Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi I am Rearna, 22 years old from Manchester recently on the 22nd of May 2021 I was diagnosed with autism. I never really knew something was right until I got in to my working life, I was also diagnosed with dislexia in college. I am finding it hard to come to terms with myself being autistic and I struggle when it comes to relationships and always get too emotionally attached pretty quickly which leads me to vulnerability and being guilable is there anything that anyone can help me with to understand why and what I can do to stop this from happening?
Hi, that's a difficult question. If anything I had the opposite problem. I realised very early on, that if I became intimate with someone, anyone, I could see that I might easily go down the path of marriage with an unsuitable person, just out of kindness and not wanting to hurt the other person. As a result, I became emotionally unavailable. Until, that is, I connected with my future wife. I realised that she was ideal for me, and made myself very emotionally vulnerable. I wore my heart on my sleeve, and it worked; we have been married for 25 years and have two children. I feel that, to get into a romantic relationship, we autistics, because we are poor at flirtation and reading unspoken communication, have to make ourselves unusually emotionally vulnerable, but the trick is recognising the people who are worthy of our affection and loyalty. The basic question to ask is, "Does this person make me feel happy and secure, are they kind and supportive?"