sophiarants (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiarants) wrote2019-09-15 08:53 am
sophiarants) wrote2019-09-15 08:53 am
Entry tags:
Shame About Special Interests
[content warning: brief mentions of self-harm and disordered eating below]
Look. I know how this works, ok? I’m aware that I’ve found a new special interest.
If you don’t know what a special interest is, read what the excellent Musings of an Aspie blog says about them. To quote her:
[There’s] a key differentiator between a run-of the-mill hobby and an [autistic] special interest. Spending time engaged in a special interest fulfills a specific need for aspies. It’s more than just a pleasant way to pass the time. For me, indulging in a special interest is how I recharge myself. It’s comforting. It allows me to completely immerse myself in something that intensely interests me while tuning out the rest of the world. If you have a favorite movie that you rewatch or a book you like to return to again and again, it’s a bit like that... The danger in special interests is that they can become consuming. They can take over every conversation, every free minute of the day, every thought, if you let them. They can be a refuge or a hiding place.
She goes on to talk about how special interests can lead to enjoyment, friendships, even careers, but can alternatively be alienating from others, if the interests are not socially acceptable.
My special interests are often stories, of one form or another. For the past 3-ish years, my special interest has been the Arrowverse TV shows. A little bit socially unacceptable, for some - i’ve had ‘real’ comics fans and TV snobs yell at me about how shit the shows are - but I mostly didn’t care. When I was younger, Buffy was a huge special interest. I have a very detailed, sometimes obsessive fantasy life, and these stories get drawn into that, and it means I can dive really deeply into story. Story is one of the most important things in the world to me, as a result.
That immediately makes special interests sound negative. So let’s reframe. My most recent special interest has led me to new friends in the fandom. As an accessible way to encounter characters, it’s helped me to rediscover comics, which I read a bit as a teenager but never really thought were for me (when I thought I was a ‘girl’ and gave in to the message that ‘comics aren’t for girls’). And it’s got me back into creative writing (through fanfic), which I had mostly given up about 20 years ago, but it turns out I’m pretty good at it and I love it.
Before that, my previous special interests (qualitative research and disability studies and sociology) came together at just the right time, and the result was a PhD and my current career in research. Special interests can be useful. As my spouse has observed, I often get so good at the special interest that I get widely known for it and it changes my life. It’s kind of my superpower. (See: the PhD, which I passed with no corrections and it got me a job within days. That’s not bragging. It’s bemused observation.)
Wow. Ok, taking a breath. Writing about things this honestly is a challenge. I’m used to reframing my special interests into much more socially acceptable stories.
Because, here’s the problem. I (feel that I) have to tell the world particular stories about my life, my autistic ways of being. All the fucking time. It’s so tiring.
“I’m just enjoying the book,” I’ve been telling my friends and my partner. “It’s interesting.”
Oh, come on, Soph. It’s a fucking special interest. And that’s great. I could have become obsessed with stamp collecting or rock climbing. (Ok, probably not rock climbing. I’m a wheelchair user. 😁) Instead, I’ve become obsessed with a book that’s already having interesting, potentially really positive effects on my thinking.
What’s more, I don’t usually just drop special interests when they stop being obsessions. I integrate them, or their results, into my life. I love researching, and these days I get paid to spend several hours a day with data sets about children with serious illness, and I’m (indirectly) making a difference in the world as a result. I love writing fanfic, and don’t intend to stop creative writing, one way or another.
If I can integrate the positive things that I learn from Brene Brown’s book into my life, whether the slightly-obsessive special interest lasts a month or a year, then why should I be ashamed? Yes, it’s self-helpy stuff that I would have fucking hated in the past. It’s cringey, and the people who like this shit are often ableist, telling me that I have to be ‘cured’ from everything that’s ‘wrong’ with me. (There’s nothing wrong with being disabled and autistic, by the way, and that will always be this wheelchair-using autistic person’s truth.)
But I’ve also been working on myself in therapy for the past year, and the ground has been prepared for this kind of seed to take root. I want things to change, and I’ve wanted that for a while. I don’t expect this project will completely change my life. I’ll always be autistic, and no doubt always have a lot of problems that come with it. I’ll always have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and chronic pain, and will probably use a wheelchair on-and-off for the rest of my life.
But, I had a realisation while listening to Noelle LaCroix on the Awegasm podcast recently. I’ve been in an abusive relationship with myself for years. That has included self-harm, disordered eating and absolutely horrible ways of thinking of myself, on a daily basis. I’m tired of being abused, and I’m tired of being the abuser.
If this Brene Brown special interest can help, then, awesome. Now let’s see how well I can integrate it into my life, when it ends in a month, or three years.
