Published on 12, July, 2020
In the ados assessment last week (still waiting for the second assessment) one thing I was asked was my about my hobbies. I don't know if this is normal, but when I find a hobby like crochet it's all I do for the next 2-3 months. I spend hours and hours and hours a day on these hobbies . then suddenly I don't care anymore. Is this normal?
I have a very obsessive hobby which is really who I am. I also do have other interests that I will get hung up on for a while and the drop again. However my non autistic wife dones exactly why you describe, will be obsessed for a while then everything gets sold or gathers dust.
It's definitely something I do but it feels like it's not the standard for autistic people. I always wonder a little bit when I see everyone else talking about how they have a long term or lifelong obsession with human physiology or Doctor Who when my interests are always burnt through in 6 months.
Normal generally? Probably not. Normal for autistic people? Yes, absolutely. We can get really intense about our interests, and not everyone has the same special interest their whole life- they can be short-term too.
I'm also a crafter and I tend to rotate through phases of working mostly on crochet, then knitting, and then cross stitch, and then returning to crochet. I always come back to each hobby but my focus is often entirely on one of them at a time. I talked about this in my own ADOS appointment and the assessor said it's quite common for autistic people to do this, especially for women.
As a female, I present typically with regard to my interests:
'It is not the special interests that differentiate them from their peers but it is the quality and intensity of these interests'.
https://autismhampshire.org.uk/about-autism/women-and-girls-on-the-autism-spectrum
Moving from one interest to another once one is exhausted is typical too, I believe.
I do not consider there to be anything unusual about that, and I can be just the same. Sometimes I'll become fixated on a particular hobby to the point of wanting to spend all my free time on it. This might last for weeks, months, maybe years. I'll then go completely off that hobby, or find that I want a break from it and will then devote my time to other hobbies.
No, thats not what i meant, i meant what is normal for anything in this world? where marring 12 year olds is normal in parts of the world, while having your feet showing is classed as offensive in some parts of the work, being white is not normal to other parts of the world, certian hair cuts in places around the world are not allowed because its not normal but is in other places, saying Hello in a contury that dosen't speak english is not normal, driving on the left side in some places is not normal, killing people is normal if it's just by war, or other reason like death sentance but other areas it's not normal, like here uk we don't have the death sentance ect ect, so my question is what is truely normal?
The real question is what is normal??
I guess I know its not normal, but can you relate?