Dealing with Lack of Emotion

[MrMagpie]

To begin with, an introduction. I am a 23-year-old recent college graduate currently gainfully employed at a local Walmart to keep the school loan collectors from taking me to court for non-payment. I was recently and tentatively diagnosed by my therapist as having a case of highly functioning Asperger's Syndrome.

The diagnosis doesn't bother me one way or the other. My younger brother is also on the autism spectrum. Truthfully, I would rather have some answer to my ongoing issues than no answer at all. A diagnosis, at least, means I now have a spring board towards some form of treatment.

My primary issue is simply a lack of empathy for other people. I've always seen myself as the calm center the rest of the world rotates around. I was fine; Everyone else was the emotional wreck. I find it impossible to relate to events in any other way but logically, even in cases where I know I should have some sort of emotional response.

For example, a few weeks ago I was forced through a series of unfortunate circumstances to reunite with my Father, whom I had not seen or spoken to in 5 years. He lives in the same town as my family, but being Bipolar-with-Schizophrenic-tendencies, he had never attempted to contact us, and I had never seen the point of doing so myself.

Although the social interaction itself was uncomfortable, I enjoyed spending time with my Dad, discussing politics and religion and other topics on which we were both knowledgeable. I explained all of this to my therapist, along with the fact that if I weren't to initiate contact with him again (which I don't plan to), it would be no different than the apathy I show towards, say, inviting my old college friends over to my house for a visit, or going to the movies with my Mother.

I know this complete lack of emotional response can't be right, and I suppose my problem is that I fail to see how I can possibly be taught to internally experience things in a way my brain seems to be wired not to. At the same time, I desperately want to be able to experience a close relationship with another person. The two incidents of attempted dating I have had have all ended with the other girl in tears. Any attempts on their part to engage me in an emotionally or physically intimate way simply annoyed me, and the more they persisted the more dismissive I became towards them. Luckily, in both cases we also managed to remain friends, as friendships are much easier for me to maintain; People say they are drawn to my blunt, sarcastic attitude, and my intelligence, among other things.

Unfortunately, friendship just isn't what I'm looking for, as even those relationships lack any sort of emotional connection on my part. I feel like I end up doing things I don't really want to do in order to maintain relationships I don't really care about simply because I don't want to be alone, and I know that romantic entanglements are something I just haven't been able to figure out.

I suppose I'm wondering if anyone else has felt the way I do? I feel like I've hit a block and I won't be able to comfortably continue with my life until I solve this problem.

 

[142857]

Hi MrMagpie,

Your story really strikes a chord with me. For large segments of my life I simply drifted along feeling almost no emotions at all.

Do you feel like you maybe suppress your emotions as a coping mechanism? Or because they are too painful to deal with? Or do you feel like your emotions are "dull" by nature? To be honest I've gone through phases of considering each of these to be the case, and I've never come up with a satisfactory answer.

I guess that the more time I spent around other people the more in tune I got with my emotions. I did eventually get around to having a girlfriend when I was 36 years old, which kind of threw a spanner into my life plans since I was planning to grow old alone.

One emotion I never developed was jealousy. I just never got why people get jealous, and I probably never will get it. It seems to me to be a destructive and pointless and irrational emotion. But overall I feel like, at 45, I still don't have a full range of emotions. But I'm closer to it than I ever thought I would be.

 

[MrMagpie]

Thanks for your reply, 142857.

Like you, I have gone back and forth with myself trying to figure out my emotional state at any given time. It could be a sort of coping mechanism - my Father was, after all, abusive in all the ways a parent can be for much of my childhood. But even thinking back to my younger days, I recall being very logically minded, not given to crying or throwing fits. I liked to play by myself, and when other children came around to play I would just sort of hang back and study them. I remember being confused by them somehow - I felt like everyone but me was from a different planet.

I know what emotions are, logically, but if you ask me to describe them or how they feel internally I have to formulate a dictionary definition. I can feel guilt, and suspicion, and confusion, and annoyance, and sometimes if you ask me, depending on the situation, I would instead say I was angry or sad or jealous or excited... But the truth is I don't feel any of that internally. I just know from experience that that is how people are supposed to react in that situation.

