If I wanted to make an argument for my (I stress MY and not anyone else’s) experience of autism being more of a disability than a difference, I would focus on my alexithymia (difficulty experiencing and understanding emotions). This is not something imposed on me by an ableist society, it is something in my own head, where I can’t understand or even know what I’m actually feeling in a given situation. To put this in perspective, sometimes I find myself having to prove to myself that I love my loved ones, because I’m not sure that I feel anything. I have to look at my willingness to make sacrifices for them, the amount I think about them when they’re not around, the fear of losing them and so on to prove to myself that I must feel something positive, I just can’t always hear it.
I find that negative emotions, like loneliness, depression and anxiety, make themselves heard a lot more than positive ones like happiness, love, excitement or even equanimity. Lately, I’m planning the second half of my wedding (I had a civil wedding last year so my wife could get her visa, but we’re not “fully” married until our religious ceremony, which will be in May) and the stress and anxiety of wedding planning is audible (so to speak) in my head so much more than the joy and excitement. I know wedding planning is stressful even for neurotypicals (and we aren’t even having a big wedding!), but somehow it seems easy to focus on the negatives and forget the positives are there at all. I have to work hard to see the excitement and happiness that is there; I can’t just passively experience it like a “normal” person.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I don’t really have a question, unless it's to ask if anyone else experiences this. I am lucky enough to have people around me who accept my autism and mental health issues even when they don’t really understand them, but I’m scared to talk about this for fear that they’ll think I’m saying I don’t love them, or that they just won’t understand at all what it means not to feel or understand my own emotions. I’m not sure I really understand it, and I’m me! And I know not all autistics experience this, which somehow makes it even more isolating. Some have intense emotions. I have intense depression or anxiety sometimes, but I'm not sure I can imagine what intense joy or excitement would actually feel like.
