Special Interests

Past, present, and the ones you didn't let yourself have.

The textbook example of an autistic special interest is a boy memorizing train timetables. The lived reality for autistic women is often very different: psychology, true crime, fictional worlds, animals, certain musicians, religion, languages, the human body, particular eras of history, one specific celebrity, the rules of a sport. Many autistic women have been told their interests were too much, obsessive, or weird for a girl, and have learned to hide them. This worksheet is a permission slip.

What special interests actually are

• A nervous-system regulator. Time spent in your interest lowers cortisol, organizes attention, and restores energy. It's not optional self-care; it's structural.
• A primary identity feature. You are partly built out of what you've loved deeply.
• A site of joy. Often the only kind of joy that feels uncomplicated for autistic people. That's worth protecting.

Why yours might be hidden

• Gendered shame. Too intense for a girl gets internalized early. Many women learned to scale interests down to what was socially palatable.
• Surface-level mimicry. Female autistic interests often look like normal-girl interests on the outside (a band, an actor, a book series). Under the surface, the depth is autistic. That mismatch can lead to hiding the depth.
• The self as special interest. Some women have spent years studying themselves, trying to fit in. That counts — and may be ready to retire.

Who this is for

• Women who have been told they're obsessed with something.
• Women who can't quite remember what they used to love.
• Women whose hyperfixations get interrupted by life and never come back.

What this is not

• A productivity tool. Interests don't owe you a side hustle, a portfolio, or a TED talk.
• A ranking exercise. There's no better interest. The brain that wants what it wants is doing its job.

A gentle note: If your strongest current interest involves restriction, danger, a specific person, or anything that's becoming harmful to you, that's worth sharing with a therapist. Special interests can occasionally drift into compulsion. Most don't — and most deserve more space, not less.

Inventory

Across the life of you. Trace the through-line.

Your special interests are not a hobby list. They're a record of what your brain has reached for, again and again, when it had a choice. Some you got to keep. Some got hidden, mocked, or pruned. Walk back through and write down what comes up — a few words per cell is plenty.

Childhood (before 12) — what you'd happily talk about for an hour

• The Interest: ____________________
• What it gave me: ____________________
• Why I kept it / lost it: ____________________

Teen years — what you went deep on — even if you hid it

• The Interest: ____________________
• What it gave me: ____________________
• Why I kept it / lost it: ____________________

Early adulthood — what you returned to between life events

• The Interest: ____________________
• What it gave me: ____________________
• Why I kept it / lost it: ____________________

Now — what lights you up this week

• The Interest: ____________________
• What it gave me: ____________________
• Why I kept it / lost it: ____________________

The list of not allowed — what you wanted but talked yourself out of

• The Interest: ____________________
• What it gave me: ____________________
• Why I kept it / lost it: ____________________

Permission

Give one back to yourself. Give yourself one back.

Pick three interests — from any column, any era — you want to give yourself permission to spend time on. The goal isn't to be productive with them. The goal is regulation, joy, and identity. You don't have to monetize a single one.

What allowed looks like in real life

• Three books on the same topic without explaining yourself.
• Going down the rabbit hole on Wikipedia for two hours, no apologies.
• Buying the niche thing without justifying the purchase.
• Talking about it with someone who actually wants to hear.
• Being a beginner in public without being a beginner who is performing.

1 — An interest I want to spend more time on

What the interest is

______________________________________________

What gets in the way

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

One small first step

______________________________________________

When I'll take that step

e.g. e.g. Tuesday at 2pm

______________________________________________

2 — An interest I want to bring out of hiding

What the interest is

______________________________________________

What gets in the way

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

One small first step

______________________________________________

When I'll take that step

e.g. e.g. Tuesday at 2pm

______________________________________________

3 — An interest I'd like to try — even if I'd be terrible at it

What the interest is

______________________________________________

What gets in the way

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

One small first step

______________________________________________

When I'll take that step

e.g. e.g. Tuesday at 2pm

______________________________________________

After

What shifted. Notice what shifted.

After you've sat with this worksheet, return to these questions. Honest answers are more useful than tidy ones. You can come back and write more later — leave space.

1 — Which interest has been with you longest?

The one that keeps coming back across decades is telling you something about who you are. What's it been trying to tell you?

Your reflection

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

2 — Which one did you hide — and from whom?

Naming the audience that asked you to scale down is part of being able to scale back up.

Your reflection

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

3 — If you stopped studying yourself for a year, what would you study instead?

Many autistic women have spent so long being their own special interest that they've forgotten the rest of their list. What's been waiting?

Your reflection

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

4 — What's one tiny ritual that lets your interest into your week?

Twenty minutes on a Tuesday. The first podcast on the commute. A tab that stays open. Repetition over intensity.

Your reflection

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

The interest was never the problem: Interests you were told to hide were often the ones holding you up. Give at least one of them room this month, without justifying it.

Go deeper

Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.

• Monotropism and Deep Interests, from The Autistic Woman. Why autistic women's deep interests get missed, and how to reclaim them.
• The Monotropic Mind, from The Neurodivergent Brain. Monotropism explained: attention tunnels, autistic inertia, deep interests, and overload — rooted in Wenn Lawson's work.
• Unmasking, Safely, from The Autistic Woman. Unmasking isn't all-or-nothing or always safe — a neuroaffirming guide for autistic women: the dimmer not the switch, safety mapping, and grief.