Unphased by Death

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Not sure if this is an Aspie thing, but it's disconcerting for me and this isn't the first incident. I just got word about a half hour ago that my aunt in California died at home at the age of 65. She had diabetic complications and hadn't been healthy in quite some time. Now I've never been particularly close to my aunt, mostly due to distance, but I am saddened by her passing.

But my concern is that my 'sadness,' as it is, is more logical than emotional. My mother and sister are greatly upset and in tears at the situation. I feel bad for my uncle and his children that have just lost their mother. I can imagine how terrible I would feel losing my own mother. Yet I feel largely unmoved on an emotional level.

I remember a similar situation when my grandfather died. In several ways I was closer to him than I was to my own father. Yet my 'sorrow' in his passing was and is again on a more intellectual level. I never cried.

I then contrast this with a shutdown I had two days ago. I had something to say to my sister, but was unsuccessful in my attempts to draw her attention away from a tv show she was watching. When I finally did she snapped at me for interrupting her which left me feeling trivialized and my thoughts unimportant. I was so shaken, angry and hurt, by this reaction that I had to isolate and was on the verge of tears for an hour.

Even now as my family here is making preparations to go to California to be with the family there, I find myself becoming a bit agitated. Not because I'm feeling sadness over my aunt's passing or I feel sorry for those closest to her. No, I'm getting worked up because of the unexpected change in my expectations for my schedule next week. I'm getting anxious thinking about packing and traveling. My agitation is purely egocentric and I hate that.

Is this what it means to be autistic? To know how I'm 'supposed' to think and feel, but behaving largely contrary to that notion? Is this 'lack of empathy?' It sucks...

I don't get empathy at all really and it doesn't bother me. I don't have much interest in emotions. Both my grandfathers are dead and when they died I had no reaction. I just carried on browsing the internet when I found out. Murders on the news leave me more interested in the forensic science behind it rather than any emotions.

I have read in one of Temple Grandin's books (The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships) that *some* ASD individuals simply lack the biology that would make them feel sad in your situation.

The example she gives in the book is that some kids would "miss losing their computer more than their own mother." Of course parents find this disturbing, but if the biology isn't there, it isn't there.

I can tell you from experience, that when my grand father and grand mother passed away, I was basically not sad.

There was recently a death of someone close to me, and I was sad to a degree, but a substantial part of it was intellectual, for sure. I did experience the agitation when people's (understandable) sadness lasted for longer than mine.

To me, death is more logical than emotional. I'm accepting of the factual reality of it, and the factual implications. Very little emotions get stirred up.

Are you phased by your own death though? By this by mean are you scared? Could you just jump in front of a train without thinking? Without any fear?

You reacted to death in your post. Even a small reaction is a reaction. Even if what you feel is intellectual you still felt something. I felt nothing when my grandparents died. Nothing at all. I felt very guilty about this.

I felt even more guilty when I overdosed and suddenly became overwhelmed with fear. I was terrified. I was going to die and the thoughts I was having at the time would be my last ones. It was so scary I didn't finish the bowl of pills. I stopped after getting about three quarters of the way through. I was so scared I just had to stop everything and pray to god that I'd wake up.

The fact that I felt nothing anytime another person died even though I have this primal fear of death made me feel like a psychopath. I don't feel a thing when other people die but I feel everything when I'm about to die.


My question for those that feel nothing from other people dying is this: Are you still scared to die?

I have had a number of people, both relatives and acquaintances die over the years. In general I feel very little/no emotion. If they were sick, it seems a good thing to end their suffering, if old, then they lived out their time.

What does affect me is what am I supposed to do? Will I have to fly somewhere for a funeral? Will people I don't really know be talking to me or trying to hug me? These kind of things can get me quite stressed.

I must say though, that while the death of a person doesn't have a lot of effect, listening to people crying, wailing etc. around me at a funeral does tend to elicit an emotional reaction. Of course, if they were not doing that, I would feel next to nothing.

I think I would probably like to feel more in these types of situations. But, it just doesn't seem logical.

One poster asked: Are you still afraid to die? My answer would be No. I do fear pain from an illness or accident leading to death. I fear that my family would have a much more difficult life if I was gone. But to fear death, no.

Suicides affect me greatly. I've experienced three of these in my life with people close to me and my problem solving brain won't let them go. I wonder about the thought processes that led them to their final decision. How did they decide what method to use? Did they plan it out? Or was it a spur of the moment thing? Was there really no other solution than for them to kill themselves? Did they show any signs that I didn't pick up on? I often wonder if I could have done or said anything to prevent their deaths. I still feel traumatised years later.

There have been deaths at my workplace and they always get in a team of counsellors as damage control. Everyone is weeping and hugging each other and I just feel awkward and bewildered. I'm wondering who's going to do their job now. I don't get upset by people who die by the usual means (sickness, old age, accidents) because that's logical.

I've long battled with suicidal thoughts and paradoxically, my own thoughts make perfect sense. It's just one way to fix a problem when nothing else is working. It's logical to me. So I'm fine with killing myself but it's not fine for anyone else. In that way my use of logic falls down.

Not only do I not have any empathy, about others' death, the only thing keeping me from jumping in front of a train is that it would be irrational and cause many people trouble. I fantasize about my own death and often envy people who die.

This is truly a fascinating thread, and explains a lot about myself. I always thought it was medication-related, but maybe this is just a part of me I'll have to live with. It seems death does not bother me as much as missing the person does. Maybe it's because I'm religious, but when they're not around anymore, it's hard. When my grandmother in Florida died, I felt nothing at all. She had Alzheimer's and I never "connected" with her before she didn't even remember who I was, so she felt like a stranger. When a good friend suddenly passed away due to a diabetic shock, I felt more disappointed than sad. I had spoken to him and he was a great guy, but I don't know, it didn't really affect me emotionally.

When my grandmother whose place I now live in died, I saw her decline, and told my parents I didn't want to be there when she passed away, so they drove me home. I cried, one of my cats comforted me, and that was it. From that point on, I just accepted that life would be different (although I felt more stress than saddened, but still). That one hit me the most because we were kind of close (I took mostly online classes for college, so I lived with her 24/7 for years), but afterwards I just moved on. Frankly I just thought I had an amazing ability to move on, rather than a lack of empathy. My own mother still to this day cries about that passing when something sentimental comes up, and it's been over three years since it happened.

That all being said, I have a whole different set of feelings for my fiancee/future wife. When we grow old together, if she dies of old age before I do, all bets are off

I am not scared of my own death. I have accepted that one day it will happen and I cannot avoid it.