A crush ...that dreadful feeling?

[Tankgirlboy77]

I was wondering if anyone else ever feels this, or if it's just a 'me' thing...

When I get a crush on someone it really messes me up and I kind of wish it would just go away.

Getting a crush causes a weird storm of emotions to flood into my life making me feel amazing one minute and really awful the next, like being thrown around on a turbulent ocean. I lose all stability (which is a struggle to keep at the best of times) and find my peace of mind to be fractured and at the whim of whichever emotion flutters across my being at any given moment. If she talks to me or smiles, I'm sky high; if not, I'm crushed. It's all just so unpredictable and annoying to be honest.

I suspect this is pretty normal and it's all this madness that most people really enjoy about crushes and love and all that, but for me the negatives seem to largely outweigh the positives. It feels like I've been drugged and I'm just waiting for it to leave my system.

So I tend to repress my feelings as much as possible and just get on with life regardless. But on the occasions I find myself entertaining the idea - that is, of imagining a future with this person, even as just fantasy - I can't do it. My mind immediately informs me of how I could only ever disappoint this person and it all turns into an exercise in self loathing. And then I'm in battle with myself and I see that, even if it were somehow possible, it would be best for her that I remained out of her life anyway. I have been in relationships before, and I've learnt that it is essentially my aspie 'otherness' that ruins everything in the end.

If you've ever seen that Red Dwarf episode where they play an immersive virtual reality game in which you can do whatever you wish and live your fantasy life, you may know what I mean. Arnold Rimmer self sabotages his own fantasy because his mind won't let him be happy. That's me.

So yeah... I guess I'm just checking in to see how normal this horrible experience is. Whether it's aspie-ism, or just called being human...? If anyone has experienced the attendant self loathing, how do you deal with it?


(I currently have a crush on someone at work. It can't possibly work because she is about 25 years older than me, in a senior role and I work with her everyday, so would just be weird in the long run. Also she is a mature NT woman, and I am essentially a boy!)

 

[zoedundas]

I absolutely know what you're talking about. I get almost the same feelings. To make it worse I'm a mature straight woman who seems to have developed a crush on an older woman!
I'm sure she doesn't feel the same about me, in fact I'm so bad at keeping relationships that I know I've upset her. I'm going to have to see her tomorrow and I'm really nervous. I feel emotionally overwhelmed as though my whole world is spinning out of control and everything I do or say to try to bring it back to normal backfires and I feel worse. I really wish I'd never formed this attachment and I could just be a normal friend without all these emotional needs.

 

[Harpagornis_X]

tankboygirl77, I think its fair for me to say I have only experienced a crush once in my life. Other times I thought 'I do have a crush on this person' but later on in life I realized one thing, that I have only experienced a crush now but the people I thought I had a crush on were actually just best friends of mine, thats what I wanted. I guess I can understand how a crush feels but to me, it depends on these feelings on the fact of if the person in question, which you have a crush on, has a crush on you or not. Hopefully this does make sense to you.

 

[ancusmitis]

When I was in highschool, I would have crushes all the time. I didn't stop having them, but I've grown to ignore them. They aren't pleasant, but I feel like if I can't talk to somebody I mostly just try not to think about it. It's gotten easier over the years, of course. And after an intense and up-and-down roller-coaster of a relationship, I often think of my experiences there and think of avoiding a repeat. Of course I won't refuse any all possibilities of building a relationship, but I remember a lot of my mistakes and I watch for when I am about to make one.

 

[hiraeth]

I don't think I've ever had a "crush" in the traditional sense. But I hate to have my energy tied up in another person for any reason. Friends, enemies, frenemies. I hate it when the extent to which I care about another person's opinion of me is noticeably greater than how they care about my opinion of them. Sometimes even admiration or having role models can accidentally venture into uncomfortable territory - even though it usually doesn't, as long as I'm at a stable place within myself.

I'm not able to see how an intense attachment to another person, regardless of what "type" of relationship it is or is being desired - friends, family, relationship partner, etc - can ever be enjoyable. It absolutely does feel like a "drug" that needs to leave my system. It feels unnatural for me. So I very, very rarely feel such types of things, and I like it that way.

 

[Tankgirlboy77]

tankboygirl77, I think its fair for me to say I have only experienced a crush once in my life. Other times I thought 'I do have a crush on this person' but later on in life I realized one thing, that I have only experienced a crush now but the people I thought I had a crush on were actually just best friends of mine, thats what I wanted. I guess I can understand how a crush feels but to me, it depends on these feelings on the fact of if the person in question, which you have a crush on, has a crush on you or not. Hopefully this does make sense to you.

Ah, an interesting point - the potential confusion in identifying whether it really is a crush or if it's just a desire for friendship. That could be the case in my situation. It's certainly true that with past crushes I've just had the desire to be around that person and there's no particular sexual element. It's hard to gauge with me. Sometimes I just have very great admiration for someone, but can't quite fathom the nature of my interest in them. I've always thought I just didn't have the stirrings that motivate friendship, but maybe I've just been misreading the signs all this time!

It's so darn confusing...!

I'm fairly certain in this instance that there is a sexual element, but even that is hard to gauge because I've had it where if I really like someone, the thought of tarnishing them in my mind with certain base desires seems distasteful to me because I have an ideal of them.

Sometimes I think I'd just like to be a robot and be done with it, no more confusion.

 

[Tankgirlboy77]

When I was in highschool, I would have crushes all the time. I didn't stop having them, but I've grown to ignore them. They aren't pleasant, but I feel like if I can't talk to somebody I mostly just try not to think about it. It's gotten easier over the years, of course. And after an intense and up-and-down roller-coaster of a relationship, I often think of my experiences there and think of avoiding a repeat. Of course I won't refuse any all possibilities of building a relationship, but I remember a lot of my mistakes and I watch for when I am about to make one.

This rings true. After all the madness and confusion, I find myself happy with the idea of being single. Friends say I should be getting back on the horse, but having had a bad time of it why would I want to? This is normal I think for NTs but the fear is more real for AS people because that's our whole area of problem, so I can't help thinking 'get back on the horse' isn't the best advice for me necessarily. I'm happy to wait for the horse to come to me .... Obviously I mean a relationship- a metaphorical horse!

 

[Harpagornis_X]

That I can say, I didnt know what a crush was in those days. Now I know what one is. That I can tell you