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How do you experience grief of a loved one as an autistic person?

AlpineS

Yesterday was a bad day. Father’s day is always a trigger for me because my dad is dead. He died 10 years ago but it still doesn't feel like I've processed it. 

On days like yesterday I don’t just feel sad I feel 'more' autistic. I can’t talk to people. Everything irritates me and my anger becomes harder to control. I can only manage safe foods if anything at all and things like showering or cleaning just stop happening. 

Autism affects how we experience everything so it makes sense that it changes how we deal with death too. I’ve just never thought about grief specifically through the lens of autism until recently.

A friend of mine (who is also autistic) said they find grief a bit easier than others seem to because they're able to approach it more logically. I just thought it was an interesting contrast to my experience. 

I guess I'm just curious as to how other people here process or experience grief and how you think being autistic interacts with that? Does it make your experience harder? Easier? More isolating? Do you notice ways that grief affects you that may not be usual for neurotypical people? Or maybe neurotype doesn't come in to it at all and grief is just deeply personal and unique for every individual. 

Grief just feels like such a lonely thing for me and I don't really talk about it with most people. Maybe it's part of masking and as I get better an unmasking I'll get better at talking about it with neurotypical people. It just seems like one of those topics that's avoided by most and so I avoid it too. Maybe that's a societal thing. I don't know. Do people here also have that level of discomfort talking about grief or do you see it as just part of life? I thought it might help to hear how it looks for other autistic people.

Parents

  • I feel nothing or I feel a bit overwhelmed at loss, and kind of flip flop depending on distraction level 

    I expect it is the overwhelm and stress that is making your traits stand out.

    Something that can help is not to think of good times and wish you could still have them, which gives you a sense of loss, but to be grateful for the good times you had. To reframe it and think of it as something gained, not something lost.

    But as a general thing, I believe autism makes emotions more difficult, so loss, grief, longing, etc. likely feel different.

    I suspect love does too. 

    Emotions and feelings are hard to describe though, so you are never sure if you feel the same as someone else. It is not always that easy to know or notice feelings, alexithymia in action. But if they are strong enough you can't miss them, and negative ones are stronger than positive ones.

    I also saw something online, attributed to Jung, saying you really miss the person you were, not the other person. Not sure about that. You do imagine yourself as you were at the the same time and remember how you felt.

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  • I feel nothing or I feel a bit overwhelmed at loss, and kind of flip flop depending on distraction level 

    I expect it is the overwhelm and stress that is making your traits stand out.

    Something that can help is not to think of good times and wish you could still have them, which gives you a sense of loss, but to be grateful for the good times you had. To reframe it and think of it as something gained, not something lost.

    But as a general thing, I believe autism makes emotions more difficult, so loss, grief, longing, etc. likely feel different.

    I suspect love does too. 

    Emotions and feelings are hard to describe though, so you are never sure if you feel the same as someone else. It is not always that easy to know or notice feelings, alexithymia in action. But if they are strong enough you can't miss them, and negative ones are stronger than positive ones.

    I also saw something online, attributed to Jung, saying you really miss the person you were, not the other person. Not sure about that. You do imagine yourself as you were at the the same time and remember how you felt.

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