I suppose I've never realized until recently how horribly shallow my emotions were, or the general lack thereof. And it isn't as if I don't have a lot of friends, or co-workers and family members who all enjoy spending time with me. I just feel like, when it comes to the emotional drive and trust and romance, mimicing others isn't going to work anymore. I know, mentally, what I should do when I'm dating someone, but the effort alone that it takes just leaves me irritable and tired.

It's good to hear that there is hope, though - I too always imagined I would grow old alone. Most of the time I still think I will.

 

[142857]

Hi MrMagpie,

I was just replying to a thread on another forum. In answer to whether I was more like Mr Spock or Data, I said that I was more like Data in that I feel like I entered adulthood like a robot with little or no emotions, and I gradually developed some emotions through observation and interaction with others who do have emotions.

I also had an extremely abusive father (he was most probably a sociopath, the autism came from my mother's side of the family) and I had wondered if being autistic made it possible for me to simply switch off my emotions as a coping mechanism. Then, when you finally get away from the abuse, you have missed out on most of the normal emotional development that a child experiences. And you start to see that you are different from other people. And you start to think "hey, why don't I have any emotions?". Yes, they are there, but they missed out on a heap of development. This is one of my theories for why I am the way I am, and hearing that there is someone like yourself with similar experiences kind of supports that theory.

Solitude probably feels most comfortable for you but it won't help you with emotional development. I lived in big shared houses for about 4 or 5 years - it was stressful but it helped me a lot.

In some ways you might feel like the ideal girl for you would be someone who accepts you the way you are and doesn't expect much emotional engagement. But my first girlfriend loved me passionately for who I was but she wouldn't accept my lack of emotion and my apathy, and she forced me to get in touch with my emotions. She was probably the best thing that could have happened to me, I just wonder how my life would have gone had I had met someone like her 10 years sooner. I had plenty of opportunities to have a girlfriend when I was younger... but I avoided getting into that sort of thing partly out of fear but mostly out of just not knowing what to do.

In some ways in reading your posts and replying I feel like I am talking to a younger version of myself.

Here is a wild guess: people sometimes come to you for advice because they feel like they can trust you, like you won't judge them, and because they see you as logical and thoughtful. And you feel weird when people ask you for advice about romantic issues because you have never had a functional romantic relationship yourself. And yet you give them advice based on logic and common sense and they appreciate that.

Another guess: You sometimes pick up on things well before anyone else. You might see two people together and know by observing them that there is more to the relationship than meets the eye. You may meet someone who everyone else likes and trusts straight away but you have a sense that there is something not quite right about them - which is later proved to be correct.

 

[MrMagpie]

To begin with, 148257, both of your guesses were entirely correct on all fronts. My friends do come to me for advice on their relationships and other day-to-day matters, and even though it confuses me that they're asking, I answer as best I can and they do, as you said, appreciate my practical advice.

In fact, in regards to your second guess, my friends now know not to try and play the 'I know/have a secret but can't/promised not to tell anyone' game with me anymore. At one point I was told by a friend that two of our mutual acquaintances had revealed to her in secrecy that they were now 'involved'. All of my other friends made completely random guesses, but I paused for a few seconds, looked around, and said that it was obvious that Joe, a guy whom everyone else had assumed to be straight, and Yohei, a Japanese exchange student who had always been stand-offish towards us, had started dating. Everyone seemed very impressed when our friend confirmed that the observation was true.

As for your other comments, I have always lived in a loud and active - to say the least - household, even with my Father long out of the picture. When I attended college, I lived in a house with 10 other girls. Eventually what I noticed about myself was that, although I could enjoy hanging out with my housemates for a few days at a time, after a week or two I would need to take a Saturday or Sunday to be completely by myself, in my own room with no one else around. If this didn't happen, I became easily annoyed and snappish.

