I relate to this video SO MUCH! Diagnosed this year age 53. I also had the ballet special interest, I still love it and can calm a meltdown by watching (weirdly specific!) 1980s rehearsal videos, especially if Natalia Makarova is involved. I got to work with a ballet company for a season once, I would have paid THEM to let me be there 😆 One I really didn't need was the Miami condo collapse. I found some engineers on YT investigating why it happened and I couldn't stop watching them. Once I was satisfied I understood, I lost interest completely. It's so weird how these things consume us and then are just... gone.
Congratulations on the diagnosis! I’m glad it’s not just me haha, and it sounds amazing to get to work with a ballet company! I feel you on having to know why something happened and then losing interest! When I first moved to Liverpool I did the deep dive on the Hillsborough disaster (as I think everyone should really given all the lies that were told), and once I’d gotten to grips with it I couldn’t stomach watching anymore about it. It is weird how the interest can be so strong and then just gone, but at least we get some knowledge out of it!
@@DanaAndersen Thank you! It certainly explains a lot 😆 I'm really loving finding my community on here, and thinking of starting my own channel to talk about my experience. Your videos are really inspiring me!
For a while my special interests were p*d*philia, ab*use, DID and cults. For context, my, at the time, best friend is a survivor and was very involved in researching these topics. Not fun to have an obsession with very dark and heartbreaking subjects. It actually made my anxiety worse. And wow, the first time I watched that Torchwood episode.. The way he said it with tears streaming down his face. So creepy!
DID and cults are lifelong interests for me, they never really go away. And serial k*||ers. I've always been so fascinated by the mind and how it works (that's why I ended up being a hypnotherapist!)
I’m with you both, cults and DID are both so interesting! I fell down the Heavens Gate hole for a while, but ended up reading Helter Skelter and being obsessed with the Manson family. That was hard though, I was fascinated by how he’d cultivated an environment to be adored and how he had so much empathy that he wouldn’t let members kill bugs or snakes, but was happy sending them off to murder humans, and everyone else I could find that was interested just seemed to think Manson was ‘cool’ 😩 DID and a lot of other mental health stuff I get hyperfixated on bcus I want autism to be understood and accepted, so I feel like I have to understand and accept anything anyone else might have going 😂
I asked Gareth David Lloyd what his favourite episode was at a Comic-Con in around 2012 and was so excited he said Countrycide! I’d say it’s amongst the best things to have ever come from the BBC 😂
Ooooh I understand this! I have this very weird interest in the occult and religions despite being incapable of believing in the supernatural and hating religious organisations and cults and so much of it just feels like a scam to me. But I can't stop reading and watching content about it! It's so fascinating to me and I have no idea why! I tried real hard to believe in something because I thought maybe it would explain my interest, it doesn't work. I just really enjoy learning about religions, cults and occult practices without taking any part of it.
I feel like it’s probably similar to why so many autistic people have special interests like Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings or Star Trek really, if it’s not something you believe it’s just a really interesting story with lots of lore and side stories and plot twists 😂 Similar with the occult! I’m not reaaaaalllly a believer in ghosts, but I still occasionally get caught up in ‘real ghost sightings’ and ghost hunting videos, I’m mostly interested in the weird gear they have!
I've always been the same. My interest seems to stem from not understanding WHY people believe things that make no logical sense. As a child I was expected to blindly accept and not question some things, and I couldn't figure out (and nobody could explain) how to turn off my brain and stop needing answers.
Well you opened the door on this... As a child I had the stereotypical interest in trains, particularly steam trains. So within the limitations of access and finances, my parents tolerated that. I had a fascination with mechanical gear trains, having seen a Geneva mechanism (Google it) when I was around 4yrs. old. So I wanted an erector set. My father's special interest was photography and cameras, so there was always a camera stuck in my face. I was always trying to squirm my way out of frame while he fiddled with f stops and exposure meters and all the accoutrements. Endlessly, until I would edge towards a meltdown, and he would actually have a screaming rage of a meltdown over my non-compliance. So my clever mother anticipated that she could avoid that whole scenario by taking me to a department store to have my portrait taken. She bargained with me: a "reward" for my cooperation. So I'm expecting that erector set (despite my not being entirely cooperative, but having endured the process). I still have that picture of a sullen me. But what I received instead was an obnoxious multi colored pegboard set that I called a "baby toy", which I despised on sight. Especially considering that I was being treated like a "child prodigy" at the time. My older sister had already tested at genius IQ, and her "special interest" was architecture. I was furious, because I felt I had been quite clear about what I wanted. Since I had been obsessing nonstop about the possibilities of what I could accomplish with an ERECTOR SET! It sticks in my memory because my exasperated mother said maybe she should give it to a little boy that "deserved" it. Me, taking this at literal face value, assumed I was an "undeserving" person and was only receiving the toy out of obligation. Which made every birthday and Christmas from that point forward just awful. The more lavish the gifts, the worse I felt. I never quite got over it. Making me averse to presents, compliments and generally any attention at all, lifelong. It's crazy, I know. Which leads me to my latest special interest, or vice-versa. I went down the rabbit hole 4 or 5 years ago. After unsuccessfully trying to obtain a diagnosis. To understand how trauma manifests in people's lives. Specifically: how or why some people are able to process and heal or at least live with the aftermath, and others become consumed with nihilism, often tragically. Deep dive: hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors and therapists, research papers, intervention approaches, on and on. Along the way I came across a number of individuals who were both traumatized and autistic. A subset that required further understanding of autism, how it manifests in people's lives. The more I watched, listened and learned I began to recognize patterns and traits that reflected my own life experience. How my literal, trusting and naive nature opened me up to being vulnerable and easily exploited. Which led to self assessment tests, more reading and research and then a process to explain myself (to myself) that would account for some other reason my life comported with being autistic... other than being autistic. No luck. Which led to cataloguing childhood events, experiences and affectations. It revealed a self referential loop of how one aspect of my life fed into the other. Also revelations of why some autistic individuals excell and accommodate themselves, while others don't. The significance of nurture and support, especially in early childhood. How awareness of otherwise unremarkable events and attitudes can have profound repercussions with an autistic childs worldview, and their place in it.
Thank you for sharing your experience David! It doesn’t sound crazy at all, the way you’ve explained it sounds entirely logical, if not entirely rational, and I find for myself that’s often the issue I have in many areas of my life! You always leave such interesting and thought provoking comments, I often think they’re more thought provoking and well thought out than my actual videos!
