I love this person very much but is it ok to contact them?

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Brandon30
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29 Jul 2016, 5:56 pm

I'm asking the autistic community because neurotypicals typically give false information to ease social problems. A few neurotypicals are telling it's ok to contact her but I'm not really sure.


Anyway I was involved with this autistic female about 3 months ago but I was dealing with some emotional stuff at the time and she had a lot of needs, I felt I couldn't give her at the time, so I broke it off it.


She wanted a text about every ten minuates and I was struggling a bit to do that. I'm dyslexic and I have bit of a difficultly communicating in text especially understress.


I was dealing with some emotional issues and learning programming, which was causing my brain to sort of shut down from the stress of everything. It was making it really difficult to text her.


I told her I was dealing with my own issues and that I couldnt give her what she needed right now but I deeply care about her and that she was one of my best friends and I still want to talk to her. I also told her I'm still here for her and that I think we could possibly make a great match in future.


She got hurt and almost immediately block me from every social site in existence. I felt terrible not just because I felt I had lost someone that was deeply important to me but also because I had just hurt someone I deeply cared about.


She had such a rough life she was as adopted, then neglected by her adopted single mother and raised by a nanny. Then her mom send her to a drug rehab place for something as small as falsely thinking she was smoking marijuana. She raped at drug rehab place then her mom fired the person who raised her after so got out. She got beaten raped another times later in life.


Like I said before she has autism (which I veiw as a strength) but she views it as a weakness, because it has caused a lot of people she as dated to leave her, so she feels abandoned by everyone she meets and she just wants just to feel loved.


I spent so much time trying to make her happy and cared about. When I broke things off she told me she felt betrayed and like I abandoned her. I felt incredibly terrible, I spent some much time trying to make her feel cared about and I felt like I destroyed the progress I made. I felt like I had reinforced to abandonment issues became the thing I was trying to protect her from.


I sent her a letter telling her there is nothing wrong with her and that she's just misunderstood. I told her I have difficulities communicating sometimes that I'm just dealing with some emotional issues and high stress right now. I told her it also mostly entirely my fault because I made a mistake and thought I could deal with studying and my emotional issues at the same time, while being involved with someone but I was wrong. I told her I was really sorry and I deeply miss her. She never replied.


About a month later my stress levels went down, my thinking became more clear and I found self thinking about her all time, I realized thoughts of her were incredibly comforting and healing.


When I thought of her, I almost immediately felt happy. I felt this calming sense of relaxation take over and my thoughts became much more clear. The thought of her existing immensely centers me. Someone that on a deep level I can understand and is capable of understanding me.


It gives me a tremendous amount of strength, this drive and clarity, I once feared I had lost. I realized that a lot of the emotional issues I had no longer really existed and I think it was because I somehow was emotionally healed by being in contact with her.


I realized I really loved her and that the chances of me finding some else like her given population demographics was very small. I think that with a modification of my studying schedule and maybe doing other things to make up for a possible lack in texts, things could quite possibly work out.


I wrote her a love letter telling her how I felt, what she did for me and that I hope I could do the same her. However the USPS is giving me conflicting information so I'm not sure if she ever got the letter


I saw she updating a dating profile on the site we meet on but I'm not sure if I'm block. My question is should I create a new profile to send her a message to asking if she got the love letter with the letter in "" and appologizing for not respecting the block.


I want to respect the block out of respect for her but like I said there is no way to tell if she got the letter and don't want to resend it if she got it. She has been lied to a lot and has come into contact with a lot of horrible people so she always assumes the worse of everyone.

I feel like she probably made a bunch of false assumptions which were then reinforced by me not always communicating that well, so I feel there are a lot of unknown variables that would be required for to make a rational decision on whether she wants to talk to me or not, that she wouldnt have with out me messaging her.


I feel like I owe it to her to make sure she knows how I feel about her. Under the circumstances would it be ok for me to contact her?



