Finding it hard to love family when I'm mad at them?

[Butterfly88]

Is this an autism thing? I don't seem to understand this whole concept of unconditional love.

 

[Pocket86]

Love is hard for me. I say I love my parents and I do care about them very very much! However, when I get angry or upset, I seem to forget those feelings of love. I usually do or say things that I later regret. The interesting thing about it is that when I say those things, I truly believe them in my heart. I hate this about myself because I know I would be devastated if anything happened to my parents.

I agree that unconditional love is very hard. I don't think it's just hard for aspies though. I think NTs have trouble sometimes especially in relationships.

 

[Judge]

Is this an autism thing? I don't seem to understand this whole concept of unconditional love.

I've felt unconditional love from all my pets. And my mother. That's about it.

A rare commodity for me when it comes to humans.

 

[DogwoodTree]

In human terms, it eludes me. Those in my immediate family always seemed to have some sort of string attached to love. It got to the point that I wanted no part of love because the price tag was too high.

As Aspies, I think (just my opinion) we tend to view everything in black and white; there is only love and hate. NT's have degrees of love, superficial feelings that are interpreted as love, etc

I agree. My experience of "love" in the past has always been very burdensome and challenging, though not always because of the other person...sometimes just because of the patterns I learned that I believe I'm supposed to follow in order to be in relationship with anyone.

And I think you hit on another important point...aspies tend to get caught up in current moment experience: black and white thinking. We're either fully on or fully off...either totally sold on a person, or totally disgusted with that person. There's just not much middle ground with us on much of anything. So "love", as in a feeling of warmth towards someone, seems to come and go, depending on the current state of the relationship.

 

[clg114]

To me family and love go hand and hand. It is the same thing. Sure, sometimes I get ticked off at someone in my immediate family but that does not mean that I do not love them. My family is the most important thing to me. Without even thinking about it, I would always put a family members well being above my own. This is just the way I was raised.

 

[OrSomething]

I love my family, but when I'm mad at them I find it hard to feel love for them. I suppose I don't quite understand what love is when it comes to family. I mean, they're not always on your mind like a crush, so do you really love them?

 

[FreeDiver]

Is this an autism thing? I don't seem to understand this whole concept of unconditional love.

I don't think that any of your family feuds are a direct result of you having autism. It maybe "A" part of the problem. But is certainly not "THE" part of the problem. There are so many factors that can play into this that you really can't point to just one. BIM: That NT deal with the same problems as well. so don't just point your finger at autism itself.

It's easy to blame our autism for all the problems we have in life. But we must not forget that the world we live in is full of problems and not every struggle be encounter in life is the result of our autism.