like turning off/on a switch?

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Feel like that? One moment (or days at a time) you're sure of something (an emotion for someone)..then a little thing and BOOM, like a switch is turned off...it's not there. Like you lose everything in a second, any feeling, any connection. Like you are suddenly awakin naked/vulnerbale in the street, wondering where you are, WHAT you are, who that person that you just adored is...and what are you doing with that stranger. Like all of a sudden you have another set of eyes, or another personality that just doesn't comprehend the previous attachement. Even memory seems to be affected. All that was constructed (in temrs of who the other is, why you liked him) seems to become scattered and vanish...you can't REACH it. Numb, paralized with fear, not understanding, disorientation...

Like you're not HUMAN anymore, not that human from couple hours ago, who was busy planning, hoping, feeling attractions for a person. It's a very sudden, very 180 degree clear break, a switch turned off.

It is debilitating.

Can someone relate or explain?

I can relate but not explain. I am sorry your feelingly like that, I know it sucks. It never made me dislike someon I liked but has left me realizing that I didn't love them and didn't understand why I ever thought I did...weird. I have also felt like that when someone as getting to close ,so maybe there is an element of eeling like your going to drown if you don't run away? The mind can do some pretty strange things to try and protect itself.

I'm sorry to hear that such a trait exists. It sounds horrible.

The only thing I have remotely alike to that is when I'm trying to talk. I have all the words of my next sentence queued up in my mind, but when I actually go to use them words in the middle are "stolen" right out from inside of me.

But now I'd rather lose dignity at every opportunity than lose emotional memory ever.

Relate ? Yes. Explain ? No.
There is difference between when this reaction is warranted vs. when it's out-of-proportion. Whether or not the situation in "big picture" merits my intense reaction doesn't control my level of distress at time. Only later can I calm down, recover sense of familiarity with both self & other-once I'm finally "okay" (hours or days after whatever upset me) I can shrug it off. Can't do this when am upset in the present, about something bothering me here & now.

There are scenarios in which people reveal themselves to have done things that are seriously not okay with us (in the "greater context"), and one may cope with that by having immediate cessation of regard for the person. That's a grudge that can last, and perhaps for good reason (self-protection). But there are also times when I overreact and am excessively angry/hurt/sad-even if I know this intellectually, it doesn't dilute or constrain my emotional intensity in the moment. It'll be for things that in retrospect, I feel ridiculous for taking so hard, but whenever something new & bad befalls me, know I'll react poorly yet again.

My boyfriend has been through a lot with me-I've gotten upset at him many times, but he's a wonderful guy & we do get along quite well. I just get bothered by so darned many things, and I can't keep from taking it out on him-all I can do is try to communicate what I'm able. He's had enough practice with me to recognize this problem: when I feel like he's a stranger, rather than my beloved, because if he knew me (so my thinking goes) he would or would not have said or done this or that.

As soon as I'm no longer in that state/mood, I tell him what I couldn't express earlier, because my negative feeliings were overshadowing/blocking out/precluding my positive feelings towards him. I tell him this just happens, and that at least 95% of the time I'm happy with him, and even when I'm upset, it's usually not for something that will matter to me in the long run. I apologize for my harsh words & confusing messages, and we're still together despite fact this whole cycle will occur in future.

(sorry i usually read responses but im just too tired)

not in a romantic sense like i think you mean, that would be rough

but its defiantly happened to me, sometimes im just sick of whoever it is and ill get over it after awhile, sometimes there is a trigger

and sometimes there isent a trigger, sometimes i dont get over it

ive heard other people here say similar stuff, often i think its just that i haven't realized i was drifting from the person then realize suddenly

I identify with this and I have a theory about it.

Those with ASDs often relate to people on a cognitive level, more often than on an emotional level. There seems to be a separation that occurs between the two - like emotions and reason aren't working together very well. In a neurotypical brain there is a more effective or efficient working together of emotions and reason resulting in intuition. I've realized in myself that I sometimes am in my "reason/thinking" mode much of the time, and when my "emotion" mode kicks in it can be scary and disorienting, particularly when it comes to dealing with other people.

What might be happening, particularly in a relationship, is that your heightened emotional state and emotional stress actually blocks your ability to understand what you are feeling. As a result, your relationship is built up through your cognition/reasoning/thinking rather than through your emotions. As you become more comfortable with the person you are with, your emotional state relaxes, allowing your emotions to come through and that is the point that you "suddenly awaken" and realize that you haven't had emotional understanding about the other person, just cognitive understanding. It can feel very much like a switch has been flipped in your mind.

A possible explanation is that in those with ASDs, there is a reduction or blocking of the transfer of information between regions of the brain. The technical term is "interhemispheric transfer deficit" and a current thought is that there is an imbalance of serotonin (or other chemical messenger) that blocks brain signals. Emotional stress can short circuit the process of information transfer in the brain.

Z

I am feeling much chipper today. Just like someone has said here, the sense of familiarity with the person is starting to slowly come back. One thing about him, he was making me feel safe. He didn't seem to need anything fro ME. Yesterday he said that he needed something from me...and my idea of being the protected not the protector took a hit and that's when I suddenly felt..vulnerable and disoriented. But now, logically, it wasn't a big deal. I put some buffer time of 4 days bef seeing him, to both be calm and level headed.