And now I’m off to indulge another special interest - disability rights - at a disabled women’s group that I’ve tentatively been asked to help run. Very exciting.
Look. I know how this works, ok? I’m aware that I’ve found a new special interest.
If you don’t know what a special interest is, read what the excellent Musings of an Aspie blog says about them. To quote her:
[There’s] a key differentiator between a run-of the-mill hobby and an [autistic] special interest. Spending time engaged in a special interest fulfills a specific need for aspies. It’s more than just a pleasant way to pass the time. For me, indulging in a special interest is how I recharge myself. It’s comforting. It allows me to completely immerse myself in something that intensely interests me while tuning out the rest of the world. If you have a favorite movie that you rewatch or a book you like to return to again and again, it’s a bit like that... The danger in special interests is that they can become consuming. They can take over every conversation, every free minute of the day, every thought, if you let them. They can be a refuge or a hiding place.
She goes on to talk about how special interests can lead to enjoyment, friendships, even careers, but can alternatively be alienating from others, if the interests are not socially acceptable.
My special interests are often stories, of one form or another. For the past 3-ish years, my special interest has been the Arrowverse TV shows. A little bit socially unacceptable, for some - i’ve had ‘real’ comics fans and TV snobs yell at me about how shit the shows are - but I mostly didn’t care. When I was younger, Buffy was a huge special interest. I have a very detailed, sometimes obsessive fantasy life, and these stories get drawn into that, and it means I can dive really deeply into story. Story is one of the most important things in the world to me, as a result.
That immediately makes special interests sound negative. So let’s reframe. My most recent special interest has led me to new friends in the fandom. As an accessible way to encounter characters, it’s helped me to rediscover comics, which I read a bit as a teenager but never really thought were for me (when I thought I was a ‘girl’ and gave in to the message that ‘comics aren’t for girls’). And it’s got me back into creative writing (through fanfic), which I had mostly given up about 20 years ago, but it turns out I’m pretty good at it and I love it.
Before that, my previous special interests (qualitative research and disability studies and sociology) came together at just the right time, and the result was a PhD and my current career in research. Special interests can be useful. As my spouse has observed, I often get so good at the special interest that I get widely known for it and it changes my life. It’s kind of my superpower. (See: the PhD, which I passed with no corrections and it got me a job within days. That’s not bragging. It’s bemused observation.)
Wow. Ok, taking a breath. Writing about things this honestly is a challenge. I’m used to reframing my special interests into much more socially acceptable stories.
Because, here’s the problem. I (feel that I) have to tell the world particular stories about my life, my autistic ways of being. All the fucking time. It’s so tiring.
“I’m just enjoying the book,” I’ve been telling my friends and my partner. “It’s interesting.”
Oh, come on, Soph. It’s a fucking special interest. And that’s great. I could have become obsessed with stamp collecting or rock climbing. (Ok, probably not rock climbing. I’m a wheelchair user. 😁) Instead, I’ve become obsessed with a book that’s already having interesting, potentially really positive effects on my thinking.
What’s more, I don’t usually just drop special interests when they stop being obsessions. I integrate them, or their results, into my life. I love researching, and these days I get paid to spend several hours a day with data sets about children with serious illness, and I’m (indirectly) making a difference in the world as a result. I love writing fanfic, and don’t intend to stop creative writing, one way or another.
If I can integrate the positive things that I learn from Brene Brown’s book into my life, whether the slightly-obsessive special interest lasts a month or a year, then why should I be ashamed? Yes, it’s self-helpy stuff that I would have fucking hated in the past. It’s cringey, and the people who like this shit are often ableist, telling me that I have to be ‘cured’ from everything that’s ‘wrong’ with me. (There’s nothing wrong with being disabled and autistic, by the way, and that will always be this wheelchair-using autistic person’s truth.)
But I’ve also been working on myself in therapy for the past year, and the ground has been prepared for this kind of seed to take root. I want things to change, and I’ve wanted that for a while. I don’t expect this project will completely change my life. I’ll always be autistic, and no doubt always have a lot of problems that come with it. I’ll always have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and chronic pain, and will probably use a wheelchair on-and-off for the rest of my life.
But, I had a realisation while listening to Noelle LaCroix on the Awegasm podcast recently. I’ve been in an abusive relationship with myself for years. That has included self-harm, disordered eating and absolutely horrible ways of thinking of myself, on a daily basis. I’m tired of being abused, and I’m tired of being the abuser.
If this Brene Brown special interest can help, then, awesome. Now let’s see how well I can integrate it into my life, when it ends in a month, or three years.
And now I’m off to indulge another special interest - disability rights - at a disabled women’s group that I’ve tentatively been asked to help run. Very exciting.