Autism and the emotion of love

[Tuffsy]

Sometimes I feel like I’m on the antisocial personality scale when it comes to love. I love some of the people in my life, but I don’t feel that I love or am anywhere near capable of loving as many people as I should (should?), and re: the people I do love, I love them in a way that’s not actually love as other people experience it, I don’t think. For example, when my father died, I felt sad that he suffered, but I didn’t actually really feel sad that he died, at least not in the same way the rest of my family did. And I definitely haven’t missed him the way they have either.

I’ve read that love is experienced by autistic people differently. Sometimes more intensely, sometimes less intensely. I’ve actually always felt exponentially more love for animals than for humans.

How about you guys?

I feel exactly like you do about my parents and their demise. Maybe because my mother openly said that she never loved me like her first 2 children, and with a 23/21 year age difference between me and them I understand, but still think "why did she have me?". But maybe it's just my lack of connecting with people in that way. As a male my love life was mostly about sex and I didn't understand the sort of love that was just an emotion. Now after 60+ years I do understand it but just don't often feel it. When people turn against me because I am hard to cope with I just cannot get close to them again, even though we make up. I have a son & daughter who I am proud of, but I don't have the same 'doting' relationship that I see in other families.
We are all different, some less than others, so it is good to be able to share these things.
And… I love my 2 dogs, and have very deep emotions about my other dog who died 2 years ago.

 

[SusanLR]

Love has been a shallow emotion for me in general.
Really the only people I can say I've deeply loved were my parents.
And apparently I didn't show it in the way they related to.

I loved my father, but, upon his death, I never really grieved.
Not like I knew I would for my mother.
It was time to take control of the household and take care of mom.
Her health declined rapidly after my father's death.

I remember one day she was sitting with a depressed look and asked me if I loved her.
My reply was, "as much as I can anyone."
Bad reply, I know.
I then proceeded to explain the things I did were my way of showing love.
Always thinking about her if I were out somewhere and buying something for her I thought she would like.
Doing everything I could to be good to her and take care of her.
But, she said I never hugged her or said I love you.
I guess that just wasn't my way.

As far as romantic love, I felt "In Love" for one man in my 20's.
Only two very close relationships of that sort in a life. Long term, but, never felt the desire to marry
or live with them. Being asexual, the closest thing to intimacy was the desire to cuddle and hold.

The rest of the world is neutral. The asocial word fits.
Just never could really connect or bond.
I also feel more comfortable with animals. Still I don't like being totally alone.
No desire for children either.
Leaves me feeling alone in a world of humans.

 

[Tom]

I think it may be a very personalized emotion and as you mentioned can be more or less intense with us. I seem to go in both directions at different times. In group situations I can be at variance with what appears to be the collective response. But sometimes I wonder if people are just going along with the expected response. Faking an emotion is definately not in my skill set.

 

[Owliet]

I so rarely do that with my mom and my sister and I feel terrible about it now. When I was younger I didn`t really think about it much but it has bothered me more and more lately. I think I`m doing something wrong.

I have been trying to develop this point. My mom being extremely ill, it is not known how long she has left in years, so I've been trying to make my point to say I love you just in case its the last chance I get.

 

[watersprite]

@Owliet I pressed “heart” but

that hardly seems to convey enough.

I hope you’re alright.

 

[Owliet]

@Owliet I pressed “heart” but

that hardly seems to convey enough.

I hope you’re alright.

I have to say the same as watersprite, I can`t find the words I need to convey what I want to convey. I`m very sorry to hear that.

Thank you also doesn’t fully convey. It’s extremely difficult at times. I’ve been talking with my psychiatrist about this, as I think he wants to prepare me for when it does happen. I found this very difficult to process when it was told, and at Christmas she blurted out that she was dying — so that was also making it real.

What I’ve learnt from this is to say that you love your parents.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

@Forest Cat , @Owliet , I have felt guilty for being unable to hug my grandmother since I was little and I wish I could have been able to express my care for her. Now it is too late.

 

[Owliet]

I have been thinking so much about things like that. Something changed for me, I never thought about it before but now I do and I`m more and more sure that I`m doing something wrong and making a mistake. My grandparents are gone too, but I have my mom and my sister. And I should treat them better, tell them I love them. Even if it is difficult. I don`t know why it`s difficult.

It’s never too late.

 

[Owliet]

I always try to show it, but saying it is different.

