Skip to main content

Article: Reflection on Grief and Loss

I'd like to draw your attention to a post on Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg's excellent Aspergers Journeys Blog.

The post is titled;

Posted: May 31st 2009.

I think that one of the most important things in this post is the fact that Rachel displays a wide and varying range of emotion in her grief and that much of that emotion isn't necessarily visible on the outside.

One of the stereotypes that aspies find themselves fighting is the "emotionless robot". The research seems to have confused the showing of emotion with the "having" of emotion. In truth they're entirely different. Both can exist without the other.

If you know anyone who thinks that aspies are emotionless or if you've been told this by doctors, I urge you to read Rachel's post and learn the truth.

Comments

LizzieK8 said…
I was given an erroneous diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder for my "lack" of empathy.
Stat Mama said…
Did you see the recent article about AS and feelings? I posted about it here.
Damo said…
Last week my father went in for a 5 way bypass. At some time he died for 20 minutes. I asked him of this later and he was shocked I knew. I was then enlightened as to what went on. As for feelings, I had none. There were no emotions either just the blank void even talking to him about his death. I couldn't even do sympathy. It was just data.
I suppose I was in the hold the family together mode and would address the feelings later. I'm still learning to express my feelings but here is how I differntiated it (away from the situation). My central nervous system was going ballistic (it looked like I was in severe coffee withdrawl the shakes were that bad). The stomach had an uneasy calmness and the brain had this pulsating ball of raw energy just waiting to explode. And to make things worse, I was pushing all this aside to be strong for the family.
Well the family is now back together I have begun to decompress. I am not looking forward to diffusing that ball of energy.
So I do feel. I have compassion. Empathy... meh. I am also frustrated that by me recognising the appropriate social cues I am classed as having empathy and therefore not aspie. They are wayyy off and many of the books I read are either incorrect or misunderstanding their subjects. We feel!
just me said…
Sometimes I'll say that my husband doesn't feel emotion, but I know that he does. I know the way he feels or interprets it is different than I or others do and I definitely know he shows it differently (or not at all), but I need to be more careful with my wording and not say that he doesn't feel.

Popular posts from this blog

Why do Aspies Suddenly Back Off in Relationships (Part 2)

In part one, we looked at the role that Change Resistance plays in causing aspies to suddenly go "cold" in otherwise good relationships. This time, I want to look at self esteem and depression; Self Esteem The aspie relationship with themselves is tedious at best. People with Asperger's commonly suffer from low self esteem. As discussed in earlier posts, this low self esteem often results from years of emotional turmoil resulting from their poor social skills. Aspies are often their own worst enemy. They can over analyze situations and responses in an effort to capture lost nonverbal communication. This often causes them to invent problems and to imagine replies. Everything made up by aspies will tend to be tainted with their own self image. This is one of reasons that people with Asperger's will sometimes decide that they are not good enough for their partner and that they must let them go. Sometimes, the aspie will develop a notion of chivalry or self-sacrific...

Aspie Myths - "He Won't Miss Me"

I apologise for the excessive "male-orientated" viewpoint in this post. I tried to keep it neutral but somehow, it just works better when explained from a male viewpoint. Here's a phrase that I've seen repeated throughout the comments on this blog on several occasions; "I know that he won't miss me when I'm gone because he's aspie" Today, we're going to (try to) bust that myth; Individuals I'll start off with a reminder that everyone is an individual. If all aspies were completely alike and predictible, they'd be a stereotype but they're not. Each is shaped by their background, their upbringing, their beliefs and their local customs. An aspie who grew up with loud abusive parents has a reasonable chance of becoming loud and abusive themselves because in some cases, that's all they know. That's how they think adults are supposed to behave. In other cases, aspies who grew up in those circumstances do a complete about-fa...

What is Stimming and what does it feel like?

According to wikipedia , stimming is; "a jargon term for a particular form of stereotypy, a repetitive body movement (often done unconsciously) that self-stimulates one or more senses in a regulated manner. It is shorthand for self-stimulation, and a stereotypy is referred to as stimming under the hypothesis that it has a function related to sensory input." The wikipedia article then goes on to propose some theories about the function of stimming and how it is designed to provide nervous system arousal. The theory being that it helps autistic people "normalize". I'm not sure how much I believe that theory - I helps us relax and it feels good... but normalize?? Not sure. The most commonly cited form of stimming is body rocking. Such is the prevalence of this form of stimming in Hollywood films concerning autism that you could be forgiven for thinking that autistic people stim by rocking most of the time. How far does stimming go? Stimming is much more than just...