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burnt_orange
Toucan
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06 Mar 2017, 7:55 am

Once, my mother didn't bother telling me my cousin had died. When asked why, she said she thought I wouldn't care. I thought it was an incredibly mean thing to do and say.

The background is that we didn't have a lot of contact with that cousin and didn't know him well. But he was close to me in age, we played as kids, and I still would like to know when someone dies. I was saddened by the event.

I have a logical straight forward view/understanding of death which my mother finds cold and heartless for some reason.

Does anyone else experience the same kinds of things? Family and friends think you are cold, emotionless, no feelings?

I think I'm a very emotional person.



SaveFerris
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06 Mar 2017, 8:08 am

That does seem like a wierd thing to do. It sounds like you mum was trying to protect you but her explanation clearly shows she thinks your something your not. Do you suspect your mum might have ASD as that might explain her reactions?

I don't think anyone has accused me of being cold as I also have a logical understanding of death but I possibly don't get as emotional as I think is appropriate ( I base this on other peoples reactions so sometimes feel like I have a problem with my emotions )


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Keigan
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06 Mar 2017, 9:40 am

Or your mother thought she was protecting you from experiencing the pain, and did not know how to deal with the situation.

Not like it is a common experience.



SteveSnow
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06 Mar 2017, 11:41 am

I found out that my family thought the same of me recently. My parents were putting together their advance directive (if they are in the hospital and can't speak it tells us what they would want us to do, for those of you not familiar with this form) and they did not want to have me, the eldest, as a decision maker since I wouldn't use any feelings when making decisions about their care. Shortly after I found out I have alexithymia, so it ended up making sense why people think that but no one ever broached the subject with me. Now I spend some time explaining to people that either it takes me time to figure out what an emotion I'm feeling is or I'm not very expressive with my emotions but I certainly still have them. This issue is compounded with difficulties showing typical body language of course.


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burnt_orange
Toucan
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06 Mar 2017, 1:49 pm

SteveSnow wrote:
I found out that my family thought the same of me recently. My parents were putting together their advance directive (if they are in the hospital and can't speak it tells us what they would want us to do, for those of you not familiar with this form) and they did not want to have me, the eldest, as a decision maker since I wouldn't use any feelings when making decisions about their care. Shortly after I found out I have alexithymia, so it ended up making sense why people think that but no one ever broached the subject with me. Now I spend some time explaining to people that either it takes me time to figure out what an emotion I'm feeling is or I'm not very expressive with my emotions but I certainly still have them. This issue is compounded with difficulties showing typical body language of course.


Thanks. This makes a lot of sense to me after reading more about it. It affects 85% of the ASD community. Good to know. I would say I'm at least a little affected by this.

As for my mother, she has her own problems, though I don't think ASD is one of them.