I get this.i was really worried that my mom didn’t think I loved her but she said that she knows without me verbally saying it.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I have been thinking so much about things like that. Something changed for me, I never thought about it before but now I do and I`m more and more sure that I`m doing something wrong and making a mistake. My grandparents are gone too, but I have my mom and my sister. And I should treat them better, tell them I love them. Even if it is difficult. I don`t know why it`s difficult.

I think it had been difficult for me because such an expression of care made me feel vulnerable. With my social issues I was terrified about exposing any vulnerability to people. As I started working on myself when I desired a relationship, that feeling eventually evaporated as I became more confident in who I was. Little did I recognize at the time that for deeply felt and mutually loving intimacy, I had to enjoy being vulnerable.

 

[Aspychata]

Think love means accepting that person wherever they are at.

 

[Fino]

I feel similarly. The only way I'm different is when I fixate on an individual, but I can't tell if that's obsession, love, or both. It's only happened twice.

 

[SusanLR]

Exactly. Feeling love and being able to say I love you verbally are two different things.
Saying the words didn't come easily for me either.

When I think of how it made me feel to say it, I get the feeling that perhaps the words were
really not saying the things I felt. They were only words.
I remember sitting by her in her hospital room near the end, saying nothing.
She was saying nothing.
I felt love and peace inside that didn't seem to need words.
We were both looking out the window. It was cloudy. Oaks with Spanish moss hanging on them.
It just felt nice.
Then a wall of rain came moving towards the window.
I said, " look... a wall of rain is coming! Isn't it pretty?"

One of my treasured moments to remember. Words didn't seem needed.

 

[Callistemon]

I’ve read that love is experienced by autistic people differently. Sometimes more intensely, sometimes less intensely. I’ve actually always felt exponentially more love for animals than for humans.

Well, that's easy - most animals are far nicer than most humans!

(Ever seen that saying, "Want true love? Buy a dog!")

On the whole I kind of feel that too. But animals featured hugely when I grew up, and undid some of the damage I got from growing up in a violent, unsupportive household. So that was a particularly stark human vs other species contrast, which perhaps wasn't fairly representing most humans. Then again, turn on the news, etc.

I do easily like and love people (love in the sense of goodwill and a caring attitude) until they show me why I shouldn't (mean, not trustworthy, etc). Then I often consciously switch off from them. I'm not sure how Aspergian I am, but I'm not neurotypical and share some Aspie characteristics. But my husband is almost definitely at least cusp Aspie, and he does seem to experience love differently from me, and more like you describe in your original post.

Of course, lots of things influence how we experience love, apart from where we sit on that spectrum. But he's not warm to other people - I've only seen him be really warm to me, to cats, to our donkeys etc. His family's not warm either and again I'm not sure if that's cultural, or nature or nurture in childhood, or what. When I first met his family it was like being at a reading for a radio play. Everyone bolt upright and talking formally and nobody hugged, except their cats. I actually, when I first met him, was amazed by that because he was so demonstrative to me - champion hugger (and of itself, not because of a sexual agenda). I asked who had taught him to hug, and he laughed, "Probably the cats!"

On the other hand, I'm warm - and I also grew up in a "warm" culture, not his stiff-upper-lip, emotions-are-for-babies culture. And one of the things that does distress me at intervals is the comparative lack of goodwill he displays for others that way - that he's not often really happy to meet new people even when those new people seem decent sorts. And that's one of the reasons I've joined here, because I need to see what that looks like from other people's perspective that don't see it like I do.

 

[Callistemon]

By the way, do we need one of those "Seven different Greek words for love" links for this discussion? Super helpful to contemplate. Gawd, I've just written about this kind of stuff and could link to it, but that's on my blog and I don't know what the etiquette here is re "outing" your true identity. I personally don't mind. I only couldn't use my real first name because it was apparently already taken, and I've written in niche magazines for yonks to the point that my husband was recognised in the supermarket as my husband! (I'm not famous, it was just a niche magazine and par for the course.)

 

[Callistemon]

There's so much interesting stuff on this thread and so much I'd like to quote and so little time.

I did not believe romantic love actually existed for the longest time. I made the mistake in thinking everyone experienced ‘love’ like I did, and they were all faking it or exaggerating. I’ve always had a hard time watching romantic movies, hearing stories about love, love songs, etc. because I just couldn’t… put myself in those shoes. My whole thought process was, “you’re telling me that people can project themselves onto these characters…? And understand what they’re feeling? Nah, it’s all fake.” I always described romantic love as nothing but a chemical reaction to naturally incentivize reproduction of the species. For a while, I thought I was “above it” (cringe, I know…).

