SO: my head hurts
Me: (pick any1) Where in the head? Any reason why? Did you hit something? Anything that might have caused it so we can buy some medicine or I can cook you something or whatever?
SO: idk, it just hurts, imma lie down.
SO: I’m cold, I’m gonna take a hot shower.
Me: have you tried wearing bulkier clothes? A blanket?
SO: no. takes the third shower of the day $$
Me (later that day or in another day): force them to wear more clothes and throw a blanket at them in their chair
SO: oh, this is nice uses the blanket every day now
Me: How was your day?
SO: Bad.
Me: Anything out of the ordinary that you want to share to share the pain?
SO: No, its just bad.
Me: Do you want to watch anything, eat anything special?
SO: imma lie down.
Sorry but no, i know that they aren’t vague intentionally but they are not clear at all when expressing their needs.
Of course that it seems an interrogation of you imagine me saying all those questions one after each other. That’s just how I phrased the question. The problem is that they simply used to not express their needs and wants before they got to the point where they just couldn’t do it. Mind you, this was way before they started going to therapy and they are getting way better at expressing their needs and wants now so that they don’t break down too often.
Nah how about y’all just explain yourselves when asked it’s very easy. /s
On a serious note, I have ADHD so if you ask me “what’s wrong” I could go on for hours, giving you a list of symptoms, root cause analysis, contributing historical factors, short term suggestions, future suggestions to avoid the state and bias analysis of my own analysis for hours and hours entirely off the cuff.
It’s so hard with people who can’t, my brain often defaults to the assumption that they are just NPCs who simply lack the level of constant self-evaluation and internal monologue (which constitutes the abstraction of soul to me) and I have to fight it. At any given time I know exactly how I feel, it’s very natural to me to assume others must do as well, or their feelings just aren’t as deep.
Sorry if I implied I asked all those questions at once. It’s more of a menu where I sometimes asked one or the other. My point was that they just communicated nothing once they broke down.
Alongside teaching them not to flood you with questions when you can’t deal with them, remember to communicate what you can to them before you break down so that they don’t feel helpless watching you break down without even being able to help or know what’s going on.
As I answered in other comments, this happened mostly before my SO got diagnosed and didn’t know how to deal with it, now with therapy we both deal better with it so I don’t flood them and they don’t leave me out of the loop of their needs and wants.
I’m perfectly capable of solving my own problems when I’m upset, I’m just not capable of communicating unless the stakes are serious. If the problem is a person, then I can dissociate and deal with the person as a threat while neglecting my own feelings. It’s toxic, but it gets the job done even when I want to go nonverbal. But I don’t want to treat my girlfriend like a threat and dissociate with her. That’s not right. And when she’s asking questions while I’m upset, the only way to answer them is to dissociate.
That’s the thing, communicating stuff before you become upset. For example, my SO used to come from work exausted and used to lie down in the sofa, slept until night, then maybe grabbed some dinner or just slept straight until the next morning. Sometimes we didn’t speak at all in 2 to 3 days because they woke up earlier than me, they then went to work in a hurry, no talking in work because work takes 200% of focus, and then come back home to their date with the sofa, and end up sleeping again before I finish my work.
Now we chat about our day at lunch even if we are not together and they vent about it whenever they can so that when they come back, I can make some time for them, and they also manage work stress way better than before so they don’t come back utterly exhausted every day. Learning that they could not work in the field they were working and live to tell the tale and taking the time to change fields with my support helped a lot too. The situation mentioned above was before they were diagnosed and they just bruteforced the workday in a super toxic way for them and those around them (me).
Why not just say what’s on your mind? Why disassociate instead of just chatting about it? How does disassociating deal with a thing instead of just postponing the issue until it’s talked about and your feelings are therefore addressed?
Because I’m literally on the edge of going nonverbal unless I dissociate. It’s called having a disability. Autism, to be precise. I can’t “just chat about it” any more than I can “just run a marathon” or “just beat up a mugger”. There’s people in the world who can do all three of those things, but they aren’t me.
