Feeling personally hurt when trying to share interests with people and they don't like or care about it

General Discussion/Question

I'm struggling a bit right now with feeling rejected/hurt after trying to open up about one of my recent hyperfixations with my family only for them to not show any interest in it at all, so I wanted to see if this is something other people can relate to and perhaps share their own experiences and advice on how to work through these feelings.

I've always had an extremely hard time talking about my interests with other people. I was never quite sure why I was like this, especially since a common autistic trait is info dumping. However, this past week or so I feel like I’ve uncovered a bit of repressed trauma that provides some clarity regarding this.

I recently discovered Epic the Musical, and I pretty much immediately knew after hearing just the first few bars of the first song that I would absolutely love it. Sure enough, since then, I've been going through the usual obsessive consumption of everything to do with a new special interest that I'm sure most of you can relate to.

Now, normally I just go through these periods of obsession alone since I automatically assume that people around me won't care about whatever I'm interested in, but because this happened to coincide with Nolan’s Odyssey film coming out, I guess I felt like this interest was safe enough to share with two of my younger siblings since it felt a bit more "trendy" or whatever to have an interest in something related to the Odyssey. But after telling them about it and giving them a few days to at least try to watch/listen to some of it, neither of them has shown any interest, which has created a surprisingly sharp feeling of hurt.

Obviously I realize that not everyone will share my interests, but for people I care about to seemingly not even try to engage with something I’ve specifically told them I really love has felt really personal, as if they were rejecting me. I know in my head that this isn’t actually how it is and that my siblings aren’t intentionally trying to be hurtful. But I think because of how I tend to connect my sense of identity with my interests it emotionally feels way more personal than what the average person would experience.

Anyway, this whole thing has felt a bit like of epiphany on why I feel like I can’t share my interests with other people even though I’d like nothing more than to gush over things with someone else and share that excitement. Growing up my older sister would frequently bully me by making fun of the things I liked, and this past week has made me realize that I might have repressed some of my memories about that trauma and only kept the behavior of not sharing my interests without fully realizing why. I’d like to somehow get over this so I can be more open with people, but I’m not sure how to disconnect the feeling that comes from someone rejecting something I’m interested in from feeling like they’re rejecting me.

Does anyone else relate to this? Do you have any tips on how to work through these kinds of feelings and to stop being afraid of opening up to people?

Posted Aug 12, 2026, 3:34 AM UTC

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