@@DanaAndersen hardly! I look forward to your videos. You have no idea (apparently) of how illuminating your videos are to someone like me, and what a comfort. I'm old enough to be your grandfather, but you have such keen insight and awareness that helps me. Since I am new to this understanding of myself. I'm grateful to you for helping me discover a way to interact with a world that I mostly live apart from. I'm content with my solitude and interests, but it's nice to feel connected every Tuesday and Friday.
@@artemisXsidecross thanks, I don't want to leave the impression that I was not well cared for, I was. I joked with the one sibling (coincidently your age) that I still speak to, that we were fed and watered. My parents pursued a childrearing philosophy of "divide and conquer". It was every child for themselves, and anyone of us was ever grateful not to incur my father's wrath. But I seemed to have a particular talent for infuriating him, something I might have relished in my late teens. But my parents weren't much different than most who had grown up during the great depression, and had served and endured the privations of WWII. There wasn't exactly a lot of emotional awareness or affection. Rather, it was quite enough that they had survived and fulfilled their parental responsibilities (as defined by the times). Which really accounts for a lot. But there was little (or no) accommodation for anyone who fell outside of accepted presentation or behavior. So what I experienced was wholly a product of my own perception, not a reflection of malice or deprivation. Thankfully... there is now more understanding of individuals needs, and especially of diversity.
Haha for me it was once plague and pestilence in the Middle Ages 😂 to be fair that spark is still there. Love torchwood and that episode is terrifying!
Oh god you just reminded me when I was in year 4 and had a massive interest in the Black Death 😂 The teachers were confused as to why everyone else had moved onto the next topics and I was still like Rats!Fleas!Body carts! 🤣
I try not to pass value judgements on my special interests, but I'll list ones that I probably wouldn't discuss in polite company. - Soviet Union - WWII-era Germany - Industrial accidents - Maritime, aircraft, and spacecraft accidents I think the overall theme is an interest in how things fail, whether that's a mechanical system or a human one. I think there are so many lessons that can be applied from these scenarios to things we do in our lives.
The Holocaust was my special interest for years! It kind of impacted the trajectory of my life... I never met anyone else with that as a special interest, so thanks for making this video and opening up about it! Plus the cannibalism thing, which I can also relate to due to an adjacent interest😳
Ditto on never having met anyone else with it as a special interest! I’m convinced none of us are alone in any of them though! It might be difficult to find them, or we might not talk about it, but I think most autistic people have at least one interest where we’re like…am I okay to be into this? 😂
@@DanaAndersen We are special, think about how knowledge of the Holocaust and the atrocities are decreasing with time. In a way autistics who have the holocaust as a special interest are keeping the memory of those alive, and also importantly, holding onto that knowledge and passing it on so that others never forget. Never again.
Tina the Ballenrina🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🥰 I’m almost 60 years old and as a young girl would play that one song, the only song in the world for me over and over and over and over and over and over. And yes so often we don’ choose our special interest, they seem to just manifest
I get so self conscious seeing how many 30+ ‘real adults’ watch my videos, it’s you guys that have experience and wisdom, and you’re watching me just waffle on without a clue 😂💕 I do appreciate you watching though, and thank you for commenting! Finding songs I can just listen to over and over is on of my favourite parts of being autistic!
@@DanaAndersen Don’t be self conscious! You are self aware at such a young age. Not figuring this all out until your 50-60’s is exhausting reprocessing it’s all with new awareness of ehe why and wherefore’s. So many of us adults have a child that received a diagnosis and then puzzle pieces all started falling into place lolz
So relate to this. I'm late diagnosed and I've been keeping the autism one simmering for a while now. I do think it's understandable to want to understand yourself. The ones I really could do without are Mount Everest and climbing disasters and the Titan submersible disaster. I think it's horrified fascination with things I would never be involved in IRL.
I am currently in my Autism/ADHD special interests. Some of the weirder ones that have had that I don't want is natural disasters, natural disaster preparedness, a massive subduction zone earthquake and a lot of other unpleasant. My current special interests that I actually like is birds/wildlife, fiber arts and Irish dance
I think you might like The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, it's horror sci-fi lesbians in caves as a metaphor for grief. Caving is a topic that sticks in the head real easy. People are really out there putting the only body they will ever have into potentially unstable holes in the Earth for fun, and I can totally get the appeal and fascination of discovery & experience, but also count me completely out 😂 I feel like the UA-cam algorithm is fine tuned to feed those unfavorable fascinations too, I'll get sucked into mini documentaries on disasters and serial killers to find a whole day is gone and all my recommendations are to continue the journey down this uncomfortable insight into the world.
Oooh that does sound like something I’d enjoy, thanks for the recommendation! I love that people are out there exploring, but I’ll gladly watch their videos from the comfort of my home while hoping they don’t die, rather than do it myself 😂 The algorithm really doesn’t help things lmao, I don’t understand how they have access to SO much of what I do and can still barely recommend things I ACTUALLY want to watch 😩
One of my special interest right now is the Holocaust, for the past several years I have read tons of books, literature, and watched movies about WWII, German fascism, Nazism, and the Holocaust. It has taken a toll on my mental health. Another one of my special interests is collapse, social/economic/climate. Having politics as a special interest is a fucking curse and everyone hates you for but they don't understand I can't help it.
I can understand this a bit. I have always had a special interest in serial killers.... not because I like violence or anything like that, I've just always been obsessed with psychology and what makes people do what they do, so I think it's more of a curiosity thing lol.
Serial killers have been a special interest of mine for 20+ years. Also, not that I like violence, I'm just super interested in how the brain works and why people do things. I also have the autism special interest. I have a love-hate relationship with that one.
😂😂😂 fucking caving, man that cracked me up, you’re bloody hilarious, thankyou I needed to laugh. Omg caving disasters, now I’m not laughing at that it’s definitely you I’m laughing at
I can relate to this. I have some special interests that I didn’t choose and don’t want. Have you read Unmasking Autism by Dylan Price? He says that autistic people can have special interests that they didn’t choose. It has helped me normalize them and to realize that I’m not a bad person for having them. The special interests I’m talking about are: African American slavery before the American Civil War. I had a book about Harriet Tubman when I was a kid that I read until I memorized passages from it. Also the autobiography of Frederick Douglass and other slave narratives. It makes it difficult because I have ancestors from Kentucky who owned slaves and my grandmother will say that it wasn’t that bad because they stayed with the family after they were freed. Right wing hate groups. I’m against them but also morbidly fascinated. And with what’s happening in the US now it’s especially relevant. Christian church denominations And one that dates me. Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses. It started out as a relatively normal crush but then it came out that he abused women. I tried to stop liking him because of that but I couldn’t. At this point I don’t even really like his music. But I still find myself thinking about him.