My relationships in general seem to work the same way. I attract women who, to be frank, are emotional, weak, and somewhat subservient. Although I can tolerate their behaviour in the context of a friendship, once we begin to date and they try to 'bring me out of my shell', either emotionally or physically, I quickly lose patience with them. Thankfully my words alone are usually enough to get them to back off, but I do have a bad temper and can become violent towards others if I feel like they're not getting the point of what I'm saying to them. It's strange, because I find once the threat of their attempted intimacy has been thwarted - once I've told them I would rather just be friends - it's very easy for me to once again tolerate them.

So, in general, being around others for extended periods of time hasn't really seemed to help my stunted emotions - if they are stunted, as in your situation.

 

[142857]

So, in general, being around others for extended periods of time hasn't really seemed to help my stunted emotions - if they are stunted, as in your situation.

Hi MrMagpie,

What are the chances of me picking those things about you at random? One in a million? There has to be more to it than just the fact that we are both on the autism spectrum and we both had abusive fathers. A rare sub-neurotype of autism?

When you ask "if they are stunted" in regard to your emotions, I assume you mean that you suspect that your emotions are not stunted, but rather they are simply non-existent? Don't give up too easily, you are very young and if you keep digging you might find them.

I don't have a bad temper. People tend to walk all over me because they assume that I won't get mad at them no matter what. These days I do get angry occasionally. When I was your age I used to fake being mad at people because I had learned that if I didn't they would just keep walking all over me. So one difference at least.

 

[MrMagpie]

Unfortunately, I'm almost positive my temper is simply something I picked up by watching my Father interact with other members of the family. He and I were quite close when I was a young girl, before he suffered a complete mental breakdown. It's strange, because even when I'm angry enough to hit someone, I don't really feel anger... just a very intense annoyance that subsides as soon as the immediate situation has been dealt with. Perhaps I'm feeling anger without having the ability to sustain it?

I suppose the problem is that I don't know if I want to find or develop my emotions at all. I can't stand uncertainty, and there's certainly no more indeterminate process than one that deals with an individual's feelings. At the same time, not being able to be close to others is frustrating. It's like everyone around me being able to fluently speak their own language, and I'm stuck trying to piece it together by watching their lips move.

 

[142857]

Hi MrMagpie, so you are a girl?

The Mr part of MrMagpie had me assuming that you are a boy. No biggy.

I don't think you need to worry about whether you want to have emotions or not. They will eventually find their own way to the surface if you want them to, and if you don't want them to then I suspect that they will continue to stay right where they are.

It sounds like you get intensely frustrated rather than angry. That would make sense.

 

[MrMagpie]

Yes, I apologize. It's a handle I picked up from an old Radiohead song, and on the internet one's gender so rarely comes into play...

Unfortunately, I'm sure my therapist, who first made the tentative diagnosis, will no doubt want to pursue some form of behavioural treatment. I've known that I've needed to do something for years, but now that it seems like I might finally be getting closer to understanding more about myself, I get anxious and feel like giving up. Not to pry, but have you ever been through any sort of therapy? I would feel more at ease with the situation if I knew what to expect.

 

[142857]

No, I haven't been through any sort of therapy. I guess I'm from a different era. I never even worked out I was autistic until a little over a year ago. I was assessed for mental retardation when I was 6 years old and I was very late speaking/walking, but in those days HFA and aspergers were unheard of.

 

[MrMagpie]

I see. From my vantage point you certainly don't seem 'mentally retarded'. It's a shame they didn't have the proper diagnostic tools and knowledge available when you were younger - although, to be fair, no one ever noticed me when I was young at all. That's what happens when you have an autistic little brother who has a seizures and a Father with hallucinations and mood swings, I suppose.

Again, I really don't mean to pry, but I have absolutely no one else with whom to discuss these sorts of things. As far as your relationship goes, I wonder how you could possibly let someone become so close to you? As far as being able to trust another person? I'd never confided in anyone in my entire life until I sought out a therapist, so it's not something I have any experience with.

 

[142857]

It was 1971 when I was in first grade. There was an almost complete lack of awareness of the autism spectrum in those days, so whereas in hindsight my traits screamed "autistic", the fact that I was very different to the other kids and learned things at my own pace and in my own way was taken to mean that I lacked intelligence. To cut a long story short, they rejected me from the "special school" because my I came back as above average on the intelligence tests they gave me.

