First time in history!! !! The NT/AS open hotline ! !! !! !

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Wow, this alexithymia discussion is quite fascinating. I just took the test and scored intermediate, 101 points. And that sounds about right, because when I was younger I used to never miss people, or never be aware of missing people. I also didn't have my first crush until I was 13, and didn't recognize it as having been a crush until I was 15 and liked that same boy again after having liked someone else - my first recognized crush - the previous year. I think that's what allowed me to pull off 4 years dating an Aspie who was definitely more alexithymic than I. There were some rough spots, but it was probably more similar to the average stereotypical man/stereotypical woman relationship, but nerdier because it was between an Aspie and a BAP-ish NT. I thought of it as being like an emotional 16-year-old dating an emotional 13-year-old, although physically I was in my 20s and he was in his 30s.

The thing is, "not missing people" to me meant that I didn't feel sad or lonely when they were gone, but that wasn't the same as feeling nothing. I still don't feel lonely, even though I live alone and spend most of my time by myself, yet I consider myself an ambivert rather than an introvert because I do enjoy the company of others.

I did, however, look forward to spending time with people I liked or cared about when an immediate opportunity was coming, and when I thought of them I felt warm fuzzy feelings, like the kind I felt when I was actually with them but milder. That's what I would tell my mother, who was more like Angela and so had a lot of trouble raising a BAP kid (imagine if I'd been a full-blown Aspie!), when she missed me and asked if I'd missed her. When I thought about her, I thought about how nice it was to be with her, not how much it sucked not to be in contrast.

As I've gotten older, though, I've continued to improve in social, emotional, and practical matters, and I have caught myself being aware of feeling bad or disappointed when I don't get to see someone I'm close to and I wanted or expected to soon. So now I can say I miss people. It's still not a frequent occurrence though, and proper loneliness, if I've truly felt it, is rarer still. I'm usually content to get the time that chance allots me with those people in my life.

I've also learned not to say that I don't miss somebody regardless of whether I have actually felt bad for not getting to hang out with them since the last time I saw them. That's because I understand that "not missing someone" is a standard euphemism for "being glad they're out of your life/off the planet." I don't want anyone I care about to mistake my tendency toward...hypolexithymia, I guess you could call it, or being socially low-maintenance...for actually wanting them out of my life! I didn't understand that until probably sometime in my 20s. (And no, I still wasn't AS back then. I'd grown out of any trace of sensory issues by age 9 and had never lined up my toys, flapped my hands, or done any other classic non-social autistic things. But I might have had SCD until my 20s.) Anyone else who's alexithymic, hypolexithymic, or emotionally low-maintenance has to be careful with how most people are going to interpret "not missing" and therefore try to avoid that particular phrasing.

Thank you for your answer. This thread has clarified me a lot, too.

About the things you said on people mistaking "not missing" for "get out, I don't need you", I know those reactions quite well, including the ones that turn out to be agressive and/or violent.

About BAP and SCD. Can you please explain what those mean?

Ghost said:

"And no, I still wasn't AS back then. I'd grown out of any trace of sensory issues by age 9 and had never lined up my toys, flapped my hands, or done any other classic non-social autistic things."

About you setting a "specific" time period for ASD, there isn't actually such a thing. ASD is a definitive neurobiological alteration in the brain functioning that prevents the subject from naturally developing social skills.
It may impair the verbalization and expression of thoughts and feelings (alexithymia), as the subjects usually need logical and concrete explanation to understand things. As Autism is a spectrum, one might present its symptoms in various degrees compared to others.

The external stereotyped symptoms you described are not always present the same way. Supressing them because of adult reprehension is also common, so there are kids in the autism spectrum who won't do those things in the presence of others or will find other ways (more "socially appropriate", as they bring comfort and safety) to present those behaviours.

Maybe you just meant you didn't have an official diagnosis or still didn't know the name of the problem when you said "I still wasn't AS back then".

Peacefully,
Dante.

BAP = broad autistic phenotype, which is when someone has ASD traits but not enough to qualify as a disorder.
SCD = social communication disorder, which is the social symptoms of ASD without the repetitive behaviors or sensory issues.

There are many legends of me as an oddball child, but none of them ever involved classic stereotypies like hand-flapping or lining up toys. What they involved were behaviors indicating sensory defensiveness (e.g. covering my ears during fireworks, retreating from hugs) or under-sensitivity to pain (being unfazed when I fell out of a bunk bed and when I got a huge cut from roller skating and had to get stitches), being precocious with ABCs (alphabet at 3 while appearing not to listen in on my sister's lessons, independent reading by 4), being literal and blunt, and lacking common sense.

Recent reading has convinced me that my developmental profile sounds a lot more like Darold Treffert's Type 3 Hyperlexia, where someone starts out appearing to have an ASD but has no problems with eye contact and body language and may seem fine in their inner circle, and then they start to outgrow the non-social ASD traits in mid-childhood and the social ones later. This profile as a separate condition from ASD is hypothesized as an explanation for kids who appear to outgrow autism. And I think if I had been born some 15 or 20 years later, I might well have been diagnosed with ASD and later lost said diagnosis. Instead, I was just a plain old neurotic misfit for a long time, and then diagnosed with ADHD which was later dropped.

Good luck getting support to further your already solid and hard-earned progress, Dante!

I no longer feel like a neurotic misfit, but the memory of having been one never goes away. Instead of traumatizing me or holding me back, I think it's actually helped make my hard-earned cognitive empathy better than it would have been had I been a classic NT from birth. Everyone, regardless of neurotype, is a little strange to me, so I'm open to questioning and refining my ideas about them.

I know being different makes me unique and, honestly, a badass. I see NTs around me as the ones who mostly need help to understand and deal with difference. I'm already at ease with it as an important and inevitable part of me. A gift I dare to say, but I'm still treated agressively when I'm not what they expect.

Thank you! I will soon find help. It might be difficult for me now to be officially diagnosed, as the majority of Psyche professionals don't give me enough time to verbalize. The last I went to, didn't realise that I was trying to ask for help when the only thing that came out was ramblings about my personality traits. I thought I was being very clear. I was absolutely wrong. She took me as absolutely normal because I wasn't able to verbalise my plea. I was shaky from nervousness at the time (I realised days later it wasn't the cold that caused it).

I feel like a child trying to find the right words to express himself but no one's patient enough to wait for him to say all he wants or even finish a sentence because it takes too long.

(I came up with this explanation after months of thinking)

Peacefully,
Dante.

I scored 114 points, high.

I really, really, want to feel empathy and be a kind person. I try hard to feel empathy, but sometimes it comes naturally. I want friends, and a lover, and it's terrifying to think that I might not be able to fulfill their emotional needs. My mom tells me I act "selfish" a lot... Classmates avoid me. I can't tell what I look like to them, inside my bubble. But I will work hard to be better at empathy. I really, really want to be a reciprocal person.

Great thread idea!