My Relationships With Emotional Blindness

[AphoticAtramentous]

To preface: I have nothing against autism, autistic people, or similar conditions or similar people.
But I was hoping to at least find a place to vent about the difficulties I've faced when interacting with people who have difficulty understanding or conveying emotions. I feel incredibly alone in this regard, and even if just one person here relates then I would feel so.. relieved. Because I feel like a truly awful person for having these feelings.

I had a sudden realisation that many of my abusers have this trait in common, or have some kind of mental disorder or condition that impacted their ability to recognise and display emotions. Now I know why I have such an initial distrust of such traits. It is not the person themselves I fear, but instead I fear the concept of being misheard and misrepresented. A lot of the interactions my autistic F has had with me and my M could have been avoided if there was common ground that we could use to understand each other. And I was you know, a mere child, what was I supposed to do.

For example, my F laughs when he is disappointed in someone. He frowns when he's joking. He makes sarcastic comments without including a sarcastic tone, and calls me stupid for taking him literally. My ex was similar; this would extend into public events as well, where once he was watching a violent and curse-filled video on his phone... on loud speaker, in a children's hospital. For so long, I thought it was MY fault for misunderstanding them. My abusers have constantly gaslight me into thinking that I was inept for not understanding them, for not seeing their side of things. But now I realise - it wasn't my fault. I was doing the best I could.

It's just all a very unfortunate combination of traits, because obviously I value people, including those who have any kind of mental condition. But I really really struggle to interact with individuals with these conditions because of the potential to be triggered so much.

I hope nothing here is offensive or hurtful to those with these conditions. I know it's a trait that cannot be controlled.

Regards,
Aphotic.

[Mathilde]

I'm sorry. I recognize a lot of what you say.

I want to tread carefully. To not hurt people. I will think a bit about my response. And come back. Either here or by PM.

[Kizzie]

I echo your thoughts about treading carefully on this topic Maria. IMO we don't want to conflate autism with abusiveness. What I think is accurate is that some neurodivergent (ND) people have themselves been abused, pay that abuse forward, and then they and others hold up their ND as a reason they should not be held accountable. I don't think this should be the case. Those with ND can make the same choices we (survivors) make to step away from repeating abuse/neglect and live a decent, honest and caring life. And on our side of things ND is not a reason to accept behaviour that makes us miserable.  If someone is autistic and criticizes us but doesn't understand why it has hurt us, we can still put a boundary in place and enforce it.  It's not necessary that the person understand why they cannot do something.   

I am sorry your NDF was such an abusive person Aphotic and I understand his traits made it worse. My parents suffered from NPD and while I understand why they behaved as they did (a history of trauma in both of their lives), and that they suffered from a form of emotional blindness, it didn't let them off the hook. They didn't understand why so much of what they did upset or hurt me, but they did abide by the boundaries I put in place (although it took a while for them to stop pushing the boundaries admittedly).

We can teach others how we wish to be treated, treat others as we wish to be treated, and in the end make the world less of a repeat of what we went through.

[Desert Flower]

He makes sarcastic comments without including a sarcastic tone

This is something my m also does, and in her case I don't think it has anything to do with neurodiversity. I think she was taught not to show her feelings (as she went on to teach us) and she 'forgets' that sarcasm doesn't work when you look and sound totally serious. We would know - from the context - that she was 'joking' but it wasn't funny. And it is something she uses to be rude to people when they trigger her actually (but she doesn't see that, since she has no awareness about her own behaviour). It's a defence mechanisme to her. But it can be really awkward to see her do it. And people would be really confused and dumbfounded about it and we could see they did not know how to respond. But we were afraid to explain. So that would be it. Just really awkward.

[Desert Flower]

Aphotic, I think I am gonna have to change my mind about what I wrote (in Italics!). I've just come to the realisation that my mother may in fact have an undiagnosed autism spectrum condition while she knows how to function socially. This is such a HUGE thing for me. It explains so much. Thank you so much for bringing this up.

[Papa Coco]

Aphotic,

My wife, son and grandson all show signs that could be autism, or are, at least not connected to emotion the same way I am. I've learned that being an emotional man who loves these more stone-faced people, I have had to educate myself in order to become less emotionally "abused" by them. My oldest son is lost. He left the family because he didn't like receiving Christmas gifts, which is a sign associated in autism. Receiving gifts puts social pressure on them to reciprocate, or to feel thankful, neither of which he is capable of doing. He couldn't get his mom and gramma to stop giving him Christmas gifts, so he stormed out of the house. That was 12 years ago. And now, my wife, his mom, deals with the inimitable sadness of losing her son because she loved him. And at times, I get caught in her sadness, but I don't recognize it as sadness, and I have to cognitively remind myself that her silent treatment isn't because I've done something wrong, it's because she doesn't know how to express sadness, so she just retreats into her head.