I got into my first romantic relationship, as I said earlier, when I was 36 years old, and that changed me a lot. She was the smartest person I ever met and I couldn't hide my feelings from her - she saw straight through me, so I was forced to be more open about how I felt. After that it felt normal to be in a relationship with someone. Although I still have these moments of clarity where I feel like "I'm not supposed to be married with 2 kids, I'm supposed to be alone!". It does feel weird when I stop to think about it.

 

[csanon]

I can completely relate to being the unemotional type; the one who always held things in, or was just unaware of my feelings. I've been with a non-cognitive therapist though who has been helping tap into those feelings more. Its helping a lot

 

[uncommonsense]

I have sooooo much that I want to say to you! I think my head may explode, so please forgive me in advance for any mistakes I may make. Wow...Where do I start....

First I must share a laugh with you. When I first read MrMagpie's post I was anticipating offering her some assistance, as this is a topic I dealt with and learned a coping strategy for. Well here is where it gets funny.....I read your post.

Here is a wild guess: people sometimes come to you for advice because they feel like they can trust you, like you won't judge them, and because they see you as logical and thoughtful. And you feel weird when people ask you for advice about romantic issues because you have never had a functional romantic relationship yourself. And yet you give them advice based on logic and common sense and they appreciate that.

Another guess: You sometimes pick up on things well before anyone else. You might see two people together and know by observing them that there is more to the relationship than meets the eye. You may meet someone who everyone else likes and trusts straight away but you have a sense that there is something not quite right about them - which is later proved to be correct.

How did you know that about ME!?

<insert nervous laughter here>

Are you like your 'wild guess' too? Are many people with AS like that? If so, is this common knowledge or just something that you figured out?

I will need to step away from the computer for a little while to, in all honesty, recover from the absolute state of shock that I am in. I think that I would love to have a further conversation with both you and MrMagpie.

 

[smith2267]

My emotions are very faint unless I am drinking alcohol. Is this typical of AS?
On star trek, Data had an "emotion chip"...that's waht alcohol is for me.

 

[Kailis]

This is my 1st post @ aspiescentral.

I have spent the last 40 years dealing with a severe lack of emotions. Challenging .... to say the least.

My oldest brother (now deceased) was also an aspie, as well as my grandfather (based on known information). I didn't realize that I was an aspie until 5 years ago ... I have had a preliminary diagnosis of AS however not official as of yet.

Interesting thing I noted from the above posts is an abusive past.

I was always emotionally unresponsive, with a small exception. Rage has always been a close friend or enemy all depending on the situation (keep your friends close, but you enemies closer). Currently, I keep it in box under lock and key unless absolutely necessary.

This I believe is due to receiving severe beatings from by parents for the 1st 15 years of my life ranging from 1-7 hours in duration. They would continue with their work on me until I would break and show a tear on my face, this typically took a very long time.

What was "Love" or "Care for another" ... my formative years were all about pain and misery. I started smoking @ 8 and drinking by 12 ....

My parents attempted to abandon me @ the age of 8 years of age. Long story ... made short; I was brought back to them and as governmental agencies in this case were very poor in dealing with abuse in the home in years past, things never got better for me.

Thankfully, this ended when I graduated @ 15 years of age. The negative side effect of this was my parents final assault upon my person, which ended both of them in the hospital when I finally defended myself for the 1st time, I was definitely unprepared to deal with the world in a social fashion. I was now on the street, sleeping where I could find a safe place .. eating out of garbage cans .. and the list of challenges goes on.

I was on a path of destruction, without empathy or even the most rudimentary understanding of emotional intelligence. 3 years of military infantry training I came to enjoy (if you can call it that) inflicting pain on others ... my intelligence was the only thing kept me from devolving into a terrible being.