I have a thing for disasters, Bijlmer(amsterdam) airplaine disaster 1992, fireworks disaster Enschede 2000(I survived this one myself so I guess that was a natural development) in NL where i'm from, the fall of the twin towers, Grenfell tower disaster more recently. Had a long serial killer phase as a teenager. Witch trials and persecution.. WWII and holocaust is definitely also one of mine Also the War in Ukraine is permanently on my mind and that is not a good thing as you can imagine. I just got diagnosed today at 46.
Congrats on the diagnosis! It can be tough when it’s stuff like this constantly playing on our minds, I’ve had to massively limit how much I read the news so I don’t spiral too much, totally get where you’re coming from!
WW2 is a scary s.i, I have it too, it’s mind blowing. My favourite s.i is the French monarchy and French revolution, although history in general, it’s all so sad, it interests me because it’s infinitely multifaceted ❤❤❤
I have a special interest in war and weapons. Like, historical medieval weapons, ancient weapons, etc. The weapons bit is cool, but the fact that I’m fascinated by war and battle tactics is a little weird to me. I don’t glorify war in any way, and I think it’s horrible and shouldn’t exist. But learning about how battles happened and how people won them was interesting to me.
Thank you! I wanted it to be a whole wall of accurate constellations that gave up a bit in and started just doing anything that looked nice, then further gave up and never finished it 😂🫠
This absolutely made me die. And I love hearing neurodivergent folk talk about their special interests. They kinda light up. Apart from the usual childhood ones; Star Wars, dance films, fantasy novels, ancient Egypt etc, when I was about 8 I became obsessed with the life, death and posthumous shenanigans of Eva Peron. I used to wander about the house with a tape recorder, whispering facts about her into it 🤣 Did multiple school projects about her that no one asked for too. Fun kid that I was. My parents still insist I was just a normal child. Which probably says more about them, come to think of it.
Autism is a special interest to me as well. I didn't find out I was autistic until I was in my forties. So I wanted to learn as much as possible about it. If I am lame, oh well!
Another great video, very thought provoking and good at getting one to re-examine their fixations, guilty pleasures and secret kinks - something many of us autistics seem to share! I get the weird repulsion/fascination with cannibalism - I've seen and read lots of content about this (including all the Lecter stuff) but with a gruesome fascination often to the point of nausea. The Holocaust is another we have shared (although have divested myself of now) but I at least had the excuse of being raised in the Jewish faith. Caving tho! Totally claustrophobic, scared of the dark but actually fell in love with it after LARPing in the Chislehurst caves. Luckily have also managed to rid myself of this one over time and introduction to scuba diving. But then there are the other types of fixations - those of a more adult or socially unacceptable nature - that take up too much time and energy to be healthful. Many ND's also have issues with addiction that are basically maladaptation's to their navigating an NT world and which become fixations and routines that they would prefer to leave behind as much as their other, odd seeming, interests.
Ballet is also one of my special interests too! I have been to a couple shows, and they're super enjoyable. Quiet, the music is great, relaxed vibe. Definitely recommend! Hearing the sound of their pointe shoes tap the stage is so satisfying. x
Another great Dana video. I'm totally with you on wwii and fascism, never again, and aspergers I even have Playlist of favorite videos, you're on the aspie one of coarse. Cannibalism no, but the Dahmer files I'm watching now, and that was interesting, dahmer had a lot of issues there, but some of them I think leaned into autism if you ask me
I really wanted to watch The Dhamer Files, but given the discourse and opinions of family members of some victims I decided to give it a miss. It’s difficult when discussing autism and murderers, there’s definitely often a lot of traits, but it’s also a LOT of other things going on. It would be a really interesting line of research if not for it adding stigma to autism!
Heh, I can relate to the strange fascination with Hannibal Lecter, although it’s more part of a broader special interest in serial killers and true crime that yeah, I definitely never asked for. 😂 Otherwise, mine are usually more things that other people consider cheesy/lame/cringey, like the Disney Descendants movies or Sky High or the old TV show The Rifleman.
Oooh I could do a whole video of just the things others consider lame or cringe 😂 Ngl I haven’t seen sky high in years, but I remember loving it, and I watched the Descendants movies a few years ago and they were all I thought about for at least a month! I refuse to be ashamed of being cringe anymore, it’s not always easy but if it makes me happy, long live the cringe 😂
@@DanaAndersen THANK YOU! 😁😁 I got so much grief as a kid over my “cringey” special interests that I developed this reflexive habit of downplaying or kind of making fun of them myself before anyone else could, which felt really gross and dishonest. I’m trying to dismantle my own internalized ableism around cringe culture, but it’s hard. Seriously, why do we tease people for liking things? Just, why????
