Do I need a doctor?

July 28, 2011 2:26 PM

[Psych filter] I'm a few months out of a relationship that wouldn't have happened if I'd been honest with myself from the start. However it led to me questioning more than just my motives... do I need to talk to a pro, or just rest, relax and not make such a big deal of life? Of course there's

The whole thing lasted about six months, and after about ten weeks or so I was already starting to be convinced I hadn't begun it for the right reasons. I liked her, but didn't love her, and couldn't really put my finger on why I'd told her and myself anything different, other than that the sex was good and I didn't want it to stop. Given my fairly conservative upbringing, that reason is one I'd have every reason to try not to believe of myself, especially if the other party thinks my motives are more emotional.

Regardless of how it started, something came up that meant she had to go away for a while and the separation helped me recognise that I didn't have any particular regard beyond enjoyment of her company like any other friend; this was what lay behind my breaking up with her shortly after.

Here's where it starts to get a bit less straightforward; around the same time, a close relative of mine died, one whom beyond my immediate family I would have called my favourite of all my relations. But beyond disappointment that I wouldn't be able to see her again and recognising the gap it would leave in the family (she was unfailingly good-natured and laughing), it didn't hurt a bit. Imagining losing any of my other family (and I have a fairly vivid imagination) produces a similar lack of emotional reaction.

This hasn't always been the case, but I other than 'less than 4 years ago' I can't really say when this came about, and certainly I've no idea what caused it.

It may be worth noting here that as a teenager I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. I detest blaming it for anything, and other than the occasional conversational faux pas, I don't believe it affects me significantly; I neglect to mention it on job applications and the like, but it probably ought to get thrown in here.

So tell me, MeFites; should I take a chill pill and let this blow over? Just be satisfied with casual relationships (as long as I'm honest) until I find someone who I click with? Or is the family thing a huge red flag and I should be on a couch getting advice from a pro? Answers on a postcard, or possibly in this thread.

P.S. if you're convinced I need the second option, advice on how to find someone worthwhile on the NHS would be appreciated.

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (7 answers total)

What is your history with other relationships? Have you ever fallen in love or been able to form a close emotional bond to someone?
posted by timsneezed at 3:00 PM on July 28, 2011

As for the relationship, it sounds like you handled it with integrity. A lot more integrity than many people would have shown.

Where the relative is concerned, that's not really abnormal. I know television portrays stunned emotional reactions, but it isn't necessarily going to be like that. No one's ever happy that a loved one died, but people can accept death as a fact of life and take it on the chin remarkably well, especially if it was someone you had a really good relationship with. Basically you're describing something that's well within normal/healthy range.

Overall you sound very level-headed, in touch with your emotions, and clear about the kind of person you want to be.
posted by tel3path at 3:01 PM on July 28, 2011

You seem like a level headed person for the most part, it just sounds like you're over analyzing things. Just relax, and go with the flow; you'll eventually figure everything out.

So you were in a relationship for a while, eventually realizing it was just about convenience and sex? Many of us have been there. I dated a girl (and was engaged to another) until I realized it was just convenience and sex. Broke up and ended up being fine and not really caring. I wouldn't worry about it.

In terms of the relative dying, you seem to be thinking of the Hollywood wailing scene where you sit in a dark room and cry for weeks. It doesn't happen usually, you could have been thinking you were closer then what you actually were. Again, personal experience - my grandma died and I didn't care. I felt sad for what my dad was going through. Her death tho? Didn't care at all, truthfully was more excited to go through her house then anything.

And thinking about your family dying is hard to process until the reality of it hits. Everyone always assumes they are going to act differently then when it actually happens. I'm not going to tell you to go or not go to a psych, as I think they help even just for a bitching session. But it's up to you if you want to go, if you're really that worried about it. Go once or twice, and see what they say. Overall, I think your pretty level headed and on a good path.
posted by lpcxa0 at 3:07 PM on July 28, 2011

You shouldn't underestimate the impact from Asperger's; acknowledging the way it works is rational, and not an 'excuse'. In fact, the fact that you have it completely transforms any advice or comment I might have, and I'm only passingly familiar with the autism spectrum (though more than your average person). I think you would benefit from greater contact with other people on the spectrum (especially online), at least if you haven't already tried this. Even though ADD isn't a great comparison, it still makes me non-neurotypical, and realizing I have it explains without justifying a lot of the behavior that otherwise puzzled me or made me think I was 'wrong' (ie, lazy, selfish, etc).

