like naïveté when they feel they’ve been given the shaft in life.

There is some evidence that I have, at times, been given the shaft. But so what? There’s still a lot of decency around, even when it sometimes seems as if there is very little.

I love learning about what other people are doing. It always looks exciting and interesting. I just always wanna do it too.

And then it lasts for about 5 minutes and then I see someone else doing something exciting and interesting and I'm on for that thing then.

I've joined so many clubs and learned so many things because of this.

It's a bit harder since my leg issue because I can't climb and if you can't climb it's hard to see what's on the other side of a high wall.

I’m really not inquisitive. I’m pretty self-contained. My wife always cares about what other people are doing; I usually could give a rat’s butt.

But I can be silly, though. And I’m actually pretty pleasant, and not a misanthrope.

Oh I'm really nosy. Not in a bad way though, I just like to know about people.

I also do this thing where I make up stories about people. I don't mean malicious stories. I mean like imaginative stories. It all happens in a flash. I can see someone and in my head I've created a whole world around them. It just happens automatically.

You’re pretty creative. That’s really cool.