Anyone else confused? Insights wanted.
This is half venting and half genuinely wanting to hear from others…. I am a late diagnosed autistic female who has always struggled with emotional processing, interoception, emotional recognition/understanding.
I am smart, emotionally intelligent, and hyper empathetic. I also have CPTSD from being undiagnosed but raised a diagnosed younger brother that was severely affected by autism (so of course no one noticed the high functioning female struggling obviously). My CPTSD consists highly of parentification, emotional neglect, and being hyperempathetic; plus the pre-diagnosis confusion of why I never fit in the right way.
I have been with my partner for over 4 years and the whole time I’ve had this “feeling” like I needed to run away from my perfect life. It got so bad that I ended up gaining 40lbs, needing TMS, and eventually fleeing to another state without being able to explain any of my internal turmoil and confusion to him.
Anyway… I was wondering if anyone with autism, alexithymia, and delayed processing is able to maintain a functional traditional relationship? I love my partner but after regulating my nervous system and processing the last 4+ years, I realized that without a place that’s completely mine, I never really shut off or decompressed or understood any of my emotions. It felt like being lost and needing a compass that only shows you north a week after you need it.
I don’t want to lose my relationship but I’m so sensitive to outside variables and the inability to identify things in real time that I’m unsure if I can ever healthily cohabitate again. What I WANT is to have my own little place and live apart together but that doesn’t seem to be an option with my partner who’s already been to hell and back with and for me.