Now, of course it is a spectrum, so it impacts some people more than others (just like ADD), so it's easy enough to start thinking it's 'okay' if you've got a handle on your life. But the effects are often subtle, and it's especially hard to even detect stuff like interpersonal costs when one of the consequences of Asperger's makes those more of a blind spot for you in the first place.

The truth is, a doctor isn't going to 'fix' this, though the right one may guide you towards more resources: if you want to develop your connection to others and social ties/awareness, this is something that you need to do through practice, and it's going to take time. From my understanding, some people with Asperger's do indeed just accept this as the way they are, and give up on the 'typical' expectation of relating to others. I want to say that it's ok to do that: it's ok to get sex from a relationship if that's how it's set up. There's nothing wrong with it unless you want more. Some people find they relate better/more comfortably to other people on the spectrum (though usually these are friendships). And some people take a more pro-active approach to 'clicking'; clicking isn't going to be so easy when you're on the spectrum, as you've found. Hell, it's not so easy even for people with PDD-NOS, or in other words people who're relatively 'normal' and don't meet the criteria for full diagnosis. In the olden days, these would likely be just the super-introverted socially-maladjusted folks who can never...quite... fit (and never quite wanted to). Clicking really well is an exceptional event even for neuro-typical people; they're just satisfied with less of a match because their social skills smooth the gap more, I think. They know how to 'create' a relationship through sheer proximity; they get attached through contact-- this post-coital attachment is especially (if stereotypically) true of women, who're non-coincidentally supposed to be more socially adept. It's an uphill struggle for the rest of us.


So yeah, I'd encourage you to 'practice, practice, practice' making close social connections, making friends, etc. Try to find a community, cultivate your relationships with the people you're close to now, etc. A psychologist (especially one specializing in autism-spectrum issues) may help with some strategies, but it won't substitute for lots of time exploring and practicing. That said, your emotional expression/awareness is never going to be 'normal', but that's ok. You still have these feelings, you just aren't necessarily able to perceive or express them (which is what takes practice), but don't take any level of feeling/expression as 'standard'. You don't 'need' to feel anything, even about people you know you care about, even about them passing. I say this as someone who's always had trouble expressing emotion, especially to extreme events (like a loved one's death). I process things in my own way: slowly and internally. Whatever way you process is ok. Just because other people cry, or are obviously torn up, or whatever response they have, that doesn't make them a standard for you to measure yourself by.

And I want to reiterate that-- as even you realize-- there's nothing intrinsically negative about a relationship that's something like friends-with-benefits, given it's mutual. Any such connotation is about cultural/value-based judgment instead. That judgment is something you can change, or decide to amend in your own mind. If you're satisfied with what you've got at any point, there's nothing saying you need more. However, if youwant more, then realize that you'd have to work for it, but so do we all, in different ways.
posted by reenka at 3:28 PM on July 28, 2011

Several very close and important people have died during my late teenage years or since, and what I have found is that each event is absolutely unique in every way: it is a combination of what was going on in the person's life at the time of death, circumstances at death, a bit about the specifics of my relation with the respective person, my own stage of life etc.

When I was 16, one of the people who I have been closest to and who I love most, to this day, died abruptly My heart split in two, and I went absolutely crazy. Since then, I have experienced various deaths with comparative equanimity, until my grandmother died. This is still haunting me. In her case, I know it is because she had been unhappy for so long, and just getting to a place where she might, possibly, maybe, begin to take joy in life again. It is this sorrow for her that makes it bitter and hard. For people who had a good life, yes, I feel sad I will not see them again, it is a shock, but it also feels like part of life. So, given the way you describe this, maybe that is what you are experiencing - your relative sounds like she had a full life, as born out by her gentleness and good nature. Maybe you are more melancholy then torn apart, and that seems like a good sentiment, considering her life and her disposition.

