Dear Boris1010:

In your various threads, starting a year ago, on April 27, 2020, you shared that at 10 years old, after your parents separated, your “whole world came crashing down”, and as a result you became “intensely shy, withdrawn, socially awkward and timid boy”. You were later diagnosed with “an extremely high-functioning Asperger’s”.

Wikipedia: Asperger’s is a previously used diagnosis of one of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs),  differing from other ASDs by relatively unimpaired language and intelligence . In 2013, Asperger’s became part of one umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM-5). Autism is characterized by difficulties with social interactions and communication with people.

This is what you shared about your subjective emotional experience through life in your threads since last year: “The more depressed I became, the more emotionally numb I became, absolutely indifferent to people.. just neutral, numb, indifferent. Plodding, marching… but never dancing.. Things are either bad, or not  bad, but never good. I absolutely cannot remember the last time I was excited over something, or eagerly looking forward to something“. In regard to your wife of now 49 years, you “don’t feel much of anything for her.. never really did… we do things together and have our little routines and rituals and all.. but it’s so sterile for me, no joy, no real happiness“-

– what I understand today about the subjective emotional experience of a person suffering from Asperger’s/ an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is that the person often feels neutral, numb. indifferent, etc., sometimes feeling very anxious or depressed/very distressed, but rarely feeling any joy. The reason for rarely feeling joy is that a person suffering from an ASD rarely feels connected to another person (that’s what the disorder is about: difficulty connecting to other people).

People are social animals, like dogs: when a dog sees another dog or a human, it is eager to connect, and anticipating the connection,  the dog wags its tail. It is joy in the wagging of the tail. A person suffering from an ASD does not expect to connect to another person, therefore, no joy, no wagging of the tail.

Back to you, at 67, you met a 52 year old woman in AA, and you experienced “joy, anticipation, eagerness, a fierce desire to protect and nurture.. it’s like she threw some switch that somehow turned on all those emotions… I find myself crying.. or  just in joy of being alive. I finally feel alive and happy”.

You wrote regarding not having her in your life: “The thought, now, of going back into that dead, gray emotional void is just intolerable”- that dead, gray emotional void is often the subjective emotional experience of a person suffering from ASD.

You shared: “I’ve been living from the neck up for the vast majority of my life.. I’m quite literally a stranger to my own heart, emotions, and body”- the dead, gray emotional void is in the heart (the emotional part of the brain/ body). You lived much of your life in the rational part of the brain, strictly thinking.

Your contact with the AA woman to whom you felt connected (a rare experience for you), was limited to AA meetings three times a week and to emails, texts and some phone calls, “but no more than that”. Yet, she “completely occupied (your) thoughts for over two.. years”. But as of late January 2021, “nobody has seen or heard from her. She’s entirely dropped off the radar, won’t answer emails, texts, calls… nothing”, and you were “absolutely in mourning over her disappearance”.

Following her disappearance, you did what you have done most of your life, back to strictly thinking: “I’m wondering if A: I actually love HER, the woman, or B:) what I’m attached to is my mental image of her, the idea of her”, etc.

In your April 29, 2021 thread, you wrote regarding your recent AA experience: “it feels like the ‘forward’ momentum is stalling.. I recently lost a woman I was very close to (at least in my own mind I was close to her..) in the program, and just a week or two ago I lost the best therapist I’ve ever had”-

– I think that the momentum stalling is about you losing the woman you felt connected to, and then losing a therapist you felt connected to. Your tail was wagging, so to speak, whenever you anticipated contact with the woman, and then with the therapist.. and the wagging stopped when such anticipation. What you need is to feel connected to other people from time to time, to take the elevator, so to speak, down from above your neck to your heart, below your neck.

anita