Okay last one (my special interest is leaving an embarrassing and creepy number of comments), I totally get the Philip Glennister thing! Life on Mars/ Ashes to Ashes ❤
At 4:30, re: autism as unwanted special interest, "I don't think it's as bad as cannibalism..." made me laugh. I'm glad you made this video, Dana. I'm sure it felt awkward to start talking about these, but I agree we all kind of suspect / hope these things are shared by at least some of our fellow Auties. But it's still gutsy to get specific with them in public (or at least seems so to me with my RSD). Since you've broken the taboo around this stuff, here are a couple of mine: (Apologies in advance for the wall of text.) 1. Manipulation techniques are one of my S.I.s, possibly because I'm quite susceptible to them and want to be "immunized" against them. (Or at least that's what I want you all to believe, muahaha.) Logical fallacies / fallacious reasoning, too -- similarly to become less likely to land in those intellectual failure modes (as well as to help against aforementioned manipulation techniques). 2. I'm strongly inclined towards pacifism and have been temperamentally gentle / nonviolent all my life, but have nevertheless since childhood built up a huge and detailed mental database of military technologies, from obscure aircraft subtypes all the way down to the manufacture and distribution of small arms across the developing world. The machinery of war is horrifying and the business of it disgusting -- and at the same time I cannot seem to resist trying to fully comprehend the anatomical and emotional effects of a specific model of American-made land mine erupting under an innocent farm-kid half a century after the last U.S. soldiers left Vietnam, and then doing the mental math on how many more around the world are likely to suffer and die from those leftover murder-devices. As a child of the Cold War, I sponged up published information about nuclear weapon stockpiles (and kiloton/megaton yields, and fallout calculations based on detonation altitudes, etc.) the way most "normal boys" might have learned baseball team/player statistics. And on and on. The physics of long range ballistic trajectories; vulnerable points on vehicles, buildings, and civil engineering structures; the flight ranges and mid-air refueling times of different aircraft; battery life in night-vision goggles. Every detail a doorway into an all-evening deep-dive into manufacturing, distribution, combat logistics, and operational life expectancies. For things that should not exist. I don't love it, and can't help it; the information just gloms onto my existing knowledge base whenever I encounter it in a news article or a book or social media. For all the encyclopedic volume of it in my head, I very rarely talk about any of it. Understanding that stuff as a danger to humanity (and how to responsibly deal with it if/when such stuff is used) tends to get lost on other people, who misinterpret the initiation of an info-dump as my being enthusiastic about the use of such horrors. Worst of all, it's not useful information; I'm not a physician and could never be a soldier or political figure. Perhaps I missed my calling as an intelligence / security analyst. And even though I know it should go without saying so here, after writing all that I still feel the need to emphasize that these are not my only special interests (I have bright and happy and creative ones as well!), and that I don't go out of my way to spend time or mental energy on them. I'd prefer my limited cognitive resources were spent only on more pleasant things. I think my view of humanity generally would be far brighter without these special interests, and I wish we existed in a world where manipulation and organized mass violence didn't. Going to play happy music and draw happy pictures, now. But I'm still glad you started this conversation; it is good to know I'm not alone in having ongoing interests that make me go, "Wait, why am I even think--...?" P.S. - Your Autism videos frequently tackle subjects (like this one) that my other favorite content makers don't, or you examine "the usual suspects" from an angle that I can relate to better, sometimes due to all-too-familiar socioeconomic factors, sometimes due to quirks of humor or shared interest or similar family challenges. Anyways, I appreciate your work on this channel amidst all that life has thrown at you over the last couple of years, and wish you the best going forward.
My special interest is like just USSR Old Communist Russia and Dictators. One of my favorite movies is Animal Farm because the whole idea was so interesting to me in a morbid way. But weirdly its only Russian Dictators i have a special interest in. And listen to The Red Army Choirs music because i love how it sounds, but idk what the sings are about, i just like the sound of it. Idk why im so interested in all of this, i dont like or agree with communism at all. I just find old Communist Russia interesting and i sometimes i hate myself for it
To a degree! I think you can develop a special interest in things that make you uncomfortable or feel like a challenge. I’m no doctor, but I feel like if it genuinely scares you that’s a lil bit of a different thing/issue 😅
There’s two kinds of unwanted SIs for me: annoying and distressing My annoying SI is definitely the FNAF series of video games. I don’t even particularly like it; the worldbuilding is just so sloppy imo that I want to rip out of Scott’s/Steel Wool’s hands and fix it myself lol. It was the same with the Twilight series, 50 Shades, Sia’s trash movie Music, Harry Potter, and now JK Rowling’s new book. They all frustrate me because the basic premises aren’t bad, but they’re just so poorly executed. The last one is especially frustrating because reworking it would require the most… gutting? It’s built on a rotten foundation to begin with but, from a writing perspective, the formatting is just godawful. But the idea of a murder mystery about a UA-cam animator who gets murdered for having bad takes is just so funny to me (I could be wrong tho, I’ve only read snippets). It’d be like if hotdiggetydemon got killed because someone decided the PONY.MOV series was just THAT ~problematic~. Like, I do think there’s potential in a murder mystery that dives deep into Internet culture, the niche groups we form, online etiquette, ‘cancel culture,’ being disabled online, authenticity, the internet’s anonymous safe haven vs the current exploitation/monetization of our entire lives, and so on. And it’s certainly worthy of commentary/analysis/satire; the Internet is bursting with possibilities for fiction writers. But JK Rowling, who probably found tumblr while Twitter-stalking some nobody who called her cringe, is absolutely not the person to do it. Tbh the title of the fictional animated series immediately tells me she has no understanding of the Internet. ‘The Ink Black Heart,’ that’s so stuffy and sounds more like a found footage ARG or at best, an account that makes vent art/animations on tiktok. Any speck of potential the book had is ruined by JK’s projection about how she’s not owned.
Oh right, the distressing SIs are death, decay, and gore. I have such immense existential dread, especially considering all the obstacles to living the life I want. I’m almost 30 and I’ve felt like I’m on borrowed time since I was like, 23. I see every developing wrinkle, every new white hair (I’m at 10, at least that I can see), and it’s so incredibly upsetting. If I accidentally skip one of my meds, that dread becomes debilitating (due to withdrawal?)
I had a brief love affair with aeroplane crash analysis reports too! Then I had to actually go on a plane and did everything I could to forget about them 😅
@@DanaAndersen I still read aircraft accident reports while on planes. I used to watch air crash documentaries too, but started getting some weird looks so I stopped 😆
@@DanaAndersen probably as a default of being both a horrible disaster and aircrash related another unwanted special interest is 9/11. Not the conspiracy theories but the event itself.
@@DanaAndersen I think one of the things I like about being weirdly into crash analysis reports is it made me realise how safe aeroplanes actually are.
Things that are fearful seem to spark some scary special interests.
I relate to this video SO MUCH! Diagnosed this year age 53. I also had the ballet special interest, I still love it and can calm a meltdown by watching (weirdly specific!) 1980s rehearsal videos, especially if Natalia Makarova is involved. I got to work with a ballet company for a season once, I would have paid THEM to let me be there 😆
One I really didn't need was the Miami condo collapse. I found some engineers on YT investigating why it happened and I couldn't stop watching them. Once I was satisfied I understood, I lost interest completely. It's so weird how these things consume us and then are just... gone.
Congratulations on the diagnosis! I’m glad it’s not just me haha, and it sounds amazing to get to work with a ballet company!
I feel you on having to know why something happened and then losing interest! When I first moved to Liverpool I did the deep dive on the Hillsborough disaster (as I think everyone should really given all the lies that were told), and once I’d gotten to grips with it I couldn’t stomach watching anymore about it.
It is weird how the interest can be so strong and then just gone, but at least we get some knowledge out of it!
@@DanaAndersen Thank you! It certainly explains a lot 😆 I'm really loving finding my community on here, and thinking of starting my own channel to talk about my experience. Your videos are really inspiring me!
