Inappropriate emotions, not feeling anything

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I have a delayed emotional response to death. I remember being reprimanded for laughing at my grandfather's funeral. It may have been because I was so confused being around many people and with all the pointless funeral rituals. I even bragged about not crying and being "strong" when everyone else was crying. However, later it dawned on me that my grandfather was gone; that there was no longer anyone there to read me bedtime stories and to take me out for long walks in the forest. It is only upon this realization that I spent at least 2 hours all alone in my room crying.

I also often laugh out loud in a class when no one else is laughing, which is VERY embarassing.

I think this is caused by the fact that I have lots of associations in my head. While other people concentrate on the "plot" of human interactions, my mind wanders on about stuff I notice that other people don't seem to notice at all. When something catches my eye, a string of associations forms in my head, associations that frequently have nothing to do with the situation at hand.

My grandmother's brother died this morning, and to me it's just an unfortunate bit of news for her. I didn't know her brother, cos he lived in Oklahoma. I can't share in her sadness. I feel nothing.

My mother calls me in the middle of my nap and says I need to turn the oven off. I hate being woken up when napping, and so does she. My grandmother left the oven on cos she had to leave quickly. Well, I wasn't aware. Then 15 minutes later she calls and says to turn it back on. So I got woken up for nothing. My mother tells me to get over it, her uncle just died. I do understand that everyone is sad, but I'm not on everyone's wavelength. It doesn't register. So, I have to place myself in a similar situation to understand the feeling, and that isn't fun. I'd rather just go back to bed.

Here's one about not feeling anything during a dramatic moment in my life.

I said something particularly rude to my girlfriend and she slapped me and proceeded to tell me off. Consciously, I THOUGHT it was over because I had done something very stupid. She was only a wonderful woman with whom I was having my first affair. After a while of arguing, as it were, I felt my eyes start to burn. Then, the tears flowed. I do not know what I was FEELING. I can only guess in retrospect. With her great empathy, she probably knows better than me. Anyway she forgave and remarked on her ability to make men cry.

What's even more irritating about tonight's events is that despite what my mother knows about AS, she still doesn't seem to give me any slack. I don't like guilt trips. They don't make me feel guilty. I just get pissed that someone wants to try that on me.

At my grandma's funeral, in the cemetery, I was standing there staring blankly into the distance (as usual) and someone came up to me and asked "are you OK" in a very kindly and supportive way and I realized I wasn't feeling anything, I was just waiting for it to be over.

But I care about people a lot, and am aware of their feelings. NT's have a direct, hard-wired empathic reflex. You show them a picture of your new baby and they say aww and feel stuff. It's like if you stick them with a pin and they say oww and feel pain.

I look at the picture and think "they have a new baby and they're happy and that's great and it makes me happy too, because I like them to be happy", and then I mimic an NT response by saying "Aww isn't he cute".

I don't think I care any less, but the information is processed in a different part of my brain, because I don't have much of the reflex part.

I can't even muster up the ability to be fake. I hate being fake.

Events often elicit inappropriate responses. Someone (obviously upset) was telling me about someone who had just commited suicide. I felt a sort of amusement at the news and had to struggle with hiding the smile I felt creeping onto my face.

In other instances, I break down at events that I know shouldn't have any great affect on me. I never know how I am going to react.

I have trouble having any empathy when it comes to natural death. It leaves me wondering what the big deal is about all of a sudden... I mean, everyone knows it's coming, it's going to happen and all. Especially if it's an illness that takes the person-then people actually have some sort of time frame to expect it in. There is lots of preparation for it, so it's no surprise to me really.

I get upset when animals die though... I get upset thinking about things that have to do with my children if anything happened to me... I get upset about a lot of things that are very minute to others and just not rational as far as they are concerned... then I get more upset that I'm upset to begin with, because I can't process and make sense of things when I am upset.

I don't get how NTs-some of them, can really do the whole 100% fake thing. I'm a fixer... if someone is that upset, and I was in their shoes, I would want the problem solved so I didn't have to worry about it anymore, or I would want time to myself. I don't really understand the whole "oh, I'm so sorry for you" type of stuff... I tend to start asking questions, getting information about situations before I can say whether or not I'm sorry for that person.

There is a line where feeling sorry for them turns into me wanting to just yell "stop being stupid and this stuff will stop happening to you!" That's when I go silent, walk away, and let them be. If I can't relate from my own experiences, or can see huge flaws in their logic on things, then I can't go any further with it.

Some see me as cold 'cuz of my questioning them and all, but meh... that doesn't really bug me much either.