How Deep Is Your Love?

Post Reply New Topic

I have a friend I have had since I was 9.
He is my only friend. We love each other very much.
I mean I like and love him about a hundred times more
than anyone else i love like my mom and dad etc.
Not meaning that I don't love them much, but that is just how big my love for him is.
But here is the thing I have to be completely honest about. If he died, I don't know how
deeply that would effect me. It just seems like something I would view in a clinical way
is the only way I can think of to describe it. Like I would be sad and miss him, but it is
also something that I would just accept and go on with things as usual. It's like even with
him there is not a complete connection. Like my feelings for him are just slightly deeper
than superficial. i don't know how to explain this without feeling like I sound like a cold
blooded callus jerk.

I know what you mean. I feel the same way about just about everyone I know. I imagine it feels worse once the person actually dies, though. I've never had someone close to me die, and perhaps you haven't, either.
Interestingly, Richard Feynman (who is way to sociable to be an aspie but definitely had some aspie traits), a scientist, was unlucky enough to have his first wife die. He loved her enormously. He didn't once cry at her funeral, or for months afterwards, until he saw a dress in a store window. He thought to himself "My wife would like that dress" and then burst into tears, realizing the implications of what had happened.
I think it sometimes takes a very long time for the implications of death to reach us. We (humans in general) often deliberately shield are selves from thinking too deeply about it because it's painful.

I don't see anything abnormal about the depth of your feelings for your friend. Of course you would just carry on with your life, what else could you do? People who find themselves destroyed by the passing of the loved one were in a co-dependent (unhealthy) relationship and should not be envied or emulated.

I think that most people, when imagining the worst, don't imagine it in all that much detail, but more so in the abstract. It makes sense, after all, such dwelling would be quite unpleasant, nobody really wants to do that. So if something bad does happen, it can often hit way harder than expected, simply because one's prior imaginings are basically a simplified version with most of the unpleasant details omitted, which cannot be avoided when it actually happens. When it happens, you actually notice all the little things; the stuff taken for granted to the extent that it isn't something you're really aware of until it's gone.

I think I'm in a unique position to discuss this matter, actually.

Before school age, I was very emotional. I would have to say that I was always an emotional wreck. If I wasn't crying about something or angry, I was afraid, or I was extremely annoying and always pestering everyone about everything. My parents worked very diligently to whip all of those traits out of me even before I was out of diapers.

When I was little, my best friend, maybe the only person I considered to be a friend, had to leave because his dad was in the military. I guess I was crushed, but I didn't notice any symptoms. I remember thinking about where he might be, maybe once or twice per year.

My mom died of cancer when I was going through puberty. Now you might think that if anything would bring out the emotions, puberty and death of a parent would. I didn't cry or grieve for her loss, and maybe I never will. Because of my challenges, I still needed her, so I seemed to sink into depression, but I wasn't actually depressed.

Odd thing is, I was given Zoloft for about a year, and I recently was able to stop taking it, and the change in brain chemistry somehow reactivated my ability to cry. I am now easily able to "feel" any sort of sad emotional moment, and I can produce tears at the correct moments during chick flicks.

Oh yeah, so about how deep my love is. I'd have to say it's deeper than I can safely explore. If I even think about making a relationship with someone I can get very jealous and protective. I don't think I'm stable enough to carry on a light casual dating sort of relationship. Still, grief as an emotional response is a wired thing, and some of us just aren't wired for it, or we're wired in different ways.

if you did react in a clinical way I would think its a form of self protection, almost like being in shock, you don't actually take in the reality of what's happened, I think it happens a lot when people die. it does not mean you don't care though.

[sings]I really need to knooooo-ow...[\sings]

Oh.

*looks around awkwardly*

Just me then?

Oh yeah sure, reduce my angst to a disco classic

I guess it's like if I died, knowing him, he'd be absolutely devastated.
With me it just seems like I would just accept it Mr. Spock style.

i tend to love things very very deeply. i love my friend Rachel, i loved all my friends i had in middle school (who rejected me and broke my heart) i also love objects very dearly, like my Molly doll, whom ive had since i was born, and my blankets. most of all i love my dad, who takes care of me when my mom didnt want to.

The real question is how many people listened to the Beegees song after reading the thread titleÉ


<--- Guilty.