Cold-heartedness

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I have an NT fiance and I'll tell you right now a supportive NT partner is an absolute godsend. Thanks for being such an understanding person, I'm sure your boyfriend appreciates it.

I'm emotionally cold to everyone but a rare few; I wouldn't blink if everyone but those few just dropped dead. My heart is body temperature, however.

KateShroud: I've found that people who don't have the experience to read me properly will misread my emotions. I wonder if you ran into some people who haven't learned a broader viewpoint yet. People who say we're cold or lack empathy are looking for specific non-verbals to go with our words. More experienced people are better at seeing how we feel. Less experienced people need patience.

Gigglesqueak: Your boyfriend is one lucky guy.

I don't know. The way you are would not bother me personally but you noticed it and for some reason it became obvious to you and grabbed your attention. I know the type of personality you describe and that kind doesn't leave the impression of "coldness".

One thing that does bother me more than this type of personality is the overly friendly one. I don't like the ones who are fakey friendly just so they can find out about my life, what I am doing with it so they can tell others. I don't like for too many people to discuss my life, that is, unless it's internet people on Wrong Planet, lol.

I find myself wanting to stop caring because caring is used to hurt me.

I can relate to this from his point of view. A few of my family members (including one early childhood teacher trained to pick out the symptoms - and also with an autistic daughter) have said that I display all the symptoms of someone classified with Asperges. Recently (like, days ago) I looked into the possibility further and realized that, yes, I did seem to fit the classification. Including a whole pile of things I didn't realize that I did such as 'stimming' and meltdowns/shutdowns (always though I was just being suddenly stupidly angry/selfish or really really depressed for little reason). I am in the process of finding someone to get myself diagnosed professionally (and from hearing some of the stories here, that will include finding the RIGHT someone who knows what they are babbling about).

Intellectually it doesn't bother me much. I am still me and I still like being me. It would explain a lot of my behaviours (such as shutdowns/meltdowns which don't happen so much any more, but can do when I am highly stressed) and may very well enable me to find tricks and tools to help me in every day life. But emotionally it is a major shift in world view. I don't deal with that sort of emotional shift very well and it can take a bit of time (and sometimes time out from life in general) to be OK with that side of things. Currently I am finding myself stimming near constantly, and getting reallllly close to melt downs for very minor reasons, even though intellectually I am *pleased* to have a good solid reason for why I behave the way I do. It is a very strange place to be...

From past experience I know I will balance back out again within a week or three, but it is a background process that I don't really seem have much direct input into. Best that I have been able to do with similar issues in the past is make sure I provide myself with a nice safe (in my case, people free) environment with hot baths, incense, a good movie or thirteen, and *very* occationally talk to someone about it. Doesn't mean I have to hide the knives or anything, but it does mean I may appear detached and unfocused for a while. Complete with hand waving, rocking, talking to myself, and when socializing a bit of a black sense of humour with a large dose of Random and a complete lack of small talk.

It does not mean I dislike the people around me (unless I disliked them in the first place) but in sorting out my own head I do tend to distance myself from others even if I care about them. Any answers I give will tend to be based purely on my own form of logic, and I will tend to forget that just because I know something, does not mean that everyone around me will.... But as long they let me process it all and don't treat me with pity, avoid me completely or get angry with me being a bit of a distant twitchy bouncy freak, it's usually all good. Also in that state, if say something odd that could mean two or more things, I usually mean the good thing!

Though, I can see how it would be tough on you, and he is lucky you are seriously trying to help and understand where he is at.

Just my 2c (and probably more) - Hope it is of help.

Is it beating? Is it made of stone? Maybe you don't realize how you bad you sound.

Thank you, Smitch.

I think you just summed up how and why my boyfriend feels the way he does. He is horrible with words and writing and he has been struggling to communicate his emotions about the whole thing to me, but from what I have been able to gather, it is exactly as you described. He's pleased with knowing that there is a reason for these kind of quirky things he does, but at the same time he's struggling with the fact that he is technically not "normal" anymore.

One thing he said to me was, "I just keep thinking that I have a form of autism, and that's scary, because of the autistic people I've come in contact with." I think he's worried that maybe he appears that way in aspects to other people and never knew it.

I feel lucky to have him. I have my own issues and problems and he has always been there for me. As I said, I always knew he had it, but now that he has come to terms with it, we're dealing with it for the first time and as always, new things take him time to get used to.

But once again, thank you for putting into words my boyfriend's feelings because it only helps me more. It's been a positive experience for me to come here and read and understand.

That's EXACTLY right. I was told this very thing during an assertiveness training course I took long ago. In order to engage people in conversation, I had to ask questions of them - about them - and try to avoid talking about myself unless I was asked a direct question in return. (Even then I fumbled my way through that because I can't seem to answer personal questions in front of other people without looking like I'm being evasive). I was also told to establish eye contact as well, something I never could do well. What they never answered for me was the following question, "What if I can't think of anything to ask that doesn't sound too personal or creepy-sounding?" The only thing I was told was, "You just have to feel your way through the conversation." Like that helped. Also, I'm not exactly interested in other people (or what they have to say) unless they're famous writers or into weather phenomena. Can't help it. It's just how I am. No matter how many of these kind of seminars and training sessions I've been to concerning interpersonal skills, I've always gotten to this same roadblock. In order to ask people questions that don't come off as stilted or creepy, I have to take a real interest in them, which I'm almost totally incapable of doing.

They actually said you have to "feel" your way through a conversation? For some reason I get this weird picture in my head of having very long whiskers and feeling one's way through dark, unfamiliar territory.

People are no more important to me than blades of grass, wait, no, blades of grass are innately green [for the most part], and I like the colour green.

I don't sound bad to myself for I'm not bad to myself; "bad" is proactively going out of one's way to kill others, like supposed "righteous" government bodies and extremist religious organizations. I keep to myself, but if you were to fall dead, I wouldn't care, if every child in the world were to fall dead, I wouldn't care, and why should I [as I didn't do it]?

I am renounced for being very cold and seemingly uncaring to people IRL
though I am not like that at all :s

I can say I come across as cold-hearted cuz I just don't show much emotions and I isolate myself just like you.

Yeah, but I'm a tall, handsome devil so - for some reason - people find it endearing.
Odd, that.

Welcome to the world of building a literal picture for everything that happens to you. That's my life, daily. Of course, I have a very amusing file of these little pictures in my head.....LOL

I get that all the time.

If someone gives me a nice present. And I do get really happy for it and smile, it is not the right smile and they accuse me of not liking it or thinking the present was completely horrendous.

And I hardly ever show my emotions, and when I do I over exaggerate my facial expressions, and people tend not to talk to me or anything.

The same happens if someone dies or is in an accident, I say "ok" and just leaves it at that. (The person is dead, what can I do about that??)

I do cry at funerals. I am not a robot.