What separates an NT Obsession from an AS obsession?

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There are basically two things i think about, talk about and do. My special interests of Painting and also ASD's.
What happens when i talk to people? in reality i take them hostage and communicate to about my special interests and i veer each conversation around to these special interest topics. People then try to give their input and i somehow VEER the conversation back to my special interests. People are my hostage sounding boards. sad but true.

If I am to extend beyond that, it is deliberate, conscious, cognitive and exhausting.

I do or think about my special interests to the exclusion of people, and everything else is of secondary importance.
THAT is all-consuming ASD special interests in a nutshell.

NT's have obsessions that are more socially acceptable. For example; sports are acceptable, make up is acceptable, fashion is acceptable. But our interests are more out of the norm. I know mine are.


But my question is what about aspies who aren't disabled by their interests? I mean they still spend their time with them and stuff but they don't do it 24/7 they neglect their responsibilities such as they skip going to work, skip their home work, etc.

I don't think my obsessions disable me. I used to talk about them but now I do it less. People don't like to hear the same thing over and over. My obsessions are there to help me pass time and I have them in my head.

Our obsessions appear to be more tangible. We are either obsessing(Over annalysing) over thoughts, understanding behaviour and questioning things where NTs would let things go. The obsessions with watching people, certain books, movies, computer technology, the web etc are extreme interest behaviour.

When I volunteered for a research study into dpression and I mention my OCD they assumed those typical obsessive compiulsive habits. These were hand washing, checking doors, checking if appliance are turned off etc.

Perhaps I'm rambling but our obsessions have purpose although they are extreme compared to NT obsessive compulsions which are of little value, just repetitious.

I think that the difference is that some of us aspies have special interests or obsessions that we can make money off of. I've developed an obsession with loom knitting and my goal is to see how many things I can learn to make, by next year. I can make money, selling the mass-produced items that I create. However, it's probably not normal for someone to have a third of their apartment filled with finished projects.

Interesting ideas about special interests. I agree sports,fashion etc. are considered normal interests while ours are abstract I guess if you want to call it that. I still think doctors etc. are obsessive or they wouldn't become specialist (cardiology,Urology etc.)

I'm not too sure myself. Maybe an NT will know when to shut up and and an aspie would just go on on about there obsession? although I do know two NTs that have had massive obsessions and they have driven me round the bend with them.

The difference is stated exactly in the DSM.

It's even written black on white

I think the question may be confusing the restricted, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors and interests of the Aspie with full-blown obsession or OCD. I think the term "obsession" is often used about Aspies because it's shorter than "special interests."

I don't see there's any reason to think that an Aspie is always helplessly engaged in special interests to the point of obsession, although if life is stressing out the Aspie, then they might well find themselves getting more heavily into them, as a pacifying strategy. People often find it hard to pull us away from our interests, and those interests might seem silly and antisocial to many folks, but I think there's a difference in the strength and the potential for self-harm.

For example, I'm currently spending a lot of time on WP while I'm at work, but sometimes my employer gives me a huge workload, and although I might feel substantially annoyed about that when it happens, I'm in no serious danger of being unable to tear myself away, though if life were stressing me out more than usual, I might find it more difficult to come away from it than usual - I might therefore put myself under even more stress as the urge to keep reading/writing and the urge to keep my job fight it out, but ultimately realism always prevails, and there's no really great harm done, although there is some harm. It's just a softer edge than you'd get with OCD.

Of course, there's no reason why an Aspie can't have OCD as well, and an Aspie special interest plus a big dose of stress could be the genesis of OCD as a comorbid symptom, I suppose.

But if we go by the dsm related term or definition that would describe an otaku. Meaning home in Japanese. And not all otakus are aspies I dont know how many there actually are. I dont feel your special interest has to go to the limits of the definition of the dsm because if that were the case I would never be able to be on here or go to pogo. Also I would not be able to take care of myself. The defintion of an aspie is that they do have a special interest. And if you constantly think about it like in wrll terms during highschool all I thought about was going home and reading stuff of nifty or asstr. But I constantly think about Wrll no matter where I am. I just dont think we need to limit ourselves but what the dsm entails.

Ok then yeah oddduck when im here I think about Wrll every hour to every minute I think about Wrll.

I think NTs say they are obsessed with something, but they actually just mean it is a theme that recurs in their thought patterns.

We on the other hand get literally obsessed, to the point that we fixate on one thing for extended periods to the exclusion of all else.