As for your girlfriend - most relationships never quite rev up to full-blown tearing-your-heart-out if you lose each other. Either there wasn't enought time for those incredibly strong bonds to develop, or you were just not the right fit. But it does happen, not infrequently, that outside circumstances force you to take stock emotionally, and that you are not quite where you think you are, or where you feel would be appropriate. As long as you do not let important connections slide because you are disproportionally sluggish (sometimes the actual level of connectedness and your own desires are ignored because of some sort of internal paralysis - that can happen, too, and it is much worse!), there is no reason to beat yourself up about this. Maybe you were never really meant to be, maybe, given the right amount of time/right set of circumstances, you could have become more to each other. But that didn't happen, and that is fine, too.
posted by miorita at 4:12 PM on July 28, 2011

Seconding some of what reenka said -- I am also diagnosed with Asperger's and while I know I *have* emotions, I am not apt to necessarily express them per the expectations of my culture. Moreover, it can often take me a long time to even figure out if something I am feeling is related to an emotional reaction to something in the first place.

This has gotten better as I've matured and gained self-awareness (mainly a function of simply finally bringing in enough data from the outside world to make sense of certain internally-recurring phenomena). I have also, however, benefited from simply being around certain people who (for whatever reason) are uncannily good at helping me see connections between "this weird sensation I am experiencing" and "this or that physical/emotional/experiential phenomenon".

[To give a rather egregious example, I struggled for years with what I presumed were "panic attacks" (as they tended to leave me breathing rapidly and feeling terribly out of sorts for intervals ranging from several minutes to an hour) but then I met my now-partner of several years. And once when I was in the midst of an "attack" he suggested I take off my jacket and have a glass of water. Sure enough, those simple actions stopped the "panic" dead, and only afterward did I realize that my supposed panic-attacks were just me *getting overheated* but not recognizing it. Since then I've gotten MUCH better at, you know, dressing appropriately for the weather but even that took me well into my twenties, and I am 32 now.]

I do have to say it can be difficult to find *therapists* good at this sort of thing but I've had one or two that were excellent at it (one of whom I know was actually a rather young post-doc doing their residency, and a very creative/open minded type, which may have been a factor, who knows). If you do go the "see a professional" route, though, I HIGHLY recommend seeking a *psychologist* (or possibly licensed social worker), NOT a psychiatrist right off the bat. I've found with few exceptions that psychiatrists these days are not really apt to have you lie on a couch and pontificate, but rather more prone to dealing only with medication aspects of brain-hackery (and therefore tending to only have very short appointments in which little of any substance is discussed).

All that said, I would not say based on your post that you NEED a doctor per se. What you may need is simply a self-initiated crash course in getting a better handle on your own sense of who you are. Oh and if you haven't already, you may want to google "alexthymia", which is basically a term referring to difficulty identifying one's own emotional state.
posted by aecorwin at 4:15 PM on July 28, 2011

There are plenty of reasons to overlook relationship flaws early on. - principally because you are trying to have a relationship. In order to do so, you need to figure out which mini compromises are worth it, what small traits are really deal breakers, and ultimately answer the question of: Hey, is this the long term relationship of my dreams? Doubly so, we have to hope that when we do find that person, that that same feeling is reciprocated - that they decide that they want to be with you.

The thing is, when we are trying to make that connection, we want to make it work, so we overlook things - then we realize we probably shouldn't have much later down the line.

This is where nostalgia is good. The sex was good - that's excellent. I'm sure some of the conversations you had were excellent, that you saw some fun movies together, that you did a few fun trips together, that you accomplished a lot of ground as a couple. Furthermore, you probably figured out some things that you really enjoyed and will bring forward to your next relationship, and you probably figured out some stuff that wasn't in this past one that you'd like to try in your next one... See? It wasn't a waste of your time.

And sometimes, you meet someone that is nearly perfect, but it isn't. You can't force it perfect and neither can they. That's when you take the hit to the heart, but ultimately you can be glad in what you did get to share with that person.

On a side note - you sound way awesome. You will find someone that's right for you. And seriously, you don't need to overthink it. When the time comes, you will know. Until then, have fun meeting the wrong ones and finding out about the best parts of them. When it ends, try not to treat it like a failure, but as a step closer to finding the right one.
posted by Nanukthedog at 4:24 PM on July 28, 2011 [4 favorites]