Particular pursuits or passions are a lovely and confounding half of the autistic expertise.
They will materialize out of nowhere. In the future you might have completely no opinions on ships, and the following day you’re all of the sudden overcome with the necessity to find out about each nautical catastrophe. Passions can disappear simply as all of the sudden; in the course of sorting by your assortment or pondering by your physique of data, you may notice that the spark simply isn’t there anymore.
Particular pursuits generally is a supply of pleasure in a world that doesn’t at all times make sense, the basis of a rewarding profession or interest, an amazing fixation that has a unfavorable affect on different components of our lives, or some baffling mixture of all the above. We don’t at all times get to decide on when, how, or how a lot our pursuits are going to have an effect on us.
Which implies that it’s not at all times straightforward to easily flip your particular curiosity off, if some part of it seems to be problematic—or downright dangerous.

As an autistic one who has had long-term particular pursuits in each rock music {and professional} wrestling, I sadly have in depth expertise on this area. I’ve additionally spent loads of time eager about what I can do, what I ought to do, and what I need to do if troubling new info involves mild about an object of my fixation. And about easy methods to navigate advanced emotions about doubtlessly advanced conditions, when my mind is wired in a means that typically appreciates extra black-and-white pondering.
I do know that loads of my fellow autistic individuals are combating comparable points proper now. Between J.Ok. Rowling’s persevering with descent into transphobia—and really funding causes that make trans folks’s lives worse—and the revelations of Neil Gaiman’s historical past of abuse, there are some very particular interest-friendly artistic endeavors that require some reevaluation. And there are some intensely invested autistic people who find themselves left questioning if and the way they will proceed to work together with materials that has been produced by dangerous folks.
With that in thoughts, I’d like to supply a number of the approaches and views that I’ve discovered useful—although I don’t have all the solutions. I believe that that is one thing I’ll be grappling with for so long as I stay and care about issues. However I’ve discovered methods to make that work a bit of simpler and perhaps they will help you, too.
1. Give your self some grace
Some autistic folks want longer to course of new info, feelings, and alter. A few of us even have pretty black-and-white pondering on sure issues. There’s nothing mistaken with both of this stuff, however the mixture of them could make life a bit of tougher on us once we be taught that somebody concerned in a particular curiosity of ours is inflicting hurt.
A few weeks in the past, I used to be instructed, in confidence, some fairly heartbreaking details about a musician that I beloved. Later that day, I noticed that I had one in all their songs caught in my head whereas I used to be within the bathe. My knee-jerk response was to beat myself up. How dare I be pondering of that track proper now! Didn’t I care about victims in any respect?
However I wasn’t a monster. I used to be simply an autistic one who had beloved an artist for many years and identified an unpleasant fact about them for a tiny fraction of that point. It’s going to take me some time to recalibrate and work out if and the way I can method their work sooner or later.
This doesn’t imply that we must always blithely and indefinitely ignore any info that makes us really feel uncomfortable about our particular pursuits. However I believe it’s OK if we give ourselves a bit of additional time and area to determine these items out.
2. Make a bit of graveyard or purgatory
When a particular curiosity turns problematic, we don’t simply have to determine what to do about our curiosity itself, but additionally what to do with the stuff we’ve acquired on account of our curiosity. In the event you’re the sort of autistic one who will get very hooked up to inanimate objects, this implies you’re additionally determining if it’s important to half with bodily gadgets that you’ve a deep emotional connection to, one which may transcend what these objects initially represented to you.
In the event you’re the sort of one who feels freer if you purge every little thing, that’s nice. Go forth and unburden your self! In the event you’re like me and you may’t, that’s OK, too. A compromise that I’ve discovered useful is to ascertain a bit of area for stuff that I can’t love the identical means I used to however can’t bear to half with, both.
I haven’t listened to The Posies since allegations of sexual misconduct towards frontman Ken Stringfellow got here to mild in 2021. However I’ve not been capable of say goodbye to my CD copy of their 1996 album, Superb Shame. That bodily object and I’ve been by a lot collectively over the previous three many years. Even when I can’t connect with what’s on it anymore, I can’t toss it. So I made a bit of area for it away from different music.
3. Comply with the splinter pursuits
Splinter pursuits and aspect quests are a few of my favorite components of getting a particular curiosity. I really like when my intense fascination with one matter opens my eyes to different issues I by no means would have thought-about earlier than. I used to be by no means that a lot of a bug individual till I obtained actually into professional wrestling. Then I realized that my favorite wrestler breeds beetles, and I began to get extra interested in these species. Now I understand how to pin and body insect specimens.
Along with opening up new worlds and sparking new fascinations, aspect quests also can come in useful when one thing about your major curiosity goes mistaken. In the event you can’t work together with the first supply of your fascination in the identical means anymore, you may have the ability to redirect a few of that keenness to different components, or to different issues that curiosity launched you to.
In the event you’re actually fortunate, there may really be different artists concerned in your major particular curiosity you can comply with, exterior of what they’ve finished with the problematic half. I used to be capable of shift my curiosity within the band The Smiths to guitarist Johnny Marr, after their singer Morrissey turned monstrous.
4. Take a meta method
I don’t advocate this one when you’re in want of consolation out of your particular curiosity. However when you’re in a extra analytical temper, it may be intriguing.
In the event you can’t take pleasure in a particular curiosity itself in the identical means, typically it’s beneficial to take a step again and be taught extra about different folks’s views on it. It may not be as enjoyable as with the ability to dive right into a consolation film with no different issues, however it may be much less jarring and upsetting than having to desert it fully. And these new views will be fascinating and illuminating in their very own methods.
When folks began to select up on affiliations between a musician I loved and The Proud Boys, I began studying articles that broke down how sure themes had at all times been obvious in that musician’s work. Whereas the studying wasn’t as a lot enjoyable as a propulsive three minute rock track, I did be taught a good quantity about myself, and the way I’d approached every little thing from irony in music to separating the artwork from the artist, from that train.
5. See what the opposite communities within the fandom are as much as
One of many many nice issues about an engaged and inventive fandom is that you just nonetheless have one another, and what you’ve constructed collectively, even when the preliminary spark turns problematic. You can too flip to one another to determine the place to go subsequent. I may not be a lot of a wizard fan basically, however even I discovered this “J.Ok. Rowling sucks, what now” dialogue between die arduous Harry Potter followers and creatives from the Our Opinions Are Appropriate podcast instructional and heartening.
In the event you can’t love the artwork itself in the identical means anymore, you may nonetheless have the ability to discover one thing within the fan fiction, vital evaluation, and group it initially impressed.