"Obsession"

My friends try and talk to me about the new Mercedes, or something. I don't know. I've never been interested in cars, or the automobile industry. 

Actually, that's a lie. The production of the Model T at the turn of the twentieth century reshaped American cultural sensibilities. We have a false impression of a dull, black or grey, standardised car rolling off the factory line in 1910s America, but we owe that to monochrome TV. They were actually mass-produced in gaudy colours that would come to define collective American taste. From advertising, to penny literature, to other colourful material affects, the American cultural landscape, possibly to this day, owes itself to Henry Ford and the motor industry. I'm professionally trained as an American historian, so I have to be interested in that. As far as my friends talking about the shape of a new Japanese car - the incurvation of its rear end; the hum of its V8 that enters my body through every orifice and stings the pit of my stomach, like some unwelcome viper; the "paint job" on a passing sports car - I can't even bring myself to lie. I am just constitutionally prevented from doing so. The most I have to offer is a low smile, perhaps a grunt, a codified plea to never try and engage me on this topic again.

But this is just one piece of a larger jigsaw that I find frustrating, upsetting and ostracising. When autistic people are discussed, in either a popular or medical context, we are considered to have "obsessive interests," or "repetitive behaviours... sometimes for fun, sometimes to help deal with our anxiety." I suppose my "obsessive" interest is literature, historical or otherwise. I undoubtedly use literature, and even physical books, as a comfort blanket. Not in a typical, escapist sense either. Reading about socio-economic strife in The Grapes of Wrath, or racial injustice in The Color Purple, or complete and total estrangement in Nausea, makes you feel less alone; you somehow feel less "thrown" into an indifferent world. One of my "autistic traits" is taking a book with me everywhere I go. Oftentimes I won't open the book. I'll clutch it, thumbing at its pages, as doctors or dentists ask me what the problem is. I use it as a paladin would use a shield against some fallen sorceror trying to harness holy light for dark ends. When I drive, I ensure the book is in the safe hands of my girlfriend. For if any harm came to it, that would pry open my protective layer. 

But I want to break this down. Is having an "obsessive" interest in books: a) so different from neurotypical interests, such as being completely beset by cars, or b) actually a misnomer? By what standards are we measuring something to be "obsessive"? Or is this a medicalising and/or detaching term, used to perpetuate our feelings of difference and alienation, both from within our communities and without?

I don't think cars are particularly fun. I'm not especially hot on driving, for I overreact to the most minor of infractions and my entire sense of worldly order starts to collapse. And then the existential anger and dismay kicks in. Cars are loud, nasty, and they have an explosive impact on my senses, as discussed in my second blog post. Needless to say, then, they do not help deal with autism-induced anxiety. 

But what hurts the most is that people who can, for hours on end, discuss the most minor of alterations to a gearbox, or compare tyre types, or dissect with medical precision the history of a model of car, are rewarded with TV shows (Top Gear; The Grand Tour), magazines, books and a form of social and cultural capital, used as currency to trade with other 'blokey blokes' to garner rapport and make friends. I was once called "gay" for liking books. Needless to say, homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of. But the flippant venom with which the insult was directed at me has stayed with me. If liking books to assuage social anxiety is "gay," then liking cars is downright neurotic.

I know that's unfair. But to me, cars are probably the material and cultural product that embodies rampant capitalism, consumerism and a kind of abstract commodity fetishism the most. Comparing the curvature of the side of a sports car to previous models seems, to me, worthy of the "obsession" label. "Obsessive" is not using literature as a means to connect to reality and position myself within something larger: society, a movement, or an institution. This is why I feel like the trait possibly most associated with autism, obsessive interests, is unfair. My ASD diagnostic report reads: "conversations are often on his own topics or interests"; "Jake is reported to have definite circumscribed interests... everything that Jake does is done with a high level of intensity"; "he would sooner research about [social settings or interests] than say something that would be considered inappropriate"; "a lot of his conversations also head towards history." 

But aren't our interests just mere components of our personality? Despite the intensity with which you carry out your interests, or how long it takes you to fully equip yourself with the comfort to talk about your interests, or wherever your conversations naturally head, are you fully you without some tangible connection to your interests? And do you feel as though people respect you for who you are if they aren't aware of most complementary parts of you? I can't answer those questions on your behalf. But to me, an "obsession" is an ambivalent and impersonal way of describing a part of who you are. And for neurotypical people, that doesn't seem to be called into question very often.

Here's where I may lose some right-wing readers: I am part of the Marxist Society at university. Because of my social anxiety/inappropriateness/just downright aversion, I don't go and rally, or protest, with the Society at all. But these people aren't described as "obsessives." Of course, from certain publications, they may get called something a tad bit nastier. But the neurological reasons for which they go and protest are, to most, self-evident. They aren't "obessed," they are endowed with a moral reason to go and challenge austerity, or whatever else they object to, every week. Similarly, right-wing thugs that went to "protest" in London last weekend were not labelled "obsessive" to any particular ends. 

Because some autistic people are selectively mute, or totally non-verbal, their interests become somewhat defining. It is tempting to describe them as "obsessed" by selective and special interests. But they demonstrate similar levels of intensity and circumscription to neurotypical people. Though because we have established that they, in society's or any other collective's or institution's eyes, are autistic first and a functioning, useful human second, it is seemingly canon to prescribe that they must be interested in something to an unnatural or unorthodox level. 

To be "obsessed" is to be, according to the OED, occupied with something to a "troubling extent." But as we have ascertained, both autistic and neurotypical people use interests and quirks: a) for fun, and b) to assuage social or existential anxiety. That's not obsessive. And to imply something that is foundational to you as a person is "troubling," is to suggest there is a yardstick to measure whether or not somebody is fully human, or functional, or useful. As we have seen throughout history, that is a slippery slope that slides down towards racial science and eugenics. We need to be careful about our language. Because if liking books is "gay," and somebody's interest in, for example, Polish trains of the 1970s is "obsessive," then what is acceptable? And to whom?