How to deal with HeartBreak?!

[Shaun-Junior Bishop]

I am a recently come to terms aspie and I went through a break up last night over the phone and I just didn't feel anything? I really do love her and I had this night planned where I was going to say the 3 big words and not I never will. I feel like I should be hurting or upset or crying because I know it's going to impact me but I dont know when. I just want to know, is there a way to help express those feelings? I dont know how I feel and it's making me angry and isolated and I just want to be able to understand things. I'm hoping for some help.

 

[Crossbreed]

For me, negative feelings, like sadness and grief, just hit me when they hit me. Like policemen, I can usually delay them during a crisis, but AFTER the crisis is over, they come flooding in! I just let them wash over me because I know that is the healthiest response.

I feel anger and happiness right away. (I have even learnt how to harness the former to a certain extent.)

 

[Major Tom]

One word and for me, it's the only thing that works: time.
Good luck and hope you recover quickly as you can.

 

[Shaun-Junior Bishop]

I just worry, all of this is very new to me. Even though I've been this way all my life, being aware of it has changed my life. I notice when I act or talk different and it's hard. I just want to know that the way I feel and how I'm so cold and emotionless is normal for an aspie? I love her and I dont understand why I'm not crying shes gone forever

 

[Tom]

You could try squeezing your head in a vice. Something might come out then. Seriously, I would be glad if you didn't have a really bad reaction. You weren't really clear on who broke up with whom but I assume she did with you. In that case save the words for someone who loves you back.

 

[Shaun-Junior Bishop]

That wasnt very good advice, I've came to this site because since I accepted I was an aspie, it's got alot harder and I just feel no one will be able to accept my quirks and traits. She broke up with me, said the love wasnt qhat she expected,, it came out of no where and all I've done for 24 hours is make up alagorhymes in my head to why it happened. Why we didnt even up creating the future we spoke about so much. I just want to know if there is any aspie out there that has some methods of making sense of your emotions whe you feel like you have some but dont know how to express them. Honestly I need some support

 

[Crossbreed]

I just want to know that the way I feel and how I'm so cold and emotionless is normal for an aspie?

If you're like me, it isn't that we lack emotions. It's just that we hold off our negative ones until we are finally unable to. (And they often hit at the most inopportune times...! )

As @Major Tom wrote, it just takes time, like a physical wound or bruise does.

 

[Mattymatt]

I am a recently come to terms aspie and I went through a break up last night over the phone and I just didn't feel anything? I really do love her and I had this night planned where I was going to say the 3 big words and not I never will. I feel like I should be hurting or upset or crying because I know it's going to impact me but I dont know when. I just want to know, is there a way to help express those feelings? I dont know how I feel and it's making me angry and isolated and I just want to be able to understand things. I'm hoping for some help.

For me, sadness, grief, and heartache are somewhat delayed reactions. This could very well be the case for you. I am very sorry you had to go through this as I know what it is like to put so much into someone only to be hurt. If I've learned one thing through the relationships that I've had is that there are multiple soul mates for everyone. You and I will find the one someday.

 

[Onna]

I just worry, all of this is very new to me. Even though I've been this way all my life, being aware of it has changed my life. I notice when I act or talk different and it's hard. I just want to know that the way I feel and how I'm so cold and emotionless is normal for an aspie? I love her and I dont understand why I'm not crying shes gone forever

It just takes time sometimes. I’ve had many moments where I felt I should be upset but wasn’t. And also the other way around, too upset over nothing! What’s all that about!
Sometimes music helps make emotions creep in.
I was taught to remember that when/if they do arrive, to really allow yourself to feel the emotion, and allow yourself to acknowledge what it feels like. For example ‘I’m crying, I feel sad, the emotion is sadness’, ‘It’s ok to feel sad’
It helps you to accept your feelings. Worked for me a couple of times.

 

[Mattymatt]

That wasnt very good advice, I've came to this site because since I accepted I was an aspie, it's got alot harder and I just feel no one will be able to accept my quirks and traits. She broke up with me, said the love wasnt qhat she expected,, it came out of no where and all I've done for 24 hours is make up alagorhymes in my head to why it happened. Why we didnt even up creating the future we spoke about so much. I just want to know if there is any aspie out there that has some methods of making sense of your emotions whe you feel like you have some but dont know how to express them. Honestly I need some support

Unfortunately, emotions aren't necessarily things that make sense and attempts to rationalize them might end up making you feel worse. It's probably just best to experience them and let them run their course. In my younger years, I would do the same as you and agonize over what I could not understand. Emotions defy ration so it made things worse for me by trying to understand them. My old therapist said rather than trying to understand emotions, experience them, and let them run their course.

 

[Sab]

I think my advice would be to try to not think too much about the details of the <why> the relationship ended. Our brains can go on forever in interpreting what we could have done differently or what the other person might have been thinking, and in the end it really doesn't help. But for having lived it, I know that it's easier said than done. It is probably harder on you than is apparent right now. Maybe try to feel the feelings if you can, noticing what's happening in your body. I think that the best thing to do is to take some distance from her and focus on yourself. What are the things that make you feel good about yourself? Or help you feel grounded and centered? Something that helped for me was writing my thoughts in my journal without trying to make it pretty just to get the thoughts and feelings out. Her breaking up with you has nothing to do with how worthy of love you are! Take good care!

