When an Aspie Goes Unresponsive

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Do you usually deal with any communications?

So this is my first post to the forum although I've been a lurker for a while now. I've also sought advice and feedback privately.

In general when you or other aspergians you know suddenly goes cold, silent, or unresponsive people often respond by increasing contact and even varying the methods of contact. So when that happens and you or the aspies you know are not responding to your partner or potential partner do you still read the texts or emails and listen to the voicemails?

"I'm not deaf; I'm ignoring you." -- A Popular Bumper-Sticker Meme

If I don't respond, it's because I don't want to respond.

No warning, no explanation, no excuses, and no apologies need be given.

Interesting... So though you're ostensibly overloaded you're still consuming the stimuli but not responding to it.

Nice. I hope that's the case in my situation because I'd rather be 'heard' than responded to sometimes.

It gets put in a mental box, for when I'm able to deal with it again. Like an intray.

That is nice to know that it may be a possibility. I realized after I posted that it might come off as if I were some b***h that just wanted to dump on him even when he's burnt out.

But really I just want him to have my positive thoughts, feelings, and reassurances in his head while he's not responding. And hopefully they just pop into his mind at odd times. And somehow, some way, adds a little brightness

You didn't specify initially that you were talking about positive, supportive messages, as opposed to just everyday pesky "Whazzup?" communications or even complaints. If I know that a communication is likely to be positive or benign, I will at least look at it, even if I'm not ready to respond to it just yet. If I suspect it's likely to be negative, pushy or snarky I may not look at or listen to it for days, and may even delete it unseen.

I will say that the escalation of messaging makes it even more likely that I will not respond. That kind of pressure in itself becomes a source of tremendous fight-or-flight anxiety and only causes or increases avoidance shutdown reactions. The initial lack of response is probably just a procrastination while I get my thoughts in order. When besieged by a deluge of further messages, I get completely discombobulated and start to become angry and there's no way I'm going to respond while in that mood, lest I say something really nasty.

It usually means I have nothing to say. To wit:

People yakitty yak and speak and waste your time of day,
But Mr. Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.

I just left an 8 year relationship. My ex self-diagnosed, I got my HFA diagnosis last week. We had another partner who is also on the spectrum - he is still talking to me. Breaking up is hard, polyamory makes it tougher, losing two friends at once.

My ex and I are in that place right now. I refuse to reply to her messages, she refuses to reply to mine. It's f#cking tragic actually. I read her messages, I just don't respond to them It is too painful, knowing that whatever I do will lead to another shutdown, maybe after a vitriolic argument. But I do read her messages, I do still care about her. But my anger and confusion just makes good communication impossible. I think it is the same for her,

This is what I don't want. I don't want to send messages that aren't intended to hurt but somehow causes pain anyway..

I am somewhat of a combo of what Octobertiger and Fnord said. I am very much an introverted hermit type. I do communicate when I need or want to, but don't like having it forced on me. I have health issues that make it hard to get to the phone on time, and due to those health issues I have a very irregular sleep/wake cycle, so that adds to my not wanting to deal with phone calls. I am always exhausted, so I don't want the phone waking me up, so I keep the ringer and answer machine volume off, unless I am expecting a call, or want to see if I have received any messages. My introversion also makes it difficult to deal with people, so that is another reason for not maintaining too much contact. I do have a few email contacts among family, but again, I only respond to those when I need or want to. This is hard on all of us, as my father is an extrovert, and can't believe that anyone can like being alone, or keeping to themselves, so he thinks I am unhappy about being alone, and keeps forcing more contact on me than I am comfortable with. When I don't respond enough, he complains to my siblings, who then get on my case about maintaining contact with him. The two bright spots are that I live alone, and my step mom. She understands that some people are okay with being solitary, and tries to calm my father down about my living alone and being an introvert.

I am in my mid 50s, and have always been a solitary type of person. No one forces me to be alone. You'd think my father would realize by now that I am okay with being an introvert. I guess he is the type of person who can't deal with being too solitary for too long, and can't imagine anyone else liking it, either, so he can't help feeling that I must be unhappy to be alone so much.

I received a message from a friend who once felt we were dating before. She lives half the world away. the message was a positive one. But I felt as if we both agreed to move on. I am not sure if I should respond and how. That is just my honest response to it. She never did anything wrong or hurtful. I hit a bad spell and needed to let go of some people, and I did have a fear that I would end up hurting her too. I don't usually go back on decisions like this.

At the same time, life is too short to just cut people out and not take another chance in certain situations. It's just a matter of who the right people are to allow myself and the other another chance.

Is this something you are deciding on right now? Although you usually don't go back on decisions like this I think that a LOT of people do. What is the reason behind the inflexibility?

In my case I was told the same thing. That he draws a hard line and just sticks to it. That was like a million "break ups" ago. Which of course is why I never know if the one I'm currently in is the actual final one.

I find it interesting that you don't give yourself the flexibility to change your mind. When I make rules for myself it just ends up making me feel guilty or weak when I want to change my mind. Because of this the only rule I've made for myself is that I will do the things that I think will cause me the most happiness in the long run. This way if I make a decision that I think will cause me the most happiness in the long run and then I was wrong about it, I have implicitly given myself permission to re-evaluate and reassess what will make me happy now. .

I'm very similar depending on how bad it is or my initial mood I only think mean things or I will go mute. Mute as in can't speak (in a conversation or when being talked/yelled at). Mute as in it feels as if my brain is blocking me from responding to the email, text, etc.
I go "absent" more often than mute.

The inflexibility will likely have to do with giving second chances to the wrong people in my experience. Sometimes if you go back on a decision, the other person has you by the balls and they know it too. Sometimes, you end up giving someone permission to keep doing all the things you didn't want them to do despite your communicating with them how you felt when they did it.