Your definition caught my eye, and I'm just going to comment on that specifically! (And this is not about the rest of your post.) That process is actually what a lot of neurotypical (and probably otherwise too) people mistake for love. It's there and produces super-strong feelings and blindfolds people to an extent at the beginning - even more so if the people are projecting psychologically instead of seeing the real person. All that emotional intensity is frequently called "love" and so I like to go to the seven Greek words for love just to point out the different things that are called the same thing in English.

I personally feel "true" love is more about deep respect and care and a good attitude - and it's a "doing" thing rather than a "feeling" thing. And that good feelings follow good attitudes.

As to the pop songs - I actually think many of them are poor representations of love, because mostly written by people going through dysfunctional stuff especially early in adulthood (the age group most singers of those songs belong to), and that they often pass on dysfunctional scripts.

I'd like to say to anyone who's not neurotypical and struggling with that area, please don't think most neurotypicals get this right. There's so much unhelpful and toxic thinking about love in the general community. I think using pop songs as a template mostly signs people up for mayhem, and that sadly it's one of the ways in which misconceptions about what love is and does and looks like are perpetuated in the West - including presenting serious problems like co-dependency as love, when it's not. Young people listen to this stuff thinking their older peers writing it must have worked this stuff out etc, but many of them actually haven't - and many great pop hits actually describe as love things like stalking and co-dependency and just basic sexual attraction, and the idea of losing your self when you should actually have a strong functional self to love with. Etc, etc.

 

[Callistemon]

And I am no love-ologist, so everything I say could really just be BS.

As can be equally true for the opinions of actual love-ologists!

One of the scariest moments I ever had was realising that technically I belonged to the "academic elite" (insanely high scores across the board from arts to literature and science etc, academic prizes at uni). It was in the first year of university, and I thought, "Then God help the world." Because the problems are so much bigger than what we can reliably fathom and because of Dunning-Kruger Effect etc.

Of course, love is probably more important than intellect when it comes to making a positive difference. (But both is best, or you'll have a well-meaning person selling snake oil...)

 

[Callistemon]

I think this sounds right. Respecting, caring, doing, these things are bigger than a feeling.

Well, that's right, isn't it, and goes much further.

Something I am wondering about: To what extent are some people on the Aspie spectrum wary of the feeling/topic because of experiences they had, rather than because of anything their brain was born with? So you're different, and if you're ostracised for being different, at school etc, maybe in your family, in the general community - if you never felt like you were accepted for who you were, and loved for who you were, that's going to create adverse emotional experiences before you even begin. And that's enough to make people wary of love, or what commonly passes for it.

It perhaps isn't such a bad thing to come at love from an intellectual perspective, at least to examine it and sort the wheat from the chaff, and all that. To think it all through for yourself and not take the general ideas you see drifting around as gospel. After all, thinkers have been thinking about love for millennia. Why not seriously think about it, hear different ideas, etc? And if you make mistakes - as you invariably will - at least they'll be your own mistakes, not someone else's. For what it's worth...

 

[Alexej]

... on my blog and I don't know what the etiquette here is re "outing" your true identity.

From my experience it is up to each person if they want to post a picture of themselves, use their real life name or link to their blog or website. Using the Forum as a marketing place is not welcomed, but if you have written something on a blog and you link to that in the context of a discussion that is going on here that is fine.

 

[Aspychata]

Guess l think *love* or the concept of love can actually be a little more open-ended in the sense that thinking outside of yourself actually does spur some of us to mature and become better people because our feelings are sort of intrinsically wrapped up with someone else. It forces us to step outside of us, and this is a feeling type of love. Which may or may not lead to wanting to do things for said individual.

As far as love songs or romances, dysfunctional relationships are actually the norm for a lot of us because again we are stuck trying to mature to accept the feelings of the individual we desire. By singing about codependency or obsession, we open the door to healing and helping others identify unhealthy patterns, but not always.

So many of us came from dysfunctional childhoods with no examples of a healthy love between two emotionally mature people so we need to kinda navigate a path or journey to the love promise land with the chosen interest.

We also can fall into the other end of the spectrum where our love interest drags us into obsession and unhealthy thoughts when that never existed prior and our emotions wreak havoc and torture us daily because that can be the very ironic definition of love.