Early fixtures

Special and possibly, strange interests are inherited in a person with asperger's syndrome. Whilst a normal person may have interests in many fields, unfixed, an asperger's only has a few and very intense.

For example, I used to be fixed with barber poles. You know what I'm talking about; those rotating poles with a neon light at salons and barber shops. I used to be fascinated with them, curious of why the spiraling stripes moved. Why would they? Obviously, an optical illusion, which I knew nothing about back then. Today, I no longer have interest in them. In fact, I find them useless. What's the point of them? Why would you waste electricity and space with a rotating pole? Why can't you just have the sign on top that says "Salon" on it?! Isn't that enough?!

My fixtures have changed over the years, from barber poles, to names of bridges all over Thailand, airplanes & helicopters, trains, etc.... A book about Asperger's explained that a majority of Asperger's syndrome people have fixtures in vehicles for somewhat reason. I later on changed to cars in 8th grade, when my parents wanted to change our family car. Well, the brake started to fail, so a new car was to be done. And my fixture in car names and stuff arose, and lasts until today, however, sailplanes won it out. I'm not so interested in cars as much as before(but I try to since I have to get my own soon).

With my fixture of sailplanes now, I have the desire to study more about them, the models, the specs/performance, even down to air traffic in commercial aviation. I try to talk to radio on FSX, and understand about commands and all that stuff. I'm even going into meteorology!

Often, Aspergers become involved that normal everyday things like chores and stuff will be a pain. It is rare that I'll have the hype to wash the dishes(eventhough it's my main chore) or mop the floor. I prefer to look up and stare at pictures of sailplanes on the internet. My mom was annoyed of that. So, as an alternative, I think about flying in one whenever I wash the dishes, to keep me from getting bored. My imagination then stretched on and became stronger as the years passed.

I called for help, I went and explained on wrongplanet.com about it, and I finally realized that it wasn't sailplanes that my mother was irritated about, it's more of me staying in front of the computer screen and staring at pictures and watching videos about sailplanes. And the person recommended me to try a more concrete alternative. Build a kit model or locate an enthusist's group. So far, I have been trying to spend more time trying to find an RC glider to fly, and to allow that concrete activity to takeover and engage.


It also interferred with my university life. Whilst my friends were more interested in fashion and soccer and manga, I was more interested in beautiful, sleek, white, engineless aircraft. I struggled to study, even with Ritalin. But managed to get a 3.0 in the end. Not too bad. But sometimes, in art projects, I engaged sailplanes to help. In the screenplay class, I wrote a story about a heartbroken man who gets engaged to the sport. It helped a lot to engage my interests in such subjects. Still, I hated going to school.


So far as things go, I managed to talk to some glider pilots on Youtube & Aviationbanter, talking about what I like. It helped a lot sharing experiences with real pilots. Sometimes, special interests can help with social skills too!