Dear Boris1010,

you’re welcome. I actually read about that same research about the injured prefrontal cortex which then results in the inability to make decisions. I’ve just looked it up again, it was discovered by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, and it’s called somatic marker theory. He discovered that when the prefrontal cortex is injured, the information from our emotional centers in the brain (the limbic, aka mammalian brain – hypothalamus, amygdala etc) doesn’t reach the thinking part of the brain – the neocortex, and without this crucial info, we cannot make decisions. That would be like not having the gut feeling (or in case of injury, the gut feeling not being relayed to the thinking/decision making part of the brain).

It’s good to know you do have a gut feeling with mechanical systems. It’s probably because you know those systems so well, you’ve been working with them for decades, so you can almost “feel” them. If you knew people so well, and primarily, if you knew yourself well – on the emotional level – you would have the same ability to feel things, to read cues… to have emotional intelligence, I guess.

I don’t think I’m “cut out” to mesh well with others. STILL far too self-absorbed, bouncing around in my own little world, which I have to be yanked out of if she wants my attention, for the most part. It’s just how I am, not a deliberate choice. It’s my “default state,” to use a programming term (not a programmer, just familiar with what goes into it). I can haul myself out of it, but it’s an effort of will, and requires steady attention. It’s “work,” not something that comes naturally.

Well, you did manage to yank yourself out of your autistic little world for the sake of your lady friend. And she didn’t even need to do much, you were eager to reach out and open up… So yes, I think your experience with your lady friend was a “jump-start” on getting back in touch with your feelings. It’s good that it happened, and maybe it’s good that it ended too, because you wouldn’t have been ready, you still need to do work on yourself. But you’re moving in the right direction.

To help yourself, you can think of what is it that you felt when relating to her, what is it that made you eager to communicate and open up? You said there was a mutual understanding (“I’ve done that too!”), after which you didn’t feel so guilty any more. I guess you developed some compassion for yourself, when witnessed by another fellow traveler/sufferer?

You’ve never received compassion from your stepfather (as a side note, I don’t know about receiving compassion from your mother, and in general how your mother treated you after the divorce?), on the contrary he criticized and condemned you all the time. With your lady friend, and I guess in the entire AA community, you haven’t felt criticized – you felt understood and listened to, you received positive attention, you received compassion and understanding, you received support and encouragement. All those things you lacked in your childhood… I think the AA community allowed you to open up, it was a supportive, loving environment. And then your heart leapt to one particular woman there. But it was AA that enabled you to feel safe to open up.

So I guess that’s the precondition for you opening up to people and coming out of your shell: a loving, supportive environment. If your wife offers a hostile, criticizing environment, that’s something to consider. You’d need to be seen with new eyes, but before your wife can do it (if she’s able to do it at all), it’s you who’d need to see yourself with new eyes. See yourself as this loving and caring, enthusiastic person, who’s reaching out, helping others, sharing his story honestly, sharing his pain and struggles, and being his authentic self… See yourself as the new you, the real you, who’s been hiding in his shell for so long, but now his time has come… Do you think you can do that?