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Special Interests

Daniela

Well-Known Member
Hi guys, so I made a post on my blog here about special interests and how they define me, and how I feel empty without them, how I dont feel like I have a personalatie if I dont have them.
Now I was having a conversation and someone said that he didnt feel like that about it. And I toght this was an Aspie thing.
So...Is this an aspie thing?
If you never experienced this before think about your most lovable special interest, and now someone said you cant do that. For the rest of your life. But you need it.To feel happy, and you feel as if you "try to move on" to an other special interest its like your changing whu you are. ....Is this confusing?
I just realy want to know about me more :)
If you want me to elaborate more just ask.
 
Special interests are what keep me sane and from depression. Without motivation and freedom to get into them I'm as non-functional as I can be. THat said, my interests pretty much take up 24 hours of my day, which makes social interaction and employment a bit of an issue I suppose.

I did lose a few interests over years, gained a few, so it's all a bit fluid in that regard, but never were they any less intense as they are now. I've always been that hermit type person who cares about his interests and that's about it. The main reason I interact with other people is because of a mutual interest.

I never felt they changed who I was, some just felt like steps towards something bigger... probably just gears getting in position for something. My interests and activities always like some kind of evolution of sorts.
 
[QUOTE="King_Oni, post:I never felt they changed who I was, some just felt like steps towards something bigger... probably just gears getting in position for something. My interests and activities always like some kind of evolution of sorts.[/QUOTE]

Yes me too the thing is that if people ask me to change them on my on instead of the coming naturaly like i play a game and they talk about the Maias our Aztecaz and then i´m like "hmm interesting " aaanf it begins ! but when people tell me to change on my on ... it dosent work its like im changing whu I am instead of "changing naturaly "
 
Yes me too the thing is that if people ask me to change them on my on instead of the coming naturaly like i play a game and they talk about the Maias our Aztecaz and then i´m like "hmm interesting " aaanf it begins ! but when people tell me to change on my on ... it dosent work its like im changing whu I am instead of "changing naturaly "

As with many things I do, I need an intrinsic motivation, which also means that I change something whenever I want, not because someone tells me to.
 
that is an aspie thing. for me it is photography. I get so furious when i let a picture opportunity pass by. Whenever I am depressed, and I am able to go outside, I take my camera at all times. This is one of my babies.....
464.JPG
 
As with many things I do, I need an intrinsic motivation, which also means that I change something whenever I want, not because someone tells me to.
Yes I agree , I was just poiting out something that actualy happen to me a while ago, sorryXD

that is an aspie thing. for me it is photography. I get so furious when i let a picture opportunity pass by. Whenever I am depressed, and I am able to go outside, I take my camera at all times. This is one of my babies.....View attachment 13867
Where´s the "Aaaw" button? I love her eyes! (its a she right?) I love watching photos, unfortunatly cameras are not my thing :)
 
Having narrow interests is one of the many symptoms of Asperger's.

One of my lifelong special interests that never changed over the years as I grew up was novel writing. I started writing from a very early age and was determined to become an author. It was the one special interest that helped me to pull through the years of bullying that I endured in school and kept me sane. But since I lost most of my confidence a couple of weeks ago, I'm too nervous to go back.

However I'm also very interested in manga and it is another love of mine. Since I've lost confidence in writing, I've begun to teach myself the basics of manga and have found it to be just as absorbing and wonderful as novel writing. I find it to be easier too as I think visually and can map the scene out in front of me. Maybe one day, I'll become good enough and be able to create comics, and maybe even regain the confidence to go back to writing.
 
For me (as most of you all know) it is art! I get such a pleasure just saying the 'A' word! Lol...it's like oxygen - I can't live without it for long or I'll get restless and lost. I even collected stationery growing up with much pride and wouldn't let anyone use them. I finished my art course one year and in the end I cried as I put in all the hard work, got the top grade and BOOM! It was all over. Didn't want it to end. I'm back now as I'm addicted to the place. I'm so not happy not being there. It's worrying as I can't be there forever and so that means I'll keep on drawing and painting as a serious hobby to feel I'm at my best.
 
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I don't see any of my interests as special, they are just there and I think about them alot which kind of bugs me.
I certainly very rarely speak about them.
 
I've read comments from some Aspies here, like Kari Suttle, whose interests come and go. They are very intense when the person first gets into them, but then they burn out, sometimes as quickly as just a few days. On the other hand, my partner, Nadador, has one all-consuming interest that has driven almost his entire life to date. He admits it's obsessive, and not always healthy from others' points of view, but he would be utterly lost without it. So there are many different ways in which the tendency to passionate interests is expressed among Aspies, much the same as there are a range of expressions for other Aspie traits. The real hallmark may be in the intensity of the interest, rather than the duration. Of course many NTs have intense interests, too, even true obsessions, but it occurs more frequently in the AS community--thus it has become specifically associated with Asperger's.