 

[Fino]

Am I misunderstanding or is the problem that you're not sad enough? Just let all feelings happen like weather and live your life without constantly trying to control the weather. "ITS WINTER WHY IS IT SO HOT" has been said a lot around here lately.

 

[Shaun-Junior Bishop]

Thank you everyone, I'm just so knew to having to try and explain to my brain that "this action or process may well be because I'm an aspie" and I think it's hard because the majority of my life people just called me aggressive or controlling or really dry and heartless and it hurt and now looking back I get so angry and upset because i wasnt those things. I tried to reach out so much and i just couldn't. I think that's what's happening here, I feel for her so hard and now shes gone and a part of my daily routine is gone and it's making me stim alot and making me agitated. Question: yesterday, about 12 hours after it all happened. I was sat down and I felt so empty and cold and my brain was so stimulated but I didnt stim? At all. Normally I have a rubric cube I used that I can do alot of reparative motions instead of humming or shaking my hands but my brain didnt feel the need to stim bir I had felt that situmalted before and my hands would go crazy. I just dont understand.

 

[Onna]

Thank you everyone, I'm just so knew to having to try and explain to my brain that "this action or process may well be because I'm an aspie" and I think it's hard because the majority of my life people just called me aggressive or controlling or really dry and heartless and it hurt and now looking back I get so angry and upset because i wasnt those things. I tried to reach out so much and i just couldn't. I think that's what's happening here, I feel for her so hard and now shes gone and a part of my daily routine is gone and it's making me stim alot and making me agitated. Question: yesterday, about 12 hours after it all happened. I was sat down and I felt so empty and cold and my brain was so stimulated but I didnt stim? At all. Normally I have a rubric cube I used that I can do alot of reparative motions instead of humming or shaking my hands but my brain didnt feel the need to stim bir I had felt that situmalted before and my hands would go crazy. I just dont understand.

Question: yesterday, about 12 hours after it all happened. I was sat down and I felt so empty and cold and my brain was so stimulated but I didnt stim? At all. Normally I have a rubric cube I used that I can do alot of reparative motions instead of humming or shaking my hands but my brain didnt feel the need to stim bir I had felt that situmalted before and my hands would go crazy. I just dont understand.

Is it possible you had a shutdown?

 

[Otenba]

Grieving takes different forms with different people. There is no right way to grieve a loss. Your lack of stimming maybe just your way of dealing with the circumstances - your mind might be more overwhelmed than you're realising. If you need to cry or anything, it'll happen when you're ready. Take it easy in the meantime, and like others have said, give yourself time.

 

[Onna]

Is it possible you had a shutdown?

You say you’re newly diagnosed, so am I, So I might be incorrect... but I’ve been doing some reading and it sounds possible it’s a shutdown. I’ve added a link, with a good read on someone expressing what having a shutdown means to them. At the bottom they’ve added links to other people’s experiences. Which is useful because obviously we all experience it differently, and for me personally that means that if an experience isn’t the same as other people’s (in this case a shutdown) then I have a hard time figuring out if something is what I suspect it is.
From the Inside Out: An Autistic Shutdown

 

[Shaun-Junior Bishop]

Is it possible you had a shutdown?

Maybe, I've always had a coldness to loss though. When family have died or when ive just gone through a loss I tend to be okay because i overthink things to point I've worked out every possible outcome so nothing can surprise me but with her she was something i didnt overthink. She changed how my brain worked and that itself is something I will never understand but maybe you're right I keep having those same experiences where I feel like I need to stim bir yhe urge isnt there and doing it anyway does not help me.

I'm very new to being "offical" if thats the correct term so I'm not sure what to call stuff like shutdowns. Thank you so much though

 

[Shaun-Junior Bishop]

Grieving takes different forms with different people. There is no right way to grieve a loss. Your lack of stimming maybe just your way of dealing with the circumstances - your mind might be more overwhelmed than you're realising. If you need to cry or anything, it'll happen when you're ready. Take it easy in the meantime, and like others have said, give yourself time.

Thank you, everyone is so supportive. I've felt alone for so long and this site is so helpful

 

[Suzanne]

I fell in love when I was 19 and then our relationship became extremely intimate, as it were.

The first time we had sex ( I see I have to say it), I was confused. I felt nothing and it really upset me. How come I love this guy and yet sex gives me nothing?

To be honest, I felt so mortified that I brushed it aside.

I am married to another man now ( 27 years) and there has been no change and finally I came to realise that I am asexual.

To my mind, what you are feeling is overwhelmed and I know this, because when I have an influx of emotions, I am cold!

Just to say that nts also get this way. They are so conditioned to be this way when that happens etc, that if things do not go as planned, they get stuck too.

You are numb with pain and why it appears to be no emotion. It is a protection, because it is unbearable when the one we love decides to end it suddenly.

My husband is a nt and calls me nuts, but I know he loves me and I love him.

 

[Bronzelincolns]

there's no law that says you have to be devastated after a breakup. if it didn't bother you than dust yourself off and continue on with your life.

take it as a learning experience and do better next time.