@@artemisXsidecross thank you! I think I'm going to love it here! 🥰
For a while my special interests were p*d*philia, ab*use, DID and cults. For context, my, at the time, best friend is a survivor and was very involved in researching these topics. Not fun to have an obsession with very dark and heartbreaking subjects.
It actually made my anxiety worse.
And wow, the first time I watched that Torchwood episode.. The way he said it with tears streaming down his face. So creepy!
DID and cults are lifelong interests for me, they never really go away. And serial k*||ers. I've always been so fascinated by the mind and how it works (that's why I ended up being a hypnotherapist!)
I’m with you both, cults and DID are both so interesting! I fell down the Heavens Gate hole for a while, but ended up reading Helter Skelter and being obsessed with the Manson family. That was hard though, I was fascinated by how he’d cultivated an environment to be adored and how he had so much empathy that he wouldn’t let members kill bugs or snakes, but was happy sending them off to murder humans, and everyone else I could find that was interested just seemed to think Manson was ‘cool’ 😩
DID and a lot of other mental health stuff I get hyperfixated on bcus I want autism to be understood and accepted, so I feel like I have to understand and accept anything anyone else might have going 😂
@@clairehemmings-hypno I have met several autistic people who have serial killers as a special interest.
You are so hilarious. I love the way you express yourself. Your content reminds me that I’m not alone in my experiences and it’s such a relief 💕
Thank you for always leaving such kind comments! They give me the same reminder and relief that there’s lots of us out here 😂💕💕💕
Countrycide was the scariest episode in the whole of Torchwood! Brilliant TV.
I asked Gareth David Lloyd what his favourite episode was at a Comic-Con in around 2012 and was so excited he said Countrycide! I’d say it’s amongst the best things to have ever come from the BBC 😂
Ooooh I understand this! I have this very weird interest in the occult and religions despite being incapable of believing in the supernatural and hating religious organisations and cults and so much of it just feels like a scam to me. But I can't stop reading and watching content about it! It's so fascinating to me and I have no idea why! I tried real hard to believe in something because I thought maybe it would explain my interest, it doesn't work. I just really enjoy learning about religions, cults and occult practices without taking any part of it.
I feel like it’s probably similar to why so many autistic people have special interests like Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings or Star Trek really, if it’s not something you believe it’s just a really interesting story with lots of lore and side stories and plot twists 😂 Similar with the occult!
I’m not reaaaaalllly a believer in ghosts, but I still occasionally get caught up in ‘real ghost sightings’ and ghost hunting videos, I’m mostly interested in the weird gear they have!
@@DanaAndersen yeah makes sense!
I've always been the same. My interest seems to stem from not understanding WHY people believe things that make no logical sense. As a child I was expected to blindly accept and not question some things, and I couldn't figure out (and nobody could explain) how to turn off my brain and stop needing answers.
Well you opened the door on this... As a child I had the stereotypical interest in trains, particularly steam trains. So within the limitations of access and finances, my parents tolerated that. I had a fascination with mechanical gear trains, having seen a Geneva mechanism (Google it) when I was around 4yrs. old. So I wanted an erector set.
My father's special interest was photography and cameras, so there was always a camera stuck in my face. I was always trying to squirm my way out of frame while he fiddled with f stops and exposure meters and all the accoutrements. Endlessly, until I would edge towards a meltdown, and he would actually have a screaming rage of a meltdown over my non-compliance.
So my clever mother anticipated that she could avoid that whole scenario by taking me to a department store to have my portrait taken. She bargained with me: a "reward" for my cooperation. So I'm expecting that erector set (despite my not being entirely cooperative, but having endured the process). I still have that picture of a sullen me. But what I received instead was an obnoxious multi colored pegboard set that I called a "baby toy", which I despised on sight. Especially considering that I was being treated like a "child prodigy" at the time. My older sister had already tested at genius IQ, and her "special interest" was architecture.
I was furious, because I felt I had been quite clear about what I wanted. Since I had been obsessing nonstop about the possibilities of what I could accomplish with an ERECTOR SET! It sticks in my memory because my exasperated mother said maybe she should give it to a little boy that "deserved" it. Me, taking this at literal face value, assumed I was an "undeserving" person and was only receiving the toy out of obligation. Which made every birthday and Christmas from that point forward just awful. The more lavish the gifts, the worse I felt. I never quite got over it. Making me averse to presents, compliments and generally any attention at all, lifelong. It's crazy, I know.
Which leads me to my latest special interest, or vice-versa. I went down the rabbit hole 4 or 5 years ago. After unsuccessfully trying to obtain a diagnosis. To understand how trauma manifests in people's lives. Specifically: how or why some people are able to process and heal or at least live with the aftermath, and others become consumed with nihilism, often tragically. Deep dive: hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors and therapists, research papers, intervention approaches, on and on.
Along the way I came across a number of individuals who were both traumatized and autistic. A subset that required further understanding of autism, how it manifests in people's lives. The more I watched, listened and learned I began to recognize patterns and traits that reflected my own life experience. How my literal, trusting and naive nature opened me up to being vulnerable and easily exploited.
Which led to self assessment tests, more reading and research and then a process to explain myself (to myself) that would account for some other reason my life comported with being autistic... other than being autistic.
No luck. Which led to cataloguing childhood events, experiences and affectations. It revealed a self referential loop of how one aspect of my life fed into the other. Also revelations of why some autistic individuals excell and accommodate themselves, while others don't. The significance of nurture and support, especially in early childhood. How awareness of otherwise unremarkable events and attitudes can have profound repercussions with an autistic childs worldview, and their place in it.
Thank you for sharing your experience David! It doesn’t sound crazy at all, the way you’ve explained it sounds entirely logical, if not entirely rational, and I find for myself that’s often the issue I have in many areas of my life!
You always leave such interesting and thought provoking comments, I often think they’re more thought provoking and well thought out than my actual videos!
@@DanaAndersen hardly! I look forward to your videos. You have no idea (apparently) of how illuminating your videos are to someone like me, and what a comfort. I'm old enough to be your grandfather, but you have such keen insight and awareness that helps me. Since I am new to this understanding of myself. I'm grateful to you for helping me discover a way to interact with a world that I mostly live apart from. I'm content with my solitude and interests, but it's nice to feel connected every Tuesday and Friday.
@@artemisXsidecross thanks, I don't want to leave the impression that I was not well cared for, I was. I joked with the one sibling (coincidently your age) that I still speak to, that we were fed and watered. My parents pursued a childrearing philosophy of "divide and conquer". It was every child for themselves, and anyone of us was ever grateful not to incur my father's wrath. But I seemed to have a particular talent for infuriating him, something I might have relished in my late teens. But my parents weren't much different than most who had grown up during the great depression, and had served and endured the privations of WWII.