I educate myself on how to stop feeling so hurt whenever my wife stops talking to me. I have had to learn that she stops talking anytime she worries about anything or anyone. When we're together and she's quiet, I'm triggered to believe she no longer loves me. (That's how I was raised. Anytime I wasn't who they wanted me to be, the entire family would be instructed to ignore me. This is painful at 3 years of age AND at 64). But by taking the initiative to learn more about my wife's thought process, and by finally getting up the courage to ask her now why she's being quiet, I have learned that it's never about me. She worries about our kids and grandkids and she just doesn't know how to express that worry, so she clams up. And if I want to be a kind and supportive hubby, I need to not let myself be hurt by her silence.

I have had a lot of people in my life who had socially awkward struggles. I've let it hurt my feelings so many times. But as I read about social awkwardness, and talk about it with other people who are dealing with socially awkward loved ones, my ability to manage my own hurt feelings is getting stronger. EFs are EFs. And I will always feel a knife to the heart each time someone doesn't respond how I expect them to, but after learning and researching and finally opening up about my own reactions to them, I'm progressively better able to get past my own fears and move on with the relationship.

I like that you asked this question on the forum. It's good to ask and good to know others really do struggle with how to connect to people who struggle to connect with us.

[Chart]

I second PapaCoco's appreciation that you asked this question, Aphotic. It has given me much to consider and reflect upon as my crisis in September of 2023 and subsequent breakup with my autistic girlfriend revolved entirely around her inability to support and emotionally recognize things that were painful to me. I have been trying to "sort out" the situation ever since, trying to find what is the "right" way to have handled the situation. Or rather, "who was at fault". It was a very complicated situation, involving trauma in both our pasts. In the end, nothing is black and white. I agree with Kizzie in that we have to get to the point where we can establish our limits regarding other's behavior, regardless of who they are or their "condition". My father is very autistic, but he has the amazing ability to listen to others explicitly and do as they ask. He's incredibly smart in so many facets, yet respects others on face value regarding issues of emotion. I diverge a little. Thank you again for this topic. We are all responsible for our own behavior. However, we are not always aware of the impact of our actions on others. The healthy thing in my opinion, is to listen to what others have to say and react appropriately even if we believe we are not responsible. That ultimately is the question... Am I responsible for how you feel? And the reverse is equally important... Are others responsible for how I feel? Trauma pushes us in a certain direction. Healing brings us back to the realization that I don't have to feel the way I feel... in ANY situation. The purpose of life for me is to separate my emotions from my feeling of connection with others and the world. It is a double-edged blade, but the more I become unaffected by others behavior, the freer I am. AND when I am brought down emotionally by others' behavior, I know that I have found a wound in me, or something that indicates that I am still not free. Working towards this release is perhaps one of the reasons for living, as it brings us closer to understanding the true reality that is there, but which we struggle to see because of our filters, traumatic and otherwise. The question that remains for myself is: Do I ask others to change their behavior, or do I change how I really feel... The answer is often moot, as even asking others to change seems to rarely work. :-) (I think Gabor Mate talks about this a lot.) I don't know if any of that makes sense, but anyway, thanks again for this topic, it helps me.

[Kizzie]

The question that remains for myself is: Do I ask others to change their behavior, or do I change how I really feel... The answer is often moot, as even asking others to change seems to rarely work. :-)

I do think we can do both; that is, ask others to change and seek to strengthen our inner selves. If we don't ask others to change how they behave towards us then IMO we are part of the problem. For example, letting bullies or N's get away with their insensitive or bad behaviour is tantamount to encouraging it to continue. Sometimes others have to learn how to behave rather than be left to carry on being abusive, insensitive, etc, because no-one ever taught them to treat others in a respectful way. This is changing us to change others I suppose.

Strengthening our inner selves as many of us are trying to do here includes being able to tell people they have gone too far and hold them accountable IMO. I did this with my NM and she did learn what was acceptable and what was not. Yes, she put up a fight at first but when she understood our boundaries were firm and that she would lose us altogether if she did not stop being abusive she did (mostly) stop and if not change, she mimicked better behaviour from then on. It was a relief for us because we were not being attacked/manipulated every time we were in contact with her.