Nonverbal is when the cognitive effort required to form words into sentences is too much to bear. Conversation is effortful even for neurotypicals at the best of times. Have you ever had a thrilling 3 hour conversation about philosophy with a friend and felt exhausted afterwards? For autistic people, the baseline effort is higher, and complicating factors are worse . Which topics are a minefield? What are the other person’s triggers? What idioms don’t mean what they seem to mean? How much introspection do I need to do to answer a simple ‘how are you’? Why does everything sound so loud? Do I have to answer questions right now? What’s the answer? How do I find out???
When I’m having a meltdown, there is nothing left in the tank that I can remove without compromising my ability to do things like “exist in the presence of light bulbs” or “not be upset by the fact I have hair”. I can either go to the effort of finding answers for my girlfriend when I’m exhausted, or I can just barely manage to not want to kill myself to escape the pressures of existence. Because every second of my life, the task of being okay with existing in the real world does take effort. Not much, but sometimes it’s the only thing I have energy left to do. Sometimes I don’t have the energy to do it.
Because every second of my life, the task of being okay with existing in the real world does take effort.
That’s rough. Is it possible to change the environment in some way so it bothers you less? I don’t know anything about being autistic, but I used to live in a big city, eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore, homeless tents next to upmarket fashion shops, bus drivers avoiding bus stops like the plague, the endless NPC tech demo ass crowds, the costs, the grey, the awful public transport, thugs, lads, beckys, chavs, tourists etc etc. I used to feel exhausted just literally being outside, any small thing would ruin my day utterly and completely and I would retreat to sleep, dreaming of watching it burn. Now I live elsewhere, and I’m much happier overall.
One person isn’t the whole. They may just want to vent and aren’t wanting solutions. While that may be frustrating to you, it can be just as frustrating to your SO to want to vent and get solutions they don’t want
Of course I’m just some rando online I don’t know your relationship. I have a BA in Human Communication and this is just one of the most common arguments that happens in relationships
And that’s okay, but that’s not what has been described here. Being the vent ear is cool too, the point where it gets frustrating is when their vent method is to just be completely exhausted and lie down in the sofa until tomorrow when they get exhausted again and repeat… I have to force down some healthier avenues for them to vent and prepare themselves so that they don’t get perma exhausted in work, it just takes some work and some guessing of what they need from my part, because they sure don’t communicate when tired.
I’d argue your SO might not be displaying neurotypical behavior.
Between 50-85% of autistic spectrum people (plus a significant portion of people with PTSD or depression) experience Alexithymia, or significant difficulty in recognizing and analyzing their emotional state.
When I’m feeling bad, my SO frequently assumes I’m withholding the reason from him in some sort of passive-aggressive mindgame, and I have to remind him that I barely know what my mood is, let alone what’s causing it.
I’m getting better at it, but it’s a lot of work and I still regularly mistake stomachaches for anxiety.
I wrote basically this in another comment, they had a hard time recognising their emotional state and held until bursting out. This was way before they were diagnosed though, after a lot of therapy they are much better at identifying their state, or simply they try to keep in touch a lot more so that I can be there for them before they burn out.
As the neurotypical person in the relationship, my advice is to try to keep in tough more regularly so that your SO can detect if you are halfway through burning out so that they can help you before you become completely unavailable.
My SO also has generalised anxiety and ADHD, so I usually tell them that when they keep burning out for weeks it’s really painful for me because I feel very left out, which resonates a lot with them. I guess that this helps them to do the effort of keeping me up to date so that I can let them vent, hug them, ask which kind of food they would like to uplift their spirits… and all that stuff before they burn out.
my god this would drive me nuts. have you ever experienced pain?? why would your want to be bombarded with questions? give em a hug and leave be jeeeeez
SO: my head hurts
Me: (pick any1) Where in the head? Any reason why? Did you hit something? Anything that might have caused it so we can buy some medicine or I can cook you something or whatever?