I have spent many years creating dynamically update-able rule sets on how to interact socially and show emotional (like being an actor), to keep others from realizing I truly have no understanding of emotions nor care for theirs. I have thousands upon thousands of these rules, imagine a mind like that in shown Stephen Kings "Dreamcatcher" ... I see my mind as an instant access library. I am currently high functioning and hold a position within the government which is very dynamic and utilizes my gift of perception and analysis to the Nth degree. I am thankful for this, the journey has been long however. In the span of 20 years I have evolved (in a very controlled fashion mind you) 180 degrees from what I was.

I have been married twice with 3 children from the 1st. My children are the original reason I decided to learn how to interact with others in a fashion which is socially acceptable, that has evolved.

I believe that I love my children and my wife however I am truly not sure how to define 'love' as of yet. I believe that I am getting closer to understanding it more so. Every day is a challenge, every interaction/conversation is a puzzle of swift thought and placement of correct verbiage including mimicry of facial expressions as to cover my lack of empathy/emotion. I require change and new experiences to continue to evolve my social rule sets. I have moved through over a dozen cities and 66 and counting residences, in combination of never doing the same job for longer than 12 months. I absorb, learn and grow bored very quickly ... more data is always required ... it is a severe compulsion (only one of many).

Strange occurrences lately have cause me some confusion .. I will be @ work analyzing data as per normal and tears will stream down my face .. this physical manifestation puzzles me as there is no thought process attached to the physical response of tears .. I don't understand why. I have decided to allow it to continue as my sub-conscious mind is obviously dealing with something even though I have no understanding of it.

I am starting to ramble ... point being this conversation plays out in my head regularly ... "I want to be normal" - define normal ... not being me. Then I counter with "I appreciate the gifts I possess" (hyper-analytical thought processing ability, high intelligence) why I love being me .. I can see what so many others cannot .. yet I believe it is also a curse. No one want to see what I point out ...

I keep striving everyday to be able to construct the perfect rule set that will allow me to function in society seamlessly. Chameleon Effect

I have decided to reach out in a social method to converse with others who may think and potentially see the world as I do, so I can help those and potentially be assisted in learning new coping mechanisms and tools to survive this world in a positive way.

If you took the time to read this, I thank you and look forward to potentially conversing further.

 

[Gulas]

@Kailis Wow, quite of history you had! Welcome to the forums! It's good to see someone who fought and had a quite success in life!

For me, it's not about lack of emotion, but I can't express it easily. I know they are still inside of me, but it will take real effort and time to dig them up, or share them with someone.

 

[MoCoffee]

i'm glad someone started this thread because I have a problem with "feeling" too. I believe I love my children, grandson, family and friends, but if that is the case, why am I so resistant to spending time with them? Yes, I have severe Social Anxiety Disorder, but surely, if I loved them enough I could overcome this. I would much rather hide out in my apartment alone than spend time with the people I claim to love. I feel guilty all the time, and worry they will pick up on this lack of emotional connection. I don't want to hurt them.

 

[Kailis]

Very interesting MoCoffee ... I have 3 children and a wife .. I have spent 21 years providing for them, making sure they were safe, fed and taught the skills needed to survive the world. I have severe social anxiety and would rather be at home away from everyone.

I truly want my kids and wife to understand me, and to feel loved by me. I just dont know how to accomplish this as I do not have the full ability to. I have created rules to 'act' the part however, out of sight out of mind. My wife is always around, I like to have her with me as being a street kid in the past I do not want to be completely alone.

I have thoughts of guilt when I see how other families interact and it frustrates me that I cannot seem to create rules in which to be 'on' the ball in this social fashion.

I never want my children or wife to feel hurt as this is not a positive position for growth for them. As they are getting older it is becoming more apparent to them how I differ from others they interact with and I how little I feel.

My wife understands, it has taken years to get to this point. She is diametrical to me in how she interacts and perceives the world .. this is what attracted me to her. She embodies everything I did not possess and for the most part I still don't, that being stated I have learned an immense amount and feel priviledged that she has been willing to deal with my challenges as well. kudos to her

I keep working on it, as I believe to not attempt is as good as giving up .. that to me is a failure and unacceptable in my mind.