Special interest

When I was thinking what could be my special interest 10-15 years ago, the answer seemed obvious - psychology, cosmology, consciousness, neurotransmitters. However, when I was finally on my way to getting diagnosed, I wasn’t so sure anymore. I feel that it’s not that intense, not that deep. I don’t even read on those topics that often anymore. It doesn’t feel like a special interest. Do I really have any special interest?

I was doubting myself until it finally clicked for me. It’s all about my definition of interest. For me, interest is something I am interested in - something I like to read about or learn about. And I completely separate that from a hobby, which is something I like to do. Art journaling and trying out different art techniques are my hobbies. I still learn about it from time to time, but I don’t feel the pleasure in learning about it - I only do that to learn new techniques or improve my skills. So it’s not an interest. However, when it comes to the autistic special interest, there is no such strict separation of definitions.

Art stuff really makes sense as my special interest. I have an enormous amount of art supplies, and I could probably open a shop. There is a joke in art groups that buying art supplies and doing something with them are two separate hobbies. Sometimes I feel that way because I indeed wasn’t doing much with my supplies for some time. I also had to overcome the reluctance to use the “good” supplies. But now I do at least a small art journal page daily, and I am not afraid to use even the most beautiful supplies.

I believe it all started with pens. My mom was bringing a lot of pens from school from her students when she was a teacher. And I liked trying out different pens and improving my handwriting. I really enjoyed the process of writing by hand. That’s how I started writing letters. Then I also became obsessed with letter pads. I was buying all letter pads I could find in Lithuanian physical shops, and later I was also buying some online (but not all that I could find!). I have quite a collection of “Nieko rimto” letter pads. I don’t know if I have all of them, because at some point I stopped following their new releases, but I have around 40 different design letter pads.

At some point, I found out about such things as washi tapes and I became obsessed with them. I bought everything I could find in physical shops (luckily, Lithuania didn’t have many of them), and later I also added to my collection from online shops with the designs I found the most beautiful. I became interested in card making. I have to mention, I always made handmade cards for my mom for various occasions. I used to draw them (and I’m not very good at drawing, my skills remained somewhere of a 6-year-old), but now I've found other ways to decorate them. Washi tapes, special paper, acrylic stamps, and die cutting. I became very interested in scrapbooking, but never really wanted to do it with photos. I still have an album I bought maybe 10 years ago, and was thinking of doing one with photos, but it’s still empty. Maybe I’ll use it for art journaling. Or maybe I will eventually make a travel scrapbook out of it.

Eventually, somehow, maybe 2 years ago, I came across these videos with stickers and papers. Something similar to scrapbooking, but without photos. Some call it junk journaling, but it’s not exactly that because it’s not with junk (but I enjoy junk journaling as well). I call it art journaling, even though it has a broader meaning. I saw it being called sticker journaling, but I rarely come across this term. So, of course, I ended up buying a ton of stickers. But I think I finally found my thing. Something I always wanted to do, but I didn’t know it existed. It actually stuck with me (pun not intended).

Besides that, I also enjoy trying out different art techniques. And art journaling is amazing in that you can do that. Sometimes I use stamps. I also enjoy carving stamps. I even tried a paste with some stencils. I also enjoy decoupage, but I didn’t do it in journals much. And recently I found out about gelli printing, and I would very much like to try that technique. I was also obsessed with alcohol-based markers, and I still sometimes use them for coloring. Also, acrylic markers, but so far, I haven’t found how I can use them the best. I was obsessed with brush lettering, and I was attending a calligraphy course. So this whole art stuff is clearly my special interest, even though I never considered it an “interest”. But if you have an abnormal amount of something, that’s probably your special interest.