Actually A: Where Did You Hide Yourself?

Feelings aka the Blanket Theory

I've always treated my lack of connection to my emotions to be a result of depression. While this may contribute, I also think this is connected to my autism. People always make the assumption that autistic people don't have feelings or we lack empathy. We are also labeled egocentric. I'm here to say that couldn't be further from the truth. From my experience it is actually the opposite. We feel too much, we just lack the ability to understand what the hell we're feeling. Now, I recognize that an autistic person's functionality can also influence this (oh hey there probabilities!), but I'm talking about me. And if those people who are inwardly focused were able to communicate successfully, I have a feeling they would agree with me.

When I received my diagnosis in November of 2017, I started reexamining how I looked at myself and how I perceived the world. I told my oldest child that it felt like my brain was like a Christmas tree that was hooked up to a nuclear reactor (more on that in another section).

Back to feelings. Following my diagnosis, I started looking at the gap between what I should be feeling and what I actually felt. Should is a bad word, but we are always taught how we should act and anyone who doesn't act that way is different or other and to be avoided. I'm not blaming society as this is a mental process that is present in all species.

FYI: Feelings are complicated. Which explains why I keep digressing. The correct context needs to be created in order for this to make sense outside my head.

Anyway, I noticed there was a gap. I called it a chasm because mentally it felt that way. It was big enough that most of my feelings couldn't bridge it. Only the more intense ones could reach the distance. Unfortunately, intense emotions are very chaotic and can often lead to even more confusion and mental distress.

However, this didn't quite explain it the way I wanted. People with depression use the concept of a chasm or void to describe their lack of emotion. As this wasn't like that, I needed something better. Something less intense. Something that would help explain the confusion and misunderstanding when emotions happened.

Enter the Blanket Theory. It works like this. Have someone take several random items of various sizes, shapes, and densities. Then have someone hide them under a thick blanket. Turn off the lights and start feeling everything. Try and identify what it is by just running your hands lightly across the surface. Some objects will be more noticeable while others will be vague. They are still there, but you won't always know. So you make guesses and hope you are right. Have someone score you, but not tell you the score or have them respond randomly whether you got it wrong or right.

This is what feelings are like to me. At least the internal ones. Everything is muted and hidden and I rarely know what I'm feeling. All I just know is that I'm feeling something. People will respond to my guesses without telling me if I was correct or incorrect. More often than not, I will get it wrong and other people will get mad.

A real life example of this is sometimes when I watch football. I will see a player get hit hard and get hurt. In most cases players will gather in support as the player is being tended. I will literally tear up and want to cry. Why? I have no freaking clue. I don't know. It happens. I get this way when I'm writing and I get an idea and just know it's the right direction for the story. To me, these feelings are the same. I'm guessing they aren't, but I can't tell.

I mentioned internal feelings. This is an important distinction. You see, in addition to all this, autistic people are hyper-empathetic. We pick up all sorts of things that are external. Like the internal feelings, I don't always know why I'm responding to something just that I am. Unlike internal feelings though, feelings I pick up from other people are LOUD and will often mask what I'm feeling. For example, if I'm around people who are happy and having a good time, I'll feel happy and like I'm having a good time even if I'm sad and vice versa.

All of this can be overwhelming. By the time I get home for work, I just want to hide and not talk to people (at least not in person). It's not that I can't or even have fun, but my brain is tired from all of the external stimuli of people and interactions. The energy floating around some people can be intense. I feed off of it and before I know it, my brain is spinning at eight million miles an hour. When that happens, its harder for my to moderate my responses. So I will shut down and become pure logic. I make the mental blanket thicker for protection.

Doing this isn't easy. I want to feel. I want to connect at an emotional level. I yearn for a supposed normalcy that so many other people seem to have. I have a strong desire to help. I care very deeply for random people I meet. Even if I don't talk to them for years, I still want the best for them. I just don't know how to show it. I can tell you, but the words won't match the expression. It makes me want to scream in frustration or smack my head into a wall until the pieces fall into place.

There is no vocabulary for feelings for me. Words and actions are only the surface. I can tell someone I love them. I know at some level I do. There's a lump under the blanket that I know is love. Sometimes it is defined and other times its shapeless. I have to make an intellectual decision to feel anything. It doesn't feel natural and sensitives will also feel that unnaturalness. They'll read it is disingenuous.

I know that it can hurt people. Especially when they love you. They want that emotional connection. They want to feel it. They want to revel in it. There are times, and I've said this to other people, I wonder to what capacity I can love someone. I know this sounds defeatist. It isn't. I see it very logically. If I can't consistently identify what I'm feeling, how can I say I truly love someone? How can I maintain a relationship? How can they trust what I'm saying is true when I don't even know half the time?

How do you love when everything feels foreign? And how do I know if I'm loving someone because I love them or because I can feel that they love me? I want people to happy. I want them to feel safe, secure, cared for. If I feel other people's feelings more than my own? How can I trust any feeling?

This is my Blanket Theory.