Does anyone have a term for "special interest" that maybe feels less... demeaning? While also still conveying that they are special?

Or perhaps this is an internalization of "special" as a bad thing and the term is worth reclaiming? I dunno I'm conflicted on the whole thing.

@hoppet tbh i just say interest. No need to pathologize or other my interests just because it happens to be an autistic person having them. Yes, the interests and how I think about them are different than how allistic people think about them, but the way I as an autistic person think and process everything is different, because I'm autistic.

Though this is just my personal view and others may see it differently and the way they're autism is may make it qualify as its own category, idk

@julia yeah for some reason i feel the need to distinguish them. maybe it's an identity thing or something? who knows, brains are weird

@hoppet @julia to be fair i also like distinguishing them

@FirstProgenitor @hoppet @julia I distinguish interests and special interests because they're different to me, especially since I have plenty of interests that aren't special interests lol. That whole "restrictive" thing isn't actually how it works for me, I have way too many interests, I just get obsessed with some of them

@CatEntity @FirstProgenitor @hoppet it's hard for me to tell the difference tbh (if there even is a distinct one for me idk)