SO: idk, it just hurts, imma lie down.
SO: I’m cold, I’m gonna take a hot shower.
Me: have you tried wearing bulkier clothes? A blanket?
SO: no. takes the third shower of the day $$
Me (later that day or in another day): force them to wear more clothes and throw a blanket at them in their chair
SO: oh, this is nice uses the blanket every day now
Me: How was your day?
SO: Bad.
Me: Anything out of the ordinary that you want to share to share the pain?
SO: No, its just bad.
Me: Do you want to watch anything, eat anything special?
SO: imma lie down.
Sorry but no, i know that they aren’t vague intentionally but they are not clear at all when expressing their needs.
If they don’t feel well, they might not want to answer comprehensive questions. Just reading that feels like an interrogation.
Of course that it seems an interrogation of you imagine me saying all those questions one after each other. That’s just how I phrased the question. The problem is that they simply used to not express their needs and wants before they got to the point where they just couldn’t do it. Mind you, this was way before they started going to therapy and they are getting way better at expressing their needs and wants now so that they don’t break down too often.
Nah how about y’all just explain yourselves when asked it’s very easy. /s
On a serious note, I have ADHD so if you ask me “what’s wrong” I could go on for hours, giving you a list of symptoms, root cause analysis, contributing historical factors, short term suggestions, future suggestions to avoid the state and bias analysis of my own analysis for hours and hours entirely off the cuff.
It’s so hard with people who can’t, my brain often defaults to the assumption that they are just NPCs who simply lack the level of constant self-evaluation and internal monologue (which constitutes the abstraction of soul to me) and I have to fight it. At any given time I know exactly how I feel, it’s very natural to me to assume others must do as well, or their feelings just aren’t as deep.
Sometimes they are too exhausted to express their emotions and it’s not worth it for them, so they’d rather just deal with it on their own
I had to teach my girlfriend to stop asking so many questions when I’m upset. We made a game out of it so she could have fun learning it.
Sorry if I implied I asked all those questions at once. It’s more of a menu where I sometimes asked one or the other. My point was that they just communicated nothing once they broke down.
Alongside teaching them not to flood you with questions when you can’t deal with them, remember to communicate what you can to them before you break down so that they don’t feel helpless watching you break down without even being able to help or know what’s going on.
As I answered in other comments, this happened mostly before my SO got diagnosed and didn’t know how to deal with it, now with therapy we both deal better with it so I don’t flood them and they don’t leave me out of the loop of their needs and wants.
I’m perfectly capable of solving my own problems when I’m upset, I’m just not capable of communicating unless the stakes are serious. If the problem is a person, then I can dissociate and deal with the person as a threat while neglecting my own feelings. It’s toxic, but it gets the job done even when I want to go nonverbal. But I don’t want to treat my girlfriend like a threat and dissociate with her. That’s not right. And when she’s asking questions while I’m upset, the only way to answer them is to dissociate.
That’s the thing, communicating stuff before you become upset. For example, my SO used to come from work exausted and used to lie down in the sofa, slept until night, then maybe grabbed some dinner or just slept straight until the next morning. Sometimes we didn’t speak at all in 2 to 3 days because they woke up earlier than me, they then went to work in a hurry, no talking in work because work takes 200% of focus, and then come back home to their date with the sofa, and end up sleeping again before I finish my work.
Now we chat about our day at lunch even if we are not together and they vent about it whenever they can so that when they come back, I can make some time for them, and they also manage work stress way better than before so they don’t come back utterly exhausted every day. Learning that they could not work in the field they were working and live to tell the tale and taking the time to change fields with my support helped a lot too. The situation mentioned above was before they were diagnosed and they just bruteforced the workday in a super toxic way for them and those around them (me).
Why not just say what’s on your mind? Why disassociate instead of just chatting about it? How does disassociating deal with a thing instead of just postponing the issue until it’s talked about and your feelings are therefore addressed?