There wasn't exactly a lot of emotional awareness or affection. Rather, it was quite enough that they had survived and fulfilled their parental responsibilities (as defined by the times). Which really accounts for a lot. But there was little (or no) accommodation for anyone who fell outside of accepted presentation or behavior. So what I experienced was wholly a product of my own perception, not a reflection of malice or deprivation. Thankfully... there is now more understanding of individuals needs, and especially of diversity.
Haha for me it was once plague and pestilence in the Middle Ages 😂 to be fair that spark is still there. Love torchwood and that episode is terrifying!
Definitely sounds like a rabbit hole I could fall into
Oh god you just reminded me when I was in year 4 and had a massive interest in the Black Death 😂 The teachers were confused as to why everyone else had moved onto the next topics and I was still like Rats!Fleas!Body carts! 🤣
Haha 😂 the plague is where it started and wow what a rabbit hole… Miasma & filth, fascinating! 😂
I try not to pass value judgements on my special interests, but I'll list ones that I probably wouldn't discuss in polite company.
- Soviet Union
- WWII-era Germany
- Industrial accidents
- Maritime, aircraft, and spacecraft accidents
I think the overall theme is an interest in how things fail, whether that's a mechanical system or a human one. I think there are so many lessons that can be applied from these scenarios to things we do in our lives.
Those are good ones, SU and early 20th century Germany are my interests too. Been reading a couple books on them right now too!
The Holocaust was my special interest for years! It kind of impacted the trajectory of my life... I never met anyone else with that as a special interest, so thanks for making this video and opening up about it! Plus the cannibalism thing, which I can also relate to due to an adjacent interest😳
Ditto on never having met anyone else with it as a special interest! I’m convinced none of us are alone in any of them though! It might be difficult to find them, or we might not talk about it, but I think most autistic people have at least one interest where we’re like…am I okay to be into this? 😂
LOL me too but it still is for me
@@DanaAndersen We are special, think about how knowledge of the Holocaust and the atrocities are decreasing with time. In a way autistics who have the holocaust as a special interest are keeping the memory of those alive, and also importantly, holding onto that knowledge and passing it on so that others never forget. Never again.
Tina the Ballenrina🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🥰 I’m almost 60 years old and as a young girl would play that one song, the only song in the world for me over and over and over and over and over and over. And yes so often we don’ choose our special interest, they seem to just manifest
I get so self conscious seeing how many 30+ ‘real adults’ watch my videos, it’s you guys that have experience and wisdom, and you’re watching me just waffle on without a clue 😂💕
I do appreciate you watching though, and thank you for commenting! Finding songs I can just listen to over and over is on of my favourite parts of being autistic!
@@DanaAndersen Don’t be self conscious! You are self aware at such a young age. Not figuring this all out until your 50-60’s is exhausting reprocessing it’s all with new awareness of ehe why and wherefore’s. So many of us adults have a child that received a diagnosis and then puzzle pieces all started falling into place lolz
So relate to this. I'm late diagnosed and I've been keeping the autism one simmering for a while now. I do think it's understandable to want to understand yourself. The ones I really could do without are Mount Everest and climbing disasters and the Titan submersible disaster. I think it's horrified fascination with things I would never be involved in IRL.
I am currently in my Autism/ADHD special interests. Some of the weirder ones that have had that I don't want is natural disasters, natural disaster preparedness, a massive subduction zone earthquake and a lot of other unpleasant. My current special interests that I actually like is birds/wildlife, fiber arts and Irish dance
I think you might like The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, it's horror sci-fi lesbians in caves as a metaphor for grief.
Caving is a topic that sticks in the head real easy. People are really out there putting the only body they will ever have into potentially unstable holes in the Earth for fun, and I can totally get the appeal and fascination of discovery & experience, but also count me completely out 😂
I feel like the UA-cam algorithm is fine tuned to feed those unfavorable fascinations too, I'll get sucked into mini documentaries on disasters and serial killers to find a whole day is gone and all my recommendations are to continue the journey down this uncomfortable insight into the world.
Oooh that does sound like something I’d enjoy, thanks for the recommendation! I love that people are out there exploring, but I’ll gladly watch their videos from the comfort of my home while hoping they don’t die, rather than do it myself 😂
The algorithm really doesn’t help things lmao, I don’t understand how they have access to SO much of what I do and can still barely recommend things I ACTUALLY want to watch 😩
One of my special interest right now is the Holocaust, for the past several years I have read tons of books, literature, and watched movies about WWII, German fascism, Nazism, and the Holocaust. It has taken a toll on my mental health. Another one of my special interests is collapse, social/economic/climate. Having politics as a special interest is a fucking curse and everyone hates you for but they don't understand I can't help it.
I can understand this a bit. I have always had a special interest in serial killers.... not because I like violence or anything like that, I've just always been obsessed with psychology and what makes people do what they do, so I think it's more of a curiosity thing lol.
Serial killers have been a special interest of mine for 20+ years. Also, not that I like violence, I'm just super interested in how the brain works and why people do things.
I also have the autism special interest. I have a love-hate relationship with that one.
😂😂😂 fucking caving, man that cracked me up, you’re bloody hilarious, thankyou I needed to laugh. Omg caving disasters, now I’m not laughing at that it’s definitely you I’m laughing at
I glad I can get a laugh for my fear 😂💕 They’re horrid aren’t they ?!
I’ve never heard someone else talk about this, but it is sooo relatable! GREAT video
I'm interested in psychopaths. I don't mind having that interest though.
It’s the type of interest that probably comes in handy considering how much of the general population is suspected of being secret psychopaths 😂
I can relate to this. I have some special interests that I didn’t choose and don’t want. Have you read Unmasking Autism by Dylan Price? He says that autistic people can have special interests that they didn’t choose. It has helped me normalize them and to realize that I’m not a bad person for having them.
The special interests I’m talking about are:
African American slavery before the American Civil War. I had a book about Harriet Tubman when I was a kid that I read until I memorized passages from it. Also the autobiography of Frederick Douglass and other slave narratives. It makes it difficult because I have ancestors from Kentucky who owned slaves and my grandmother will say that it wasn’t that bad because they stayed with the family after they were freed.
Right wing hate groups. I’m against them but also morbidly fascinated. And with what’s happening in the US now it’s especially relevant.
