Turns out that, yes, Beloved Spouse is autistic. We had been suspicious on and off, but had been thrown because most autistic people do not find other peoples’ emotional states overwhelming… But apparently some do.
Getting a formal diagnosis is a sort of big deal. To celebrate, we sat around the house reading.
… No, really. We like being home most of the time.
Comments [archived]
From: Catsidhe
Date: 2011-08-23 01:30:17 -0500
Actually, there are anecdotes which suggest that Autists experience emotion more intensely than NTs, but we have trouble sometimes recognising what the other person’s emotional state is, or giving the ‘appropriate’ response. (And that Autists have a tendency to retreat from emotionally charged environments because we’re overloaded by the emotional load, without any functional mechanism to deal with it all.)
I say ‘anecdote’, because the data is, beyond the anecdotal, sadly lacking. Not least, it seems, because the main expert on the subject has just published a book which has as its main thesis that Autists are just like Psychopaths, but we’re the good kind. (Um… hooray?)
From: Ben Forshaw
Date: 2011-08-23 03:32:28 -0500
I have certainly found I get overwhelmed by other people’s emotional states: I even wrote about my experience of it.
From: Ariel
Date: 2011-09-01 21:24:45 -0500
“But we’re the good kind.” I E> this.