Because I’m literally on the edge of going nonverbal unless I dissociate. It’s called having a disability. Autism, to be precise. I can’t “just chat about it” any more than I can “just run a marathon” or “just beat up a mugger”. There’s people in the world who can do all three of those things, but they aren’t me.
I just want to understand the mechanics of it, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as telling a blind man to just see 😅
Like for example, what is non-verbal? How does that occur?
Nonverbal is when the cognitive effort required to form words into sentences is too much to bear. Conversation is effortful even for neurotypicals at the best of times. Have you ever had a thrilling 3 hour conversation about philosophy with a friend and felt exhausted afterwards? For autistic people, the baseline effort is higher, and complicating factors are worse . Which topics are a minefield? What are the other person’s triggers? What idioms don’t mean what they seem to mean? How much introspection do I need to do to answer a simple ‘how are you’? Why does everything sound so loud? Do I have to answer questions right now? What’s the answer? How do I find out???
When I’m having a meltdown, there is nothing left in the tank that I can remove without compromising my ability to do things like “exist in the presence of light bulbs” or “not be upset by the fact I have hair”. I can either go to the effort of finding answers for my girlfriend when I’m exhausted, or I can just barely manage to not want to kill myself to escape the pressures of existence. Because every second of my life, the task of being okay with existing in the real world does take effort. Not much, but sometimes it’s the only thing I have energy left to do. Sometimes I don’t have the energy to do it.
That’s rough. Is it possible to change the environment in some way so it bothers you less? I don’t know anything about being autistic, but I used to live in a big city, eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore, homeless tents next to upmarket fashion shops, bus drivers avoiding bus stops like the plague, the endless NPC tech demo ass crowds, the costs, the grey, the awful public transport, thugs, lads, beckys, chavs, tourists etc etc. I used to feel exhausted just literally being outside, any small thing would ruin my day utterly and completely and I would retreat to sleep, dreaming of watching it burn. Now I live elsewhere, and I’m much happier overall.
One person isn’t the whole. They may just want to vent and aren’t wanting solutions. While that may be frustrating to you, it can be just as frustrating to your SO to want to vent and get solutions they don’t want
Of course I’m just some rando online I don’t know your relationship. I have a BA in Human Communication and this is just one of the most common arguments that happens in relationships
And that’s okay, but that’s not what has been described here. Being the vent ear is cool too, the point where it gets frustrating is when their vent method is to just be completely exhausted and lie down in the sofa until tomorrow when they get exhausted again and repeat… I have to force down some healthier avenues for them to vent and prepare themselves so that they don’t get perma exhausted in work, it just takes some work and some guessing of what they need from my part, because they sure don’t communicate when tired.
I’d argue your SO might not be displaying neurotypical behavior.
Between 50-85% of autistic spectrum people (plus a significant portion of people with PTSD or depression) experience Alexithymia, or significant difficulty in recognizing and analyzing their emotional state.
When I’m feeling bad, my SO frequently assumes I’m withholding the reason from him in some sort of passive-aggressive mindgame, and I have to remind him that I barely know what my mood is, let alone what’s causing it.
I’m getting better at it, but it’s a lot of work and I still regularly mistake stomachaches for anxiety.
I wrote basically this in another comment, they had a hard time recognising their emotional state and held until bursting out. This was way before they were diagnosed though, after a lot of therapy they are much better at identifying their state, or simply they try to keep in touch a lot more so that I can be there for them before they burn out.
As the neurotypical person in the relationship, my advice is to try to keep in tough more regularly so that your SO can detect if you are halfway through burning out so that they can help you before you become completely unavailable.
My SO also has generalised anxiety and ADHD, so I usually tell them that when they keep burning out for weeks it’s really painful for me because I feel very left out, which resonates a lot with them. I guess that this helps them to do the effort of keeping me up to date so that I can let them vent, hug them, ask which kind of food they would like to uplift their spirits… and all that stuff before they burn out.
my god this would drive me nuts. have you ever experienced pain?? why would your want to be bombarded with questions? give em a hug and leave be jeeeeez