Christian church denominations
And one that dates me. Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses. It started out as a relatively normal crush but then it came out that he abused women. I tried to stop liking him because of that but I couldn’t. At this point I don’t even really like his music. But I still find myself thinking about him.
I have a thing for disasters, Bijlmer(amsterdam) airplaine disaster 1992, fireworks disaster Enschede 2000(I survived this one myself so I guess that was a natural development) in NL where i'm from, the fall of the twin towers, Grenfell tower disaster more recently.
Had a long serial killer phase as a teenager. Witch trials and persecution.. WWII and holocaust is definitely also one of mine
Also the War in Ukraine is permanently on my mind and that is not a good thing as you can imagine.
I just got diagnosed today at 46.
Congrats on the diagnosis!
It can be tough when it’s stuff like this constantly playing on our minds, I’ve had to massively limit how much I read the news so I don’t spiral too much, totally get where you’re coming from!
WW2 is a scary s.i, I have it too, it’s mind blowing. My favourite s.i is the French monarchy and French revolution, although history in general, it’s all so sad, it interests me because it’s infinitely multifaceted ❤❤❤
I have a special interest in war and weapons. Like, historical medieval weapons, ancient weapons, etc. The weapons bit is cool, but the fact that I’m fascinated by war and battle tactics is a little weird to me. I don’t glorify war in any way, and I think it’s horrible and shouldn’t exist. But learning about how battles happened and how people won them was interesting to me.
I'm no expert but I think cannibalism is how you get things like mad cow disease
Why do I have hyperfixation on clowns?! Clowns terrify me! :O
I noticed the pattern on wall look like horoscopes I like it
Thank you! I wanted it to be a whole wall of accurate constellations that gave up a bit in and started just doing anything that looked nice, then further gave up and never finished it 😂🫠
This absolutely made me die.
And I love hearing neurodivergent folk talk about their special interests. They kinda light up.
Apart from the usual childhood ones; Star Wars, dance films, fantasy novels, ancient Egypt etc, when I was about 8 I became obsessed with the life, death and posthumous shenanigans of Eva Peron.
I used to wander about the house with a tape recorder, whispering facts about her into it 🤣
Did multiple school projects about her that no one asked for too. Fun kid that I was.
My parents still insist I was just a normal child. Which probably says more about them, come to think of it.
Autism is a special interest to me as well. I didn't find out I was autistic until I was in my forties. So I wanted to learn as much as possible about it.
If I am lame, oh well!
Ooh did you watch find me in Paris? About ballet, ish, and time travel. Cheesy but fab
I haven’t, but balletish and time travel tend to summon me 😂
It’s worth a watch, I mean I think it’s for teenagers but who gives a fuck 😂 makes me wish I could dance, sadly I can’t even walk straight 😂
I could live without my South Park special interest I’ve had for the past year and a half
Another great video, very thought provoking and good at getting one to re-examine their fixations, guilty pleasures and secret kinks - something many of us autistics seem to share!
I get the weird repulsion/fascination with cannibalism - I've seen and read lots of content about this (including all the Lecter stuff) but with a gruesome fascination often to the point of nausea. The Holocaust is another we have shared (although have divested myself of now) but I at least had the excuse of being raised in the Jewish faith. Caving tho! Totally claustrophobic, scared of the dark but actually fell in love with it after LARPing in the Chislehurst caves. Luckily have also managed to rid myself of this one over time and introduction to scuba diving.
But then there are the other types of fixations - those of a more adult or socially unacceptable nature - that take up too much time and energy to be healthful. Many ND's also have issues with addiction that are basically maladaptation's to their navigating an NT world and which become fixations and routines that they would prefer to leave behind as much as their other, odd seeming, interests.
Ballet is also one of my special interests too! I have been to a couple shows, and they're super enjoyable. Quiet, the music is great, relaxed vibe. Definitely recommend! Hearing the sound of their pointe shoes tap the stage is so satisfying. x
Another great Dana video. I'm totally with you on wwii and fascism, never again, and aspergers I even have Playlist of favorite videos, you're on the aspie one of coarse. Cannibalism no, but the Dahmer files I'm watching now, and that was interesting, dahmer had a lot of issues there, but some of them I think leaned into autism if you ask me
And Dana if you like southern middle aged gentlemen, I am one and I'm pretty sure I'm a lesbian to boot, soo think about it?? ;)
I really wanted to watch The Dhamer Files, but given the discourse and opinions of family members of some victims I decided to give it a miss.
It’s difficult when discussing autism and murderers, there’s definitely often a lot of traits, but it’s also a LOT of other things going on. It would be a really interesting line of research if not for it adding stigma to autism!
Heh, I can relate to the strange fascination with Hannibal Lecter, although it’s more part of a broader special interest in serial killers and true crime that yeah, I definitely never asked for. 😂 Otherwise, mine are usually more things that other people consider cheesy/lame/cringey, like the Disney Descendants movies or Sky High or the old TV show The Rifleman.
Oooh I could do a whole video of just the things others consider lame or cringe 😂 Ngl I haven’t seen sky high in years, but I remember loving it, and I watched the Descendants movies a few years ago and they were all I thought about for at least a month! I refuse to be ashamed of being cringe anymore, it’s not always easy but if it makes me happy, long live the cringe 😂
@@DanaAndersen THANK YOU! 😁😁 I got so much grief as a kid over my “cringey” special interests that I developed this reflexive habit of downplaying or kind of making fun of them myself before anyone else could, which felt really gross and dishonest. I’m trying to dismantle my own internalized ableism around cringe culture, but it’s hard. Seriously, why do we tease people for liking things? Just, why????
Okay last one (my special interest is leaving an embarrassing and creepy number of comments), I totally get the Philip Glennister thing! Life on Mars/ Ashes to Ashes ❤
It’s only a creepy number of comments if I’m creeped out, and I’m not 😜 He’s just such a great actor and when he’s in something good, it’s the BEST! 💕
Haha good, I can be too much! 😂
I remember in high school one of my special interests was child se***l abuse. Yeah. My library record was wild.
At 4:30, re: autism as unwanted special interest, "I don't think it's as bad as cannibalism..." made me laugh.
I'm glad you made this video, Dana. I'm sure it felt awkward to start talking about these, but I agree we all kind of suspect / hope these things are shared by at least some of our fellow Auties. But it's still gutsy to get specific with them in public (or at least seems so to me with my RSD). Since you've broken the taboo around this stuff, here are a couple of mine: (Apologies in advance for the wall of text.)