One of my lifelong special interests that never changed over the years as I grew up was novel writing...... But since I lost most of my confidence a couple of weeks ago, I'm too nervous to go back.

If you don't mind my asking, why did you lose confidence in your novel-writing? I would think that could really hurt, if it was a lifelong passion that was part of your self-definition.
 
I've read comments from some Aspies here, like Kari Suttle, whose interests come and go. They are very intense when the person first gets into them, but then they burn out, sometimes as quickly as just a few days. On the other hand, my partner, Nadador, has one all-consuming interest that has driven almost his entire life to date. He admits it's obsessive, and not always healthy from others' points of view, but he would be utterly lost without it. So there are many different ways in which the tendency to passionate interests is expressed among Aspies, much the same as there are a range of expressions for other Aspie traits. The real hallmark may be in the intensity of the interest, rather than the duration. Of course many NTs have intense interests, too, even true obsessions, but it occurs more frequently in the AS community--thus it has become specifically associated with Asperger's.



If you don't mind my asking, why did you lose confidence in your novel-writing? I would think that could really hurt, if it was a lifelong passion that was part of your self-definition.

In real life, I'm very shy and often never show my work to other people that I don't know. I worked up the courage to show my friends who enjoyed the chapters of a novel that I'd been working on and was hoping to finish it and get it published. People around me thought that I was very skilled in writing, skilled enough to have the potential to become a published author. I posted what I'd written onto a site for budding writers but received mainly negative reviews.

I guess I saw myself as an unskilled writer and ended up losing most of my confidence in my writing. It did hurt, and it still hurts to have lost that passion for writing.
 
In real life, I'm very shy and often never show my work to other people that I don't know. I worked up the courage to show my friends who enjoyed the chapters of a novel that I'd been working on and was hoping to finish it and get it published. People around me thought that I was very skilled in writing, skilled enough to have the potential to become a published author. I posted what I'd written onto a site for budding writers but received mainly negative reviews.

I guess I saw myself as an unskilled writer and ended up losing most of my confidence in my writing. It did hurt, and it still hurts to have lost that passion for writing.
I´ve been there! My friends where all very positive about it, and saying stuff like "oh, this is the best one you write so far " and stuff, but my beta readers...oh boy some of them where realy critical, I would got mad, then I would watch attack on titan, and imagine bad stuff XD, then I would calm down and decided to take it as a constructive thing and try to make it bether :) But yeah it does make you feel a litle bad at yourself, expecially if you have depression.
 
In real life, I'm very shy and often never show my work to other people that I don't know. I worked up the courage to show my friends who enjoyed the chapters of a novel that I'd been working on and was hoping to finish it and get it published. People around me thought that I was very skilled in writing, skilled enough to have the potential to become a published author. I posted what I'd written onto a site for budding writers but received mainly negative reviews.

I guess I saw myself as an unskilled writer and ended up losing most of my confidence in my writing. It did hurt, and it still hurts to have lost that passion for writing.


I'm so sorry you got such a shock, and such negative feedback, the first time you got up your nerve to post your work to strangers.:( I was quite keen on photography for a while, until I experienced the same sort of harsh reaction when I posted some of my images on a critical review site. I was devastated, and wondered if my family and friends were only being polite when they'd praised my efforts. It took me a couple of years, but I'm back snapping photos again, everyone else be damned. ;)

Having read your summary, I hope you can find peace with what happened, and would reconsider allowing that one experience to stop you from writing--even if you do have Manga as a fallback interest. I have few other questions for you, based on questions a professional photographer (and writer, actually) asked me about my own bad experience. I'm not asking that you actually answer them--they're just food for thought, unless you want to respond.

1. What were you really looking for by posting your writing?

2. When you say the feedback was "negative", was at least some of it thoughtful criticism you could learn from?
(My photographer friend told me to ignore the rest--they're useless.)

3. Were your critics writing teachers or well-published, professional writers, or were they all "budding" writers themselves?
(My friend cautioned me that new artists should seek their first "outsider" reviews from seasoned people who know how to do it properly.)

4. Did you ask for feedback on specific elements or concerns, or did you just say, "Here it is--critique me!"
(I did the latter, and my friend smiled knowingly at this, telling me I had inadvertently invited a free-for-all, setting myself up to be inundated with negativity.)

5. Did you read reviews that your critics had left for other new writers, especially new members to the site?
(You might find a pattern of "hazing", or even a broader pattern of certain critics being overly harsh on everybody. My friend informed me that critical forums sometimes attract people who just like to nitpick and judge, and not in an objective, helpful way.)

What I'm trying to get to is, this bad experience you've had might not be quite the disaster you think it was. I hate to see anyone give up on a creative passion, especially at the first significant challenge, because that's when all artists are most vulnerable.