Last edited by Brandon30 on 29 Jul 2016, 8:05 pm, edited 9 times in total.

BeaArthur
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29 Jul 2016, 6:13 pm

Please double space between paragraphs. Paragraphs are typically 4 to 10 lines long.

I could not read this as a large single block of text.

Thank you.


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Brandon30
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29 Jul 2016, 6:33 pm

Ok Ty I did



BeaArthur
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30 Jul 2016, 7:44 am

Thanks. I will take the perspective of a girl in this situation. You say you only broke it off because you could not handle the multiple demands on your attention, but that you won't let that happen in the future. Why should she believe this? You've proven untrustworthy one time, you may do it again.

That's a tall barrier to surmount. If I were this girl, I would avoid you, too.

Please try to find a new person. You blew it with this one girl. Learn to self-manage so when you are involved with someone, you can genuinely be there for her.

If you attempt to contact her when she has indicated lack of interest, that's stalking. Don't be that guy.

Sorry if this is discouraging to you. It's part of growing up.


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Forester
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30 Jul 2016, 11:36 am

You have already proven in her eyes that you can't handle her needs and made her feel abandoned.

Even if you managed to convince her otherwise, ask yourself this:

What happens the next time you are overstressed with your own issues?

Ask yourself why you really want to contact her: none of the following are good reasons:

- to make yourself feel happy or feel less guilty.

-You think you are the only person who could love her.

Even if your reasons are pure I would still say no.

The only exception would be IF she initiated contact herself.

You wrote to her, I assume therfore she is able to get in contact with you if she wants to. So unless she does you should leave it alone.



Brandon30
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30 Jul 2016, 3:28 pm

Thanks for the replies, I really appreciate even if it's answers upsetting answers , I wrote to her but I'm not sure if usps lost the letter, because they're giving me conflicting information. If usps lost that letter, which they very well could have given their track record she would just know I was sorry for hurting her. She would never know I love her and want to be with her.

I can't imagine everyone replying to an apology letter for hurting an ex I feel that's abnormal.
I feel like if this was stalking logically every incident of a someone contacting a former
ex would be.

I think it failed before cause of a few things which in hind sight were easily solvable solutions. I don't know, I feel like if that makes me untrust worthy I feel everyone is then. People make mistakes and I feel that was a fairly small mistake. I was able to provide her with what she needed FAR longer then any of her exes, I'm aware of and I did it under far more stress.

She has taken back far worse people multiple times and I'm really far from being a bad guy.

I just want her to know I how feel about her because I never told her and I want her to have the necessary info to make a rational decision, if she still doesn't want to talk me and feels like she would be happier without me after ok I can accept that, but I just want her to have that information.

I can't control what other people do but I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure I do everything I can within reason to fix it and to let her know how I feel.

I'm doing for in all honesty for selfless and selfish reasons. I feel like I could sincerely help her and that I'm could be far more patient with her then most people and I obviously want to do this for her because I care about her and I want her to be happy but I'm also doing because I really miss her.

I feel like me not making sure she got the letter is sort of half assing the effort of letting her know how I feel.



somanyspoons
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30 Jul 2016, 5:16 pm

I think your instincts that making a new online dating account to get around her block is crossing the line. I'm glad you thought to stop and think about it a bit.

My advice would be to try writing her again in a few months. Maybe she'll have calmed down. But you can't control whether she's willing to forgive you. You just can't.

I can't imagine what you mean by USPS losing her letter. They don't track regular letters. Its usually a pretty good bet that your letter made it to its destination. Whether she read it or not is a different story.



the_phoenix
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30 Jul 2016, 5:26 pm

"She wanted a text about every ten minutes."

Wow.
There's no way I could be friends with somebody demanding something like that.
I just couldn't handle it.
I say this because I once had a friend who did stuff like
send me 17 e-mails in one day and then lie and say she didn't.
And another time kept talking even after I told her
three times I needed to get off the phone
to get to a restaurant before everything closed on Sunday night.
I finally had to hang up on her.

