language and autism

5/25/22

prefacing this with saying that i am an autistic person, and these are my personal feelings! i'm not saying this isn't an end all opinion, although i do feel it should be considered :)

the term "hyperfixation" has gained a lot of popularity in recent times. and with popularity, especially for terms regarding mental illness and associated, comes a lot of misuse and misunderstanding of the terms meaning. (see: the also somewhat recent popularity of terms like "gaslighting", "trauma response", etc.)

for me, hyperfixation is an experience that's often less than 6 months and is extremely intense. it involves thinking about the subject/person almost 24/7, and easily getting lost and looking at/researching it/talking about it for hours without realizing. the desire to engage in the subject often takes priority over everything else, including responsibilities and basic care tasks. (despite how intense this sounds, i find it very fun and a generally positive, if sometimes inconvenient, experience.)

however, my purpose in writing this isn't to critique how people may misuse "hyperfixation" in a general sense, that's not an unknown subject and could likely be found easily somewhere else. my thoughts today are specifically non-autistic people using hyperfixation to describe what an autistic person describes as a special interest.

for me, hyperfixation and special interest are often hand in hand! the main difference being that when my hyperfixation runs out, my total interest in the subject also often runs out. for special interests, the interest can endure for months, years, etc after the initial hyperfixation energy has burned out. it's still something i enjoy on a deep level and care a lot about, but i no longer feel the urge to engage with it every moment i can. it's not always this clear cut, for sure! but as a general rule, i consider hyperfixations as intense, short bursts of interest, and special interests as longer and varying in intensity.

NOW, after all that buildup LOL. i personally feel quite uncomfortable when i refer to something as my special interest, and it gets referred to as a hyperfixation, unless i have Also used that term for the subject. for me, special interest is a term that carries a lot of weight. not only is it an undeniably autistic term, it's also often used in an infantilizing way by usually neurotypicals, or people who are ignorant of like... actual autistic people, and not just stereotypes, which can make using the term feel a bit risky. for me, to use special interest *specifically* is acknowledging that weight, but using it anyway because it's my truth!

as a contrast, hyperfixation can be something that a broader range of people can experience. it's still a fairly exclusive term, but it's not exclusive to one group (? from what i've observed, i could be wrong here since ADHD and autism are often comorbid.) i myself have used it as a kind of catch-all when referring to something that is present in hyperfixation and special interests, or when referring to a not autism exclusive crowd. i've even used it when i really mean special interest, either to keep my personal details more ambigious (a.k.a. that i have autism), or out of personal discomfort with the term. (almost always has to do with the weight of it as previously described, special interest is a Good term, i just don't always feel confident in other peoples view/useage of it.)

my personal feelings are that when an autistic person uses "special interest", and the other person refers to it as "hyperfixation" anyway, unless both terms are used by the autistic person on the subject, it feels a lot like their autistic identity that's inherent in "special interest" is being ignored/watered down. especially with the popularity of "hyperfixation", even though it's not often actually understood and therefor isn't actually more accepted, it feels like it on the surface level! translating what is a specific and often personal experience into something more palateable and understandable to the general public by choice of language is off-putting to me at best. if i say something is my special interest, that's what it is. for me, my autism always comes first in my identity regarding brain stuff.

i don't really think it's ever malicious, more just a misunderstanding that there's a difference between the two terms. or even with an understanding, just confusion or a personal view guiding their language, and etc. i also don't think this dstinction bothers all autistic people, or even the majority, really! if so, i haven't seen anything about it. but i do think it's nice to be mindful and understand the differences and experiences behind both terms, and how language used may affect different people. as a general rule, i think it'd be best to just follow suit of the autistic person. see what they use to describe their interests, and reply accordingly.

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