Unable To Talk About Feeling's & Talk With Parents Poorly

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I remember when my parents used to ask me what I was feeling and I'd say "I don't know", and when they would persist I'd start to cry. When they sent me to a therapist because I wouldn't talk to them, I'd cry there as well. It was like mental torture for me. This would make sense if I was raised in a family that wasn't caring, abusive, or maybe simply didn't promote male's showing emotion to enforce being tough, but no, I had very loving, caring, and generally reasonable parents. Despite this, my conversations have always been quite shallow with my parents. I still, at the age of 21 now, have never said the words "I love you", and I know it hurts my mom (and probably my dad), but I can't bring myself to do it for some reason.

Is this a common issue with folks on the spectrum? It's not something I've read too deeply about yet, and I'd like to put my experience out there before I do. I've been researching HFA quite obsessively since I came across it randomly about a month ago, and while I seem to fit the symptoms, I don't trust myself to self-diagnose for fear that I'm just letting myself conform to the symptoms from reading about them so damn much. I believe that happens often with things like personality theories and mental disorders, etc.

I could write plenty more, but I hate to over do it.

Hey sorry there has been no post yet.
I'm not diagnosed but I think I know what you mean. I have never been able to talk about my feelings or anything like that with my parents. I never noticed it was a problem or noticed that I did that until my mom told me a few times just this past year or so. I'm 22. I talk with my parents extremely poorly about only shallow stuff that comes up in the atmosphere in conversation and never about anything that has to do with me or my life. I can never initiate any conversation with them that is meaningful. Yeah it feels horrible when I ponder over it because essentially they can't get close to me and they don't know about my problems. Dunno, feels pretty bad.

Atypical or poor ability to express feelings is a major autistic trait. I often say "I don't know" when asked about my feelings. Many non-autistics confuse atypical/poor ability to express emotions with lack of emotions.

There's a word for having problems understanding feelings that I forget off the top of my head but it's a pretty common co-morbid with Autism. I have problems expressing my feelings to anyone except my girlfriend but it's cause I don't feel close enough with anyone else. I'm a fairly private person, was bullied alot & my parents were critical of my Aspie quirks instead of understanding even thou my mom suspected me of having Aspergers sense I was a toddler so I never felt like being affectionate with them.

I text or email my parents so I can think about what I want to say in a lower pressure environment. I have the “I love you” problem as well but my parents understand because I show my love in other ways than words.