thinking about the time they sent me a seven year old autistic patient to investigate if he was suffering abuse because in every psychological test he kept drawing awful monsters

and I start the consultation already miserable as fuck and I give the kid some pen and paper so I can maybe communicate and see what's on his mind

and then I go WAIT A GODDAMN SECOND I KNOW THOSE MONSTERS

turns out the kid just had a special interest in Five Nights at Freddy's

I pointed at the monster and went "That's Freddy!" and I've never seen a kid that ecstatic in my life

the mom looked at me as if her son and I belonged at the same satanic cult and that's why I knew the names of the demons in his head

I wrote back to psychologist like "I'm not sure how to explain this but looking up five nights at freddys might bring you progress with this patient"

at some point the nurses realized the autistic children and I were like, Really Vibing

so they decided to highkey just appoint all of them to my day and it took me almost a month to realize that the fact that I kept arriving and finding that all of today’s appointments were autistic children was Not A Coincidence 

anyway this one time there was a kid who was really into christianity but it was like, specifically angels 

so I’m trying to start up a conversation with him and I ask what he’s reading and he goes “do you know what a nephilim is”

and like for one hellish second my soul is suckerpunched out of my body and thrown straight into supernatural-fanfic-on-wattpad hell, and then I reassume control of my flesh prison, ignoring the mental edits of Dean and Castiel making out, and go “Aren’t those the guys who are half human and half angel?”

and the kid was so fucking happy but the mom was staring at me like ‘why are you privy to this bit of occult jesus lore’

and my heathen lesbian of a self just looks at her and goes 

“i love bible”

dating-type app but instead of matching for romance it connects writers/artists+ who don't want to do research with autistic people with the appropriate special interest

the creators get the needed information without needing to filter out filler and translate technical jargon, and the autistic person gets someone who's willing to listen to their infodumps. what is there to lose

hate how having a special interest in a character will turn u into a giggly little anime schoolgirl im like kicking my legs and squealing into a pillow and and blushing and smiling like an idiot and its like Oh yeah no this about a guy who should be in federal prison. yeah. yeah like unforgivable crimes

STOP TAGGING THIS WITH CHARACTERS WHOSE WORST CRIME IS THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF TAX FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they need to be someone that chronically online twitter users will accuse you of being immoral for liking because what they did is so awful. i will not stand for this

Having a special interest will have me saying shit like "this pizza is like the one from Breaking Bad"

can't ever give elaborate advice about developing your art skills all of it boils down to being so unethically catastrophically shit ass autistic about something that it slaps your art program's balls clean off when drawing it

guy who only thinks about his interests when anything happens: getting a lot of 'my interests' vibes from this

I was talking with my girlfriend about our special interests and we came to the realization that they can essentially be boiled down to "ancient history" for me (deep time, beginning with the evolution of life and ending with the first human civilizations) and "recent history" for her (1700s—mid 1900s, with an emphasis on what she calls "morbid history"). That leaves a good ~4000 or so years of history that neither of us has devoted hours of research into studying. The only logical solution is that we must find a third girlfriend with a special interest in bronze age and iron age civilizations so that the entirety of human knowledge about the history of the world can be contained within one relationship

shoutout to any other autistic folks whose special interests are less "i know everything about this subject" and more "i am rotating it in my mind (96 hour loop)"

It occurs to me that most neurotypicals don’t seem to actually know what a special interest is.

“regular interest, but More” doesn’t fully express it for me. I like to refer to special interests as “substrate” because they’re often a foundation for interacting with and processing the world and for making the inner environment of my brain comfy and consistent. Having a special interest usually means that’s what you “default” to when you’re not thinking about anything in particular. Special interests are a way to seek comfort when things are overwhelming. They’re a way to impose structure on your life and your thoughts; they’re reliable and building up a body of facts about the thing you like is comforting. They’re also a way of connecting with others and making conversation; facts about your special interest are easier than “freestyling” your way through a conversation, essentially making it up as you go. Special interests also bring autistic people joy and happiness...it’s essentially emotional regulation.

Special interests serve a function. They aren’t just like...a quirk of being autistic, they’re a way of dealing with the world and your own brain as an autistic person.

For me, I can broadly divide my life into “eras” based on the special interest I had at the time. It was a lot of my identity. For an autistic person your current special interest is often a really, really fundamental part of you at the time.

This means that, at least from my point of view, it’s weird and contradictory to say “special interests are valid! support autistic people!” and then talk about how adults shouldn’t need fictional things to process real world problems and how cringy it is for adults to make some fandom theyre in into a “personality trait” like...yeah, people shouldn’t talk about fandoms on posts about real world tragedies, but I can’t escape the fact that what you’re specifically calling weird and immature is kind of what a special interest is. You can’t separate special interests from “processing the world through your interests” and “making your interests a fundamental part of your identity.” Those things are often part of what makes a special interest a special interest.

me talking about cartoons on the internet 

When you have a special interest and someone thinks you’re just a casual fan

my brothers share special interests and my favorite thing to do is walk in a room and be like "hey guys can you tell me about the mariana trench" and then sit there for an hour while they both infodump to me about the ocean it's extremely entertaining

and my parents are always like "oh my god why would you do that" bitch. I want to learn about the ocean and these two thirteen year old boys r my most trusted source

getting a bit personal on main but . as an autistic person i honestly feel so awkward and embarrassed calling anything my special interest - every representation of special interests show the person knowing absolutely everything about it.. but i dont and i dont think i ever could! there’s lots of things i love so much but i’m really forgetful and even if i can obsess about something for hours ‘m never gonna know every fact about it. 

i just feel like i’m not allowed to call my obsessions special interests because of this

I relate to this a lot, but I try to keep in mind that I shouldn’t compare myself to others and that the way we each engage in our interests is personal.