Glimmers and Spins

One of my favourite things about my autism is the sheer joy I experience when I come across something that interests or excites me. It could be a song, a book, a tv show or something more simple and sensory, like the feeling of going barefoot on grass, or the smell of the earth just after it rains. Sometimes it can be a result of doing something I love, something that is an intense or special interest (SpIn).


We call these little joys 'Glimmers'. 

gold sparkles on a dark background

For me, a great source of joy has recently been seeing my daughter discover a love for one of my Spins, Doctor Who (NuWho - 2005 onwards). It's been really fun watching her watching episodes for the first time that I have seen so many times before. Hearing her laughing at the jokes, quoting her favourite lines from the show, and having so many conversations with her about things she has found on various Wikis makes me so happy. It's interesting to see how even though we have an interest in common, the way that this expresses in each of us is very different. I am happy to simply enjoy watching whatever episode matches my mood, and to make craft projects on Doctor Who themes, especially figures from the crochet book I had for my birthday last year. My daughter, however, has a great love for researching and taking a deep dive into any or all of the information she can find online about her current interests. I've learned more specific information about NuWho in the last few months than I have in the previous 21 years of watching it!

Enjoying hobbies versus Spins

I've tried to explain this disctinction before to family members, and their response was: "Isn't that just called 'enjoying a hobby' though?" It's hard for me to articulate, but I will try...

It's the feeling that your brain has latched onto something and isn't willing to let it go. It's the difference between happiness and joy, between feeling content to re-watch something you like because of its familiarity and being excited to watch it again because you love spending time with those characters and that story in that place.  It's the difference between reading about something you're interested in and saying "hmm, I never knew that," and feeling so excited about learning a new thing that you have to share it with others and talk about it at length (and possibly do a load more reading about it and all the other things related to it that you can lay your hands on). 

A good test in our home of whether or not something is a Spin is to see what happens on a day off when all three of us are together. If we are sitting in the lounge, parallel playing and each narrating or otherwise talking through the thing we are doing, but the conversation is on three different topics at once, then we are probably all enjoying Spins at the same time!

Something can start off as a hobby and turn into a Spin, or vice versa. It isn't clear cut as to how it happens. Sometimes my brain will latch onto something and it will turn into a Spin without me intending it to - like how I have been watching the political situation in the USA changing over the last year or so, and following it with some sense of watching a car crash in slow motion. I realised that it had accidentally turned into a Spin, even though I would not generally consider myself to be interested in politics. It's quite hard to release myself from this interest, even though at times I can see that it isn't good for me.

As a side note, the diagnostic criteria used for autism is really unhelpful when it looks at Spins. It talks about Intense or Abnormal interests, and totally ignores how fulfilling and joyful they can be. It also doesn't help that the examples used are things like trains, timetables and other traditionally 'male' interests. This often leads to assessors (including the one I saw on the NHS) concluding that the women they assess aren't autistic because their interests aren't 'unusual enough' - without looking at the intensity, the knowledge or the awareness that we sometimes develop that we may not be able to share our interests with everyone around us. My interests growing up were very intense but not easy to spot. I had a vast cassette collection, mostly recorded from my local radio station but also from other people's copies of albums I wanted. I think in the end there were over 100 cassettes. I didn't read teen magazines or put posters up, but I did have a book which I used to list every song on every cassette , with symbols for extra information such as whether it was the entire song, whether it was a bit fuzzy sounding, whether it was on an album I wanted, or whether it was an absolute favourite song. I then also had a catalogue which listed everything in my entire collection by artist, and by song title, so that if I had a particular song I wanted to listen to, I could find it instantly by looking it up. I also had my bookcase ordered in alphabetical order by author. I set myself a project one summer to write all about the Solar System, and wrote it all up in a folder. Yes, they were hobbies, to start with, but they soon became Spins which lasted for years. Now the tape collection has been superseded by my Spotify account, which contains many (though frustratingly not all) of the songs I used to enjoy when I had the crates of cassettes under my bed as a teenager.

My current Spins

I would say that my current Spins are: Doctor Who (NuWho), crochet (especially making Doctor Who characters!), my plants (on my balcony and house plants), Sudoku puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, and painting watercolours. I also love planning holidays and trips away.

I also have hobbies - photography, reading, baking cakes, cooking, watching detective shows, etc, but they don't bring me the level of joy that my Spins do.


So what about Glimmers then?

Glimmers are the little things that make you happy. Here are some of mine:

Sensory glimmers

Being barefoot, especially on grass or soft carpet.
The feeling of fur on my palms - e.g. soft toy or fluffy pompom.
The feeling of being in a swimming pool (not actually swimming, but swishing my limbs under the water)
Seeing the sunlight glinting through the trees in the woods
The smell of the woods
The smell of rain
The sound of birdsong

Other glimmers

Watching my favourite shows or films (e.g. Doctor Who - Partners in Crime)
Listening to my favourite music very loudly in the car or the kitchen (I'm usually alone for this one!) and singing along at the top of my voice.
Putting on my favourite jumper and fluffy socks when the weather is even remotely cool enough
Playing Minecraft with my daughter

There are so many others, but these are just a few examples. Glimmers and Spins. Better than their counterparts, Icks and Boring Routine Tasks!






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