With today being valentine's day for the rest of the world (It was valentine's day yesterday in Australia), my "Are Aspies Capable of Love?" article has been reprinted by Autism West Midlands.
If you missed it, the link is here.
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
Comments
I always appreciate you sharing your comments and wisdom, Gavin. Thank you!
Aspie Wife, Aspie Mom
Question... for someone who may have AS, not diagnosed... is the possibility of rationalising emotions present? In other words, where smiles & hugs are a standard acceptable option, this person rationalises with NT ideas - respect, etc? Has very clear distinctions on a separation if love vs sex... ie can explore physical relationships then walk away seemingly unfeeling but happy to remain friends ... is it possible that early poor parenting / difficult school time with peers / later relationship injuries from lies and manipulation could cause an AS person to over rationalise emotion thus leading to this appearance of a 'lack' of emotion??