I bet your passion is still there, just hiding whilst it recovers from its wounds. My wish for you is that you would keep feeding it, even just a little, to give it time to heal.
 
I´ve been there! My friends where all very positive about it, and saying stuff like "oh, this is the best one you write so far " and stuff, but my beta readers...oh boy some of them where realy critical, I would got mad, then I would watch attack on titan, and imagine bad stuff XD, then I would calm down and decided to take it as a constructive thing and try to make it bether :) But yeah it does make you feel a litle bad at yourself, expecially if you have depression.

It can be really difficult when people tell you how skilful and good you are at something but when you ask for criticism, most of it is very negative. Yeah, I do remember being tempted to do some bad stuff (give them very harsh critiques back on their own work etc) but I did eventually calm down. Ha ha. Yeah, I have been thinking about rewriting it and working on it once I regain my confidence.

Thank you for the support. :)

I'm so sorry you got such a shock, and such negative feedback, the first time you got up your nerve to post your work to strangers.:( I was quite keen on photography for a while, until I experienced the same sort of harsh reaction when I posted some of my images on a critical review site. I was devastated, and wondered if my family and friends were only being polite when they'd praised my efforts. It took me a couple of years, but I'm back snapping photos again, everyone else be damned. ;)

Having read your summary, I hope you can find peace with what happened, and would reconsider allowing that one experience to stop you from writing--even if you do have Manga as a fallback interest. I have few other questions for you, based on questions a professional photographer (and writer, actually) asked me about my own bad experience. I'm not asking that you actually answer them--they're just food for thought, unless you want to respond.

1. What were you really looking for by posting your writing?

2. When you say the feedback was "negative", was at least some of it thoughtful criticism you could learn from?
(My photographer friend told me to ignore the rest--they're useless.)

3. Were your critics writing teachers or well-published, professional writers, or were they all "budding" writers themselves?
(My friend cautioned me that new artists should seek their first "outsider" reviews from seasoned people who know how to do it properly.)

4. Did you ask for feedback on specific elements or concerns, or did you just say, "Here it is--critique me!"
(I did the latter, and my friend smiled knowingly at this, telling me I had inadvertently invited a free-for-all, setting myself up to be inundated with negativity.)

5. Did you read reviews that your critics had left for other new writers, especially new members to the site?
(You might find a pattern of "hazing", or even a broader pattern of certain critics being overly harsh on everybody. My friend informed me that critical forums sometimes attract people who just like to nitpick and judge, and not in an objective, helpful way.)

What I'm trying to get to is, this bad experience you've had might not be quite the disaster you think it was. I hate to see anyone give up on a creative passion, especially at the first significant challenge, because that's when all artists are most vulnerable.

I bet your passion is still there, just hiding whilst it recovers from its wounds. My wish for you is that you would keep feeding it, even just a little, to give it time to heal.

Yeah, I felt the same way when I received the negative feedback too. Felt like my family and friends had only been telling me that I was good to be polite. And that's awesome. I'm glad you're back to photography! ;)

When I posted my work, I guess I was hoping to get an idea of how I was doing and where I was in the process of writing my novel. I had someone who would point out my mistakes for me and suggest improvements, and what they generally enjoyed. Someone else wrote a bad review in my opinion, not because they disliked what I'd written, but because I didn't think they were very honest. They pointed out all of my mistakes, told me that it wasn't very good but signed off by saying something along the lines of, "you're a great writer!"

They were reviews from aspiring authors like me, not professionals. And thank you for the advice. I'll keep that in mind. :)

Yeah, I literally just posted it without asking for specific elements to be critiqued. And reading through lots of the reviews, many of them came across as deliberately positive and polite which was another reason that I left the website.

I guess I took the bad experience and blew it out of proportion, and I need to toughen up more like you and Daniela. :D Thank you both so much for your support! Give it some more time and I'm sure that I'll be back to writing! :D
 
I've had two major special interests throughout my life and they serve two different purposes. The first is music, in particular prog rock. When I was a child, music was a way of trying to deal with emotions and avoiding meltdowns. I would often shut myself away for an hour or so and listen to the same song over and over again until I felt better. The other one is languages, foreign countries and cultures. This was always a way of escaping for me, or shutting out the world. I always had the feeling that I didn't belong where I was and things would be better somewhere else, that there was a place I would fit in and feel that I belong.

The language interests come and go, but music is always with me. If I didn't have that, as King Oni also says, I think I would fall into depression and not be able to function any more.
 
When i was a kid I wanted to be a meteorologist cause of my fascination with weather charts. I was called into a counselors office and told I could never be a weatherman because I sucked at math. even this day I start each morning going over weather maps sometimes for hours. Truth be told don't let an idiot label you and tell you what you can and can't do.
 

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