A text every ten minutes is a bad sign,
that you're dealing with an "energy vampire."

She's had a real hard life, and I feel sorry for her.
That said, it sounds like she has some issues to work through
before she's ready for a boyfriend.

I hope that each one of you finds someone.

I would move on.

I wish you the best.



dianthus
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30 Jul 2016, 5:45 pm

I know you feel like you let her down and you want to fix it...but...her needs sound pretty, well, needy. A text every ten minutes? That would be hard for anyone to keep up with, let alone someone with dyslexia. I don't think you did anything wrong here. Could she understand your needs and your challenges in life, as much as you understand hers?

Given what she's been through, she probably has some other things going on besides autism, like major anxiety, phobias, PTSD or possibly borderline PD. It sounds like she needs more than a romantic relationship can give her. Is she in therapy?

When you love and care about someone who has had a rough time in life, it's natural that you want to make life better for them and help them heal. And I know how bad it feels when you feel like you have failed them or let them down in some way. I have been there. But there is only so much you can do.

If she already made a lot of false assumptions, think carefully about this...what's to say she won't keep doing that? Especially now that she feels triggered by you. She may not be capable of making a rational decision, no matter how much information you give her.

****Just something to think about...when a person wants to make a rational decision, they will SEEK the information they need to make that decision - instead of trying to block out all the information that could help them do that.

I would assume she got the letter...but if you are really unsure about it, send another one with delivery confirmation. That is probably the least confrontational way to do it, it doesn't put her on the spot to respond but you still have a way to know if she got it. And yeah - I know USPS can screw up royally, but they can usually handle delivering a letter.

But I would advise against contacting her on any social media site. Especially not on a dating site - that comes across like you're trying to stop her from dating others. And I wouldn't blame you if you did want to interfere in that, because she sounds like a really vulnerable person and someone you'd want to protect from getting involved with a creep, but of course she has the right to do that.

None of us can say whether it's okay to contact her or not...ultimately it's up to her to decide that. And please be prepared that she may not make a rational decision. It could take her a long time to reflect on things and understand where you are coming from.



Brandon30
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30 Jul 2016, 7:16 pm

Thanks everyone, Your support is comforting and very helpful :)

Yeah I know she's needy and has some issues but I really like who she is as a person fundamentally at her core, so it's easy for me to look past.

She might make more false assumptions but I think a large portion of the problem was because I went into an autistic shutdown and couldn't communitcate very well.

That made her think I was just not giving her attention because I didn't care about her and that I was just making stuff up. I thought that was the case so I tried to force my self out of the shutdown and ended up in a perpetual shutdown like loop.

I'm not sure I would have gone into one for so long if she didn't think I was doing it on purpose. I feel like a little bit of communication could have solved that.

It eventually became too much and I just gave up and told her I couldn't give her what she needs at this particular time. I told her I don't have the time with my studying and I have some issues I need to work on, which was true because I had a few insecurities I was working on at the time, which also added on to the stress.

I couldn't study because of the perpetual shutdown, but I think with communicaton that entire shut down could have been avoided

It's not a fault of mine in the sense it was on purpose and wrong because I obviously can't control that but they're a part of me so in way it's partially my fault.

Now that I have the mental clarity, I feel like a lot of the problems that happened could have been avoided with better communication and maybe giving her attention in other ways besides texts. I think they're problems that could possibly have been really easy to solve and could be avoided in the future.

She isn't in therapy but her adopted mom is a therapist and I'm pretty sure she is the reason for part of her issues so it's a bit of a conflict of interest.

The problem is she is from my area but she is teaching in a foreign country and the country she is teaching has a very strict postal service and won't send things through sometimes for the slightest reason.

Also usps said I would have tracking but then my packaged stopped moving, so I called consumer service and they told me I probably don't have tracking, so I'm not sure what to believe. I either have tracking and the package got lost in a facility or I don't have it and it was delivered.

