I don't really do hobbies. I do obsessions.
Writing fiction. Designing games. Photography. Diving, which got so far under my skin that I ended up building a dive operation in Indonesia. Each one arrived like a freight train, took over my head for months or years, and gave me something nothing else did: a few hours where the noise stopped.
So, can hobbies improve your mental health? Yes. I'd go further and say that for a lot of autistic people, special interests are the regulation system. That's my opinion, not a clinical finding, but the Autistic Self Advocacy Network describes the strong interests "other people don't understand or seem to care about" as part of being autistic, not a bug to fix. There's a catch, though, and I'll get to it, because the catch has cost me a lot.
Can hobbies actually improve mental health?
The boring, official version: when you're depressed, the World Health Organization suggests trying to keep doing the activities you used to enjoy. That's in their self-care advice next to exercise, regular sleep and staying connected to people. Not glamorous. Pretty solid.
Here's my version. When I'm deep in something, my anxiety goes quiet. Not gone. Quiet. The part of my brain that usually scans every room for threats gets busy with how light hits water, or whether a game mechanic is broken, or why a character would never say that line. It's the only time I don't feel like I'm performing.
Hobbies hand you something therapy has a hard time giving directly: a small win you can actually see. On a bad week, a finished photo or a page of a story is proof my brain still works.
What is a special interest, and why does it matter for autistic adults?
A special interest is a hobby with the dial turned to eleven. You don't just like photography. You read about lens coatings at midnight. You don't just dive. You learn the names of every nudibranch in the bay and get annoyed when people call them sea slugs.
For fifty years I thought this was one more thing that made me weird. People said "you're so passionate" in the tone you'd use for a guy who collects bottle caps. After the autism diagnosis I started looking at it differently. The interests weren't a distraction from my life. In some stretches they were what kept me going.
They're also a calming tool. When the world is too loud, going back to the thing you know inside out is a bit like coming home and locking the door.
The catch: boom, then crash
This is the warning label.
I start things with huge energy, then I crash. Every single time. A new interest shows up, I sleep four hours a night because I'm too lit up to stop, I buy the gear, I tell everyone, I build the thing. Then a few months later the fuel runs out, the shame shows up, and the half-finished project sits in the corner looking at me.
I wrote more about that pattern in boom, then crash and hyperfocus, then the crash. The short version is that a special interest can be medicine and gasoline at the same time. If you're autistic and you've ever ended up in burnout, look at what you were obsessed with right before it.
What helps me now:
- A hard stop. A timer, or a rule that I stop when the light goes. I don't always obey it.
- Eating and sleeping first. Sounds stupid. When I'm hooked, I forget both.
- Letting things be unfinished. An abandoned project isn't a moral failure. Some interests are seasonal. Mine certainly are.
- Telling someone when I'm in the boom. If Sandra, my partner, says I've been at it for nine days straight, she's probably right.
When a hobby is hiding something
There's a version of this that isn't healthy, and I've lived it.
Sometimes I go into a project because it's good for me. Sometimes I go into it because it's a place nobody can reach me, including my partner. Same activity, different reason. From outside you can't tell. From inside I usually can, if I'm honest, and honesty is not my strongest sport.
A rough test I use: after a few hours on the thing, do I feel more like myself or less? Am I coming back to the people in my life with more to give, or am I avoiding a conversation? If it's the second one for weeks in a row, the hobby has become a hiding place. You don't have to quit it. You might want to talk to someone, though.
Same goes for anything that starts eating your money, your sleep or your relationships. Gaming, gambling, shopping for gear you'll never use. A passion with no brakes can turn into a compulsion, and those are worth getting help for.
What makes a hobby work as medicine?
The ones that help me most use my hands and leave something behind I can look at. Bonus points if they get me outside, which, given how much I avoid going out, is saying something.
If you want something small and cheap to start with, a colouring book for adults works better than it sounds. A page, some pencils, twenty minutes. No skill, nothing to win, and if it goes well, a quieter head.
The La Petite Nation Colouring Book
Robert Scales
My take. Yes, it's mine. Twenty-eight animals you can actually find around here, from the beaver to the lynx, a bilingual page on each, then a full page to colour. Made for slowing down.
Good to know. Full disclosure: I wrote it, so I earn from it twice. Square 8.5 x 8.5 paperback, French and English in the same book.
Photography is another easy door. Any camera works, including the phone. Walk somewhere, take pictures of one thing, a colour or a shape. It forces you to look instead of think, which is the whole point.