Do you chose your special interests/hyperfixations or did they choose you?

[Progster]

I was always taking things apart to find out how they worked.

My big thing was experimenting. A mixture of sensory seeking, curiosity and boredom. What would happen if I added two household liquids together, or added water. I also tried to make or invent things, then wrote a very detailed illustrated instruction manual for the 'invention'. I once found some mothballs in my grandma's house, took them home and hid them in what I thought to be a very secure place - on the hot water tank in the airing cupboard in the bathroom. Never realised they could melt. The next day the whole house stunk!

 

[Outdated]

My big thing was experimenting.

At age 11 fireworks got banned in my country, but I discovered the wonders of mixing pool chlorine with brake fluid.

*Dire warning. They explode on contact. At 0 degrees celsius the reaction might take up to 20 minutes to happen but on a 36 degree day it's not easy to run away quick enough. I detonated a lot of meat ant nests.

 

[kingthe6]

I think my music obssession is more to do with stimming rather than knowing how something works or how sound is produced. I just really liked listening to music. I often listened to one song over and over again, often going in circle around the room. Always wanting to get hold of new music, too. I can't be without music.

This made me think of a conversation I had with another autistic acquaintance. I was talking about my lifelong owl special interest and how I love the taxonomy and knowing all the genre/species characteristics, and he said that his special interest in bugs is less about collecting information and more that bugs make him really happy and that he likes thinking about them.

Since then I've noticed that some of my special interests are more intense on information collection while others are more enjoyable and helpful for self regulation. For me, owls fit into the former, while media (mostly anime/music) fits into the latter, but something like Pokémon fits into both.

It's easier for me to influence the second kind of special interest (or at least, it seems to take some conscious effort) but the first kind almost powers itself, if that makes sense.

 

[Progster]

This made me think of a conversation I had with another autistic acquaintance. I was talking about my lifelong owl special interest and how I love the taxonomy and knowing all the genre/species characteristics, and he said that his special interest in bugs is less about collecting information and more that bugs make him really happy and that he likes thinking about them.

Since then I've noticed that some of my special interests are more intense on information collection while others are more enjoyable and helpful for self regulation. For me, owls fit into the former, while media (mostly anime/music) fits into the latter, but something like Pokémon fits into both.

It's easier for me to influence the second kind of special interest (or at least, it seems to take some conscious effort) but the first kind almost powers itself, if that makes sense.

Yes, that makes perfect sense. The liking one album or song or band was more about stimming, but there's another ide for me - collecting and cataloging music, which is more about information gathering and organising. One feeds the other.

 

[Owliet]

Do the hyperfixiations/special interests you have involve you choosing them or did they come naturally/ choose you instead? I’m just curious as you may know me as the “South Parkie“ of the forums. I still don’t know why I have this special interest and I’ve had it for a year now with no signs of it slowing down.

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I dont really know how to answer this. I guess I made the decision to be interested in my interests. I cant really be interested in something that I’m *forced* to be into. And I dont really know if those conscious decisions come naturally but I guess its a symbiotic relationship of making the decision of a choice that comes to me.

 

[autism-and-autotune]

Do the hyperfixiations/special interests you have involve you choosing them or did they come naturally/ choose you instead? I’m just curious as you may know me as the “South Parkie“ of the forums. I still don’t know why I have this special interest and I’ve had it for a year now with no signs of it slowing down.

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An excellent question...I've wondered the same thought many, many times regarding my own special interests. What, as a young child, appealed to me so much about Legos and Star Wars? What, an an adult, appeals to me so much about Tolkien, Dark Academia, and Renaissance art? I know not.

 

[Princess Viola]

This is a question that I really don't think I can give an answer for because I genuinely don't know why my special interests become my special interests.

Like what makes 80s tech and fashion (hell, you could say the 1980s in general but it's mostly those two things that I consider special interests, especially 80s Japanese fashion tbh) so attractive and appealing to me? I was born in the mid-90s and grew up during the 2000s and early-mid 2010s, I have no personal attachment to the 1980s and yet here I am.

Or what about my special interest in the Ancien Regime of France? I know I'm very much into history and have been for as long as I can remember, but what about this specific period of history appealed to me to the point of wanting to know as much about it as I can? (And what has made me so interested in Marie Antoinette specifically?)

I don't know.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

It's like mathematics is it discovered or made up by use humans. Why I'm agnostic. See my previous comment on this post.

 

[autism-and-autotune]

This is a question that I really don't think I can give an answer for because I genuinely don't know why my special interests become my special interests.

Like what makes 80s tech and fashion (hell, you could say the 1980s in general but it's mostly those two things that I consider special interests, especially 80s Japanese fashion tbh) so attractive and appealing to me? I was born in the mid-90s and grew up during the 2000s and early-mid 2010s, I have no personal attachment to the 1980s and yet here I am.

Or what about my special interest in the Ancient Regime of France? I know I'm very much into history and have been for as long as I can remember, but what about this specific period of history appealed to me to the point of wanting to know as much about it as I can? (And what has made me so interested in Marie Antoinette specifically?)

I don't know.

I think your last paragraph in particular is interesting--over this past summer, my fiancee and I attended a discussion/slideshow about the architecture of Versailles and its history, specifically with Louis XIV.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I just stumble on them. If it interests me, I'm hooked. My most recent special interest is Asperger's. I only learned I was autistic less than a year ago. I was skeptical, so I "had" to find out everything I could. Not skeptical anymore. It has been like researching my own life history. I'm still finding obcure things about myself that fall right in line with what I learn. I'm not nearly as unique as I thought I was.

 

[TBRS1]

I'm attracted to growing things - things that you take time with, that require long observation times, that go through predictable but still surprising transformations. Gardening, preserving food, collecting native plants & herbs, making herbal medicines.

Also, I like learning procedures and techniques that require practice and precision, such as art (the kind I do), and constructing elaborate "whatever" projects.

I guess just anything that requires total absorption for long stretches of time.