Returning to AF with a Different Approach

[Edwardo Piet]

You stating "I don't care", I don't believe that is entirely accurate.

About what people say about my family?

No I really don't care about that, lol. If it's true it's valid and if it's untrue it's irrelevant.

I mean, for starters I partially agree with the dichotomy that my family are either stupid or assholes (it's a combo of both though, excluding my brother who is just diplomatic)... so why would I care?

I guess I could say I care if that includes being interested in Iggy's comment. But if caring is to mean bothered or offended then absolutely not. In fact I've said far worse about my own family than Iggy has.

[Angrboda]

Alexithymia /ˌeɪlɛksəˈθaɪmiə/ is a personality construct characterized by the subclinical inability to identify and describe emotions in the self.[1] The core characteristics of alexithymia are marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal relating.[2] Furthermore, people with alexithymia have difficulty in distinguishing and appreciating the emotions of others, which is thought to lead to unempathic and ineffective emotional responding.[2] Alexithymia occurs in approximately 10% of the population and can occur with a number of psychiatric conditions

Pffft. I've got that.

[Edwardo Piet]

Alexithymia /ˌeɪlɛksəˈθaɪmiə/ is a personality construct characterized by the subclinical inability to identify and describe emotions in the self.[1] The core characteristics of alexithymia are marked dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal relating.[2] Furthermore, people with alexithymia have difficulty in distinguishing and appreciating the emotions of others, which is thought to lead to unempathic and ineffective emotional responding.[2] Alexithymia occurs in approximately 10% of the population and can occur with a number of psychiatric conditions

Pffft.  I've got that.

Yeah. It's not exclusive to autism it's just more common in autism. 50% of people with autism have it and 80% of people with autism have it severely, but it's only in 10% of the general population.

[CapnAwesome]

I really applaud you for taking the effort to improve yourself. It's a hard thing to do for anyone, and doubly hard for people on the spectrum. I'm not autistic, but I'd say I'm just left of autism in many ways and I've had to work extremely hard to make myself a socially engaging person. I also have dated an autistic woman on and off for many years. Which comes with it's own set of struggles

I'd say for the first 25 years of my life I also had no friends. But there it is possible to improve yourself even when change seems frightening, it's just a matter of trial and error, the way one debugs a computer program. I think you've taken some first steps in that regards and I applaud you for it and wish you the best.