slightly blurred lines when writing fiction

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Hi, newbie here. I've been writing Labyrinth fanfics for almost ten years now (yikes!) and been reading for about thirteen, although not as often anymore (sort of staving off the burnout.) I'm Shadowlurker on ff.net, AO3, and 13hours.com. Actually, I'm working on my first crossover right now - just two chapters to go - with Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series, and...well... things have been going a little odd lately. Maybe this post should go in one of the other 'writing issues' topics but I guess I'll try it here first.

I just had a fight to the death between two secondary characters and it feels like one little part of me is torturing another little part of me and I just can't make the emotion resolve - I know it's not real, but it doesn't change how I feel and it's making me a little nutty. I tend to have a hard time separating myself out from my characters mentally and emotionally sometimes just due to how I create them - they don't do anything in my mind unless I act and emote for them, it seems like. They just don't come across as having any depth at all otherwise. Anybody else in this boat? To be totally honest, I don't think I could've even been working on this at all before I started a gluten-free-casein-free diet; this story would've gotten too 'real' too fast right away. I truly am scared of the idea of having to go to some random counselor out here who has no background in Aspergers (let's hear it for Medicaid; there are not good resources like that where I am). That and...I honestly don't know how to create otherwise; even they do manage the 'separation', I really think that would be it. Thoughts and advice definitely welcome. Hi.

-Glitterchik

I'm sorry but i didn't understand much of what you said in the first paragraph, don't judge me for that though!

From my own experience and reading authors talk about their process, it is only natural to put a piece of yourself into each of the characters you write about. Even when people say they are writing a character based on a person they know, they are writing about them from their own perspective, so the version of them that exists in their own heads. I think to be creative and create something of worth you have to give up a piece of yourself.