1. Manipulation techniques are one of my S.I.s, possibly because I'm quite susceptible to them and want to be "immunized" against them. (Or at least that's what I want you all to believe, muahaha.) Logical fallacies / fallacious reasoning, too -- similarly to become less likely to land in those intellectual failure modes (as well as to help against aforementioned manipulation techniques).
2. I'm strongly inclined towards pacifism and have been temperamentally gentle / nonviolent all my life, but have nevertheless since childhood built up a huge and detailed mental database of military technologies, from obscure aircraft subtypes all the way down to the manufacture and distribution of small arms across the developing world. The machinery of war is horrifying and the business of it disgusting -- and at the same time I cannot seem to resist trying to fully comprehend the anatomical and emotional effects of a specific model of American-made land mine erupting under an innocent farm-kid half a century after the last U.S. soldiers left Vietnam, and then doing the mental math on how many more around the world are likely to suffer and die from those leftover murder-devices.
As a child of the Cold War, I sponged up published information about nuclear weapon stockpiles (and kiloton/megaton yields, and fallout calculations based on detonation altitudes, etc.) the way most "normal boys" might have learned baseball team/player statistics. And on and on. The physics of long range ballistic trajectories; vulnerable points on vehicles, buildings, and civil engineering structures; the flight ranges and mid-air refueling times of different aircraft; battery life in night-vision goggles. Every detail a doorway into an all-evening deep-dive into manufacturing, distribution, combat logistics, and operational life expectancies. For things that should not exist.
I don't love it, and can't help it; the information just gloms onto my existing knowledge base whenever I encounter it in a news article or a book or social media. For all the encyclopedic volume of it in my head, I very rarely talk about any of it. Understanding that stuff as a danger to humanity (and how to responsibly deal with it if/when such stuff is used) tends to get lost on other people, who misinterpret the initiation of an info-dump as my being enthusiastic about the use of such horrors.
Worst of all, it's not useful information; I'm not a physician and could never be a soldier or political figure. Perhaps I missed my calling as an intelligence / security analyst.
And even though I know it should go without saying so here, after writing all that I still feel the need to emphasize that these are not my only special interests (I have bright and happy and creative ones as well!), and that I don't go out of my way to spend time or mental energy on them. I'd prefer my limited cognitive resources were spent only on more pleasant things. I think my view of humanity generally would be far brighter without these special interests, and I wish we existed in a world where manipulation and organized mass violence didn't.
Going to play happy music and draw happy pictures, now. But I'm still glad you started this conversation; it is good to know I'm not alone in having ongoing interests that make me go, "Wait, why am I even think--...?"
P.S. - Your Autism videos frequently tackle subjects (like this one) that my other favorite content makers don't, or you examine "the usual suspects" from an angle that I can relate to better, sometimes due to all-too-familiar socioeconomic factors, sometimes due to quirks of humor or shared interest or similar family challenges. Anyways, I appreciate your work on this channel amidst all that life has thrown at you over the last couple of years, and wish you the best going forward.
My special interest is like just USSR Old Communist Russia and Dictators. One of my favorite movies is Animal Farm because the whole idea was so interesting to me in a morbid way. But weirdly its only Russian Dictators i have a special interest in. And listen to The Red Army Choirs music because i love how it sounds, but idk what the sings are about, i just like the sound of it. Idk why im so interested in all of this, i dont like or agree with communism at all. I just find old Communist Russia interesting and i sometimes i hate myself for it
Everyone, what has been your "weirdest" special interest or special interest you didn't want?
you can develop a special interest on things, that scare you???
To a degree! I think you can develop a special interest in things that make you uncomfortable or feel like a challenge. I’m no doctor, but I feel like if it genuinely scares you that’s a lil bit of a different thing/issue 😅
There’s two kinds of unwanted SIs for me: annoying and distressing
My annoying SI is definitely the FNAF series of video games. I don’t even particularly like it; the worldbuilding is just so sloppy imo that I want to rip out of Scott’s/Steel Wool’s hands and fix it myself lol. It was the same with the Twilight series, 50 Shades, Sia’s trash movie Music, Harry Potter, and now JK Rowling’s new book. They all frustrate me because the basic premises aren’t bad, but they’re just so poorly executed.
The last one is especially frustrating because reworking it would require the most… gutting? It’s built on a rotten foundation to begin with but, from a writing perspective, the formatting is just godawful. But the idea of a murder mystery about a UA-cam animator who gets murdered for having bad takes is just so funny to me (I could be wrong tho, I’ve only read snippets). It’d be like if hotdiggetydemon got killed because someone decided the PONY.MOV series was just THAT ~problematic~.
Like, I do think there’s potential in a murder mystery that dives deep into Internet culture, the niche groups we form, online etiquette, ‘cancel culture,’ being disabled online, authenticity, the internet’s anonymous safe haven vs the current exploitation/monetization of our entire lives, and so on. And it’s certainly worthy of commentary/analysis/satire; the Internet is bursting with possibilities for fiction writers.
But JK Rowling, who probably found tumblr while Twitter-stalking some nobody who called her cringe, is absolutely not the person to do it. Tbh the title of the fictional animated series immediately tells me she has no understanding of the Internet. ‘The Ink Black Heart,’ that’s so stuffy and sounds more like a found footage ARG or at best, an account that makes vent art/animations on tiktok. Any speck of potential the book had is ruined by JK’s projection about how she’s not owned.
Oh right, the distressing SIs are death, decay, and gore. I have such immense existential dread, especially considering all the obstacles to living the life I want. I’m almost 30 and I’ve felt like I’m on borrowed time since I was like, 23. I see every developing wrinkle, every new white hair (I’m at 10, at least that I can see), and it’s so incredibly upsetting. If I accidentally skip one of my meds, that dread becomes debilitating (due to withdrawal?)
For me it's autism, aeroplane crash analysis reports, and I have this weird morbid obsession with watching disaster basrd youtube channels.
I had a brief love affair with aeroplane crash analysis reports too! Then I had to actually go on a plane and did everything I could to forget about them 😅
@@DanaAndersen I still read aircraft accident reports while on planes. I used to watch air crash documentaries too, but started getting some weird looks so I stopped 😆
@@DanaAndersen probably as a default of being both a horrible disaster and aircrash related another unwanted special interest is 9/11. Not the conspiracy theories but the event itself.
@@DanaAndersen I think one of the things I like about being weirdly into crash analysis reports is it made me realise how safe aeroplanes actually are.
Why am I you tho 😅😅😅