In addition there is also the possibility she isn't at the same address. A bit before we stopped talking she got a cat, to use as a therapy cat because she was so depressed. The apartment she was in though didn't allow cats and the cat kept being loud. She was afraid the cat was going to get her kick out of the apartment.

So she my be in a new apartment.



Last edited by Brandon30 on 30 Jul 2016, 11:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

dianthus
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30 Jul 2016, 8:08 pm

Brandon30 wrote:
The problem is she is from my area but she is teaching in a foreign country and the country she is teaching has a very strict postal service and won't send things through sometimes for the slightest reason.

Also usps said I would have tracking but then my packaged stopped moving, so I called consumer service and they told me I probably don't have tracking, so I'm not sure what to believe. I either have tracking and the package got lost in a facility or I don't have it and it was delivered.

In addition there is also the possibility she isn't at the same address. A bit before we stopped talking she got a cat, to use as a therapy cat because she was so depressed. The apartment she was in though didn't allow cats and the cat kept being loud. She was afraid the cat was going to get her kick out of the apartment.

So she my be in a new apartment.


Okay I understand now...yeah the letter might have gotten lost. Can you email her?



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30 Jul 2016, 8:54 pm

Well, that makes everything a little bit gray. Totally possible the mail got lost on the way to a different country and therefore more reasonable that you might try to contact her through other means. Clear as mud. hum...



somanyspoons
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31 Jul 2016, 5:23 pm

Here's a thought. You do need to respect her desire to not speak to you. But someone else could contact her. Simply ask if she got the note and let her know that you are interested in making amends. Let her know that you respect her boundaries but when she is ready, you would like to try to make it up to her.

Honestly, by far the more emotionally safe path for you to take would be to let it go. But I think you could play this game without really creating too much more violation.



dianthus
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31 Jul 2016, 5:51 pm

somanyspoons wrote:
Here's a thought. You do need to respect her desire to not speak to you. But someone else could contact her. Simply ask if she got the note and let her know that you are interested in making amends. Let her know that you respect her boundaries but when she is ready, you would like to try to make it up to her.


I know this seems like a good idea but I would advise not to do this. I wouldn't like it if I was in her position. I would rather hear from the person directly than to have a message passed on through a third party. Besides when other people get involved, things can get distorted and go horribly wrong.

It can get kind of flaky when someone says they respect your boundaries but they still try to get around it somehow. I feel like if you're going to disregard someone's wish not to be contacted, then just do it. It can still be done politely and respectfully. Sometimes the person changes their mind and things work out okay. It's always a risk. Usually it's a risk people only want to take when they really care about someone, more than they care about being rejected.



Brandon30
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01 Aug 2016, 3:22 am

Thanks again!, I really appreciate the help

Yeah I have her personal email but I'm not sure if she ever checks it. I know she checks her work email often, but I'm not sure if that's the same as her personal email.

I only check my email maybe 1-2 times a months when I need something sent to it, like a verification. In addition I only check that days emails and I think that is pretty normal, so I feel like that may not be a reliable method with her.

I think in this situation being rejected wouldnt really cause any emotional trauma, because I feel like she is up set entirely over a reasonable misunderstanding. I would just be extremely sad that we weren't talking.

Plus I think I really understand her, so I feel if other forms of communication then texts and maybe different sechdule were ok, I could really help her. I'm just not entirely sure if she is only ok with texts.

I value her and her mental well being more then I value not being rejected.
I also feel like I can recover from being reject quickly and for me personally, I would rather be rejected, then think "what if?".

Also to answer a previous unanswered question. Her last ex would get angery over her being autistic and she was really hurt by that.

I feel like she is unknowing essentially doing the something to me, because of a misunderstand. So I feel like if things were explained she would understand.



dianthus
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01 Aug 2016, 3:30 pm

I hope you are able to get in touch with her and resolve things. It's sad when people fall out over a misunderstanding.