Returning to AF with a Different Approach

[Edwardo Piet]

Tell me, do your parents see you, accept you and understand you the way we do here?

Well... I haven't seen my dad since 2006 (Long and personal story there. He's a bit of a nutball to say the least.).

My stepdad is a twat.

My mom means well but I think she thinks she understands a lot better than she does. Although she has cried since learning about my autism diagnosis: she's realized all those years when she struggled to understand why I struggled now suddenly make sense.

Remember, I literally only got diagnosed on March 22nd this year.

If they're not as cerebral as you, I can see how things can go south real quick. It means they've let you down imho.
They're either assholes or they're just dumb. Forgive my harsh words. I have no right to speak like that.

They tend to do this thing when they get angry for me because they love me supposedly and they're worried for me. But I've never understood it and I always say things like "You know, if you want to actually help me then stressing me out with annoying anger is going to have the exact opposite effect that you actually want to have on me with that anger? When has it ever worked to get like that with me? And when has it only ever made things worse? Exactly, never. So stop it."

Because one thing I have hyper sensitive to is stress... it just doesn't manifest itself in the same way as for most people. I mean, I also enjoy myself and like stuff and get physical pleasure but recently I realized that most people definitely experience the emotion of 'joy' (or any other emotion) in a way in which I do not. For me it's entirely psychological... I thought all this talk about butteflies in your stomach or churining in your gut, etc, was all just metaphorical. Apparently most people actually feel emotions in their bodies! Weird.

Although it's not super weird. If I am experiencing an extremely intense emotion I will feel it in my body. If I'm extremely angry, or if I'm in love... I'll feel something then. But only a little bit. So I guess I'm just extremely physically sensitive to my brain's emotions and it takes extremely intense emotions for them to manifest as physical feelings. Like I only tend to physically feel the best or worst days of my life, basically.

And I get hunger, thirst, horniness, loneliness and boredom all mixed up. So what I do is just fulfill all of the above to cover all the bases. Eat, drink, wank, chat, listen to music/browse AF/play games. Seems to cover all the bases. When that overall 'empty' feeling of 'lack of feeling' dissipates then I know which it must have been.

I now know this is due to me being alexithymic (which is very common in autistic people)

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

Alexithymia frequently co-occurs with other disorders. Research indicates that alexithymia overlaps with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).[11][50][51] In a 2004 study using the TAS-20, 85% of the adults with ASD fell into the impaired category; almost half of the whole group fell into the severely impaired category.

And the fact I struggle to feel feelings in my body that actually include stuff like hunger, first, etc is due to difficulties with this:





I also had my final post-session for my autism yesterday. And I now have a brief summary of my symptoms to go along with my main assessment. I'll omit my address and also replace my real first name with "Hammy" but otherwise leave everything verbatim:

Dear Hammy,

The results from your Autism Assessment concluded that you meet criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder, due to:

A.      Persistent difficulties in social communication and social interaction across contexts and manifested by all three of the following:

1. Difficulties in social-emotional reciprocity.
2. Difficulties in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction.
3. Difficulties in developing and maintaining and understanding relationships.

B.     Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities as manifested by two of the following:

1. Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects or speech.
2. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualised patterns of verbal or nonverbal behaviour.
3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are atypical in intensity or focus.
4. Hyper or hypo reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment.

I'll also go back and quote it in my autism thread as that's the thread actually for that so I'll do that for completeness's sake.

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They're either assholes or they're just dumb. Forgive my harsh words. I have no right to speak like that.

No forgiveness required because I do not care.

My brother Owen is intelligent and awesome and I can tell never likes to get involved with the disputes between me and the rest of my family. He surely feels stuck in the middle of it all because he can see my side of things just as much as everyone else's. Also we are extremely close and get along well and he's always more understanding towards me than the rest of my family. Also they're dumb as fuck compared to him.

The way I'd put everyone besides my brother Owen (who is super smart and I can have deep conversations with but he also sometimes gets flabbergasted by the way I analyse some of the interesting books he reads and he compliments my intelligence frequently. So we're both smart in different ways. I wouldn't say I was smarter than him. I'm just more analytical and he's more intuitive and has better problem solving and creative thinking skills. I'm more of an abstract thinker and he's more of a visual thinker.)

As for the rest of my family... well, I'd describe one of my sisters and my mother as, in the words of George Carlin, "Well-meaning assholes", my littlest brother (not Owen but the other one) as "Really nice but we don't have enough interests in common to get along. He's also very brainwashed by my parents" and my remaining sister as "Really nice and relatively understanding but also relatively brainwashed by the rest of my family. A little in the middle like Owen but more on their side than mine").

And I'd describe my stepdad as "A massive abusive violent asshole cretinous bastard fuckface who will sometimes wave at me all friendly and act all nice to me in public and I'll wave back and be equally courteous... and who is always nice to visitors but who is a massive cunt who shouts over fuck-all and makes an aggressively big-deal out of everything when you actually live with him. The most stressful cunt I have ever known. Makes Minimalist's temperament look like Gandhi's or The Buddha's by comparison."