I am perfectly capable, when it comes to other people, of understanding and believing that your feelings are going to be what they're going to be, and it is actions that have moral value. But I still find myself fighting a rearguard action against the belief that my (lack of) feelings make me a monster, and there are a few factors exacerbating this at the moment.
One is that I used to feel losses (in the general sense, not just bereavement, which I am fortunate enough to have relatively little experience of), extremely intensely. I remember any number of occasions when I was young and was quite sure that the world was ending and there would never be anything good ever again. And then I grew up a bit, and recovered from enough losses that even when it would feel as though nothing would ever be good again, I knew intellectually that that wasn't true.
And over time something else has changed, and the last time I even felt like that was about eight years ago, when I thought for a few days that![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obandsoller was going to leave me. But still, in my head, that is what I ought to feel when losing something important, and anything less, or different, is a sign of my callousness.
Another is that I find it difficult to introspect accurately what I'm feeling. This might seem odd, for someone who can and will talk at length and in depth about the precise nuances of how his emotional and psychological responses work, but to a great extent I do that because I need to in order to make them make sense to myself. So when I have an unarticulated belief that I ought to be feeling a certain way, that becomes very difficult to satisfy when I don't feel able to identify with confidence whether I'm feeling it or not.
A third is that (perhaps at least in part because of my limited awareness of my feelings), I can think about experiences that one would expect to be profoundly affecting in what seems like a rather cold and calculating manner. On the way to Ramona's yesterday I noticed myself noticing that if she was dead that it would relieve me of the (sometimes draining) responsibilities I'd taken on in looking after her. I also noticed myself noticing that she would be unable to pay me back the money I've spent on buying her groceries since April, and wondering whether there would be any way to recover it from her estate. And whilst I didn't ascribe any great weight to either of those observations, I fear that to have made them at all is grotesque.
A fourth is a consciousness that our relationship was not as balanced and mutual as most of my other friendships. It fell, I suppose, somewhere between that of friend and carer. A lot of it was based around me offering her practical and emotional support, and I did so in part out of a sense of duty as well as through affection. Which is not to say that I didn't have genuine affection for her. I did. But I suspect that I was a much bigger part of her emotional landscape than she was of mine, and that feels uncomfortable, as though she deserved better.
I think I would find any reassurances that I am not a monster quite helpful at the moment, but I think particularly useful would be sharing of any times that you have felt discomfort about not feeling what you thought you were supposed to or expected to feel, and how you dealt with that. If you'd rather not share that on a public post, email to firstname at username dot org is good.
One is that I used to feel losses (in the general sense, not just bereavement, which I am fortunate enough to have relatively little experience of), extremely intensely. I remember any number of occasions when I was young and was quite sure that the world was ending and there would never be anything good ever again. And then I grew up a bit, and recovered from enough losses that even when it would feel as though nothing would ever be good again, I knew intellectually that that wasn't true.
And over time something else has changed, and the last time I even felt like that was about eight years ago, when I thought for a few days that
obandsoller was going to leave me. But still, in my head, that is what I ought to feel when losing something important, and anything less, or different, is a sign of my callousness.Another is that I find it difficult to introspect accurately what I'm feeling. This might seem odd, for someone who can and will talk at length and in depth about the precise nuances of how his emotional and psychological responses work, but to a great extent I do that because I need to in order to make them make sense to myself. So when I have an unarticulated belief that I ought to be feeling a certain way, that becomes very difficult to satisfy when I don't feel able to identify with confidence whether I'm feeling it or not.
A third is that (perhaps at least in part because of my limited awareness of my feelings), I can think about experiences that one would expect to be profoundly affecting in what seems like a rather cold and calculating manner. On the way to Ramona's yesterday I noticed myself noticing that if she was dead that it would relieve me of the (sometimes draining) responsibilities I'd taken on in looking after her. I also noticed myself noticing that she would be unable to pay me back the money I've spent on buying her groceries since April, and wondering whether there would be any way to recover it from her estate. And whilst I didn't ascribe any great weight to either of those observations, I fear that to have made them at all is grotesque.
A fourth is a consciousness that our relationship was not as balanced and mutual as most of my other friendships. It fell, I suppose, somewhere between that of friend and carer. A lot of it was based around me offering her practical and emotional support, and I did so in part out of a sense of duty as well as through affection. Which is not to say that I didn't have genuine affection for her. I did. But I suspect that I was a much bigger part of her emotional landscape than she was of mine, and that feels uncomfortable, as though she deserved better.
I think I would find any reassurances that I am not a monster quite helpful at the moment, but I think particularly useful would be sharing of any times that you have felt discomfort about not feeling what you thought you were supposed to or expected to feel, and how you dealt with that. If you'd rather not share that on a public post, email to firstname at username dot org is good.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 12:14 pm (UTC)From:It is banally normal to think banal thoughts like this in the face of something that feels like it should feel extraordinary or shocking, and to feel inadequate or guilty for not your reaction to not be appropriate.
I am not nearly as big on ceremony as you, but I think it's times like this that I think they're most helpful. Giving shape to messy thoughts and feeling.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 04:13 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 05:27 pm (UTC)From:Brains contain lots of complicated STUFF and it needs processing and sometimes that happens (eg) when we're dreaming and sometimes (especially when big events happen that we can't immediately process in our usual way) it happens when we're awake. I suspect it may happen more with brains that tend towards prodding at stuff.
You are very, very much not a monster. Ramona may well have deserved and wanted _more_ in her emotional landscape as a whole but that does not mean that the bit she got from you wasn't top quality.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-12 12:35 pm (UTC)From:I think my brain sometimes 'tries on' possible thoughts and plays out the scenario to see where it will go.
This would be compatible with the model for emotional 'performatives' that William Reddy synthesised from the then-current sociological and psychological data on emotions in 'The Navigation of Feeling'. He proposed that emotional statements or thoughts of making an emotional statement are themselves generative of emotions - you might, f'r'ex, feel more certain that you love someone after saying 'I love you'. But there's the concurrent possibility that in saying it, or merely THINKING about saying it, you discover that nope, no you don't.
Reddy didn't really get into what that means for the *internal* psyche, he was more interested in community social scripts and ritualised emotions. But between that and the more recent stuff i've read - especially on the functions of literature as emotional testing-ground - I suspect that that 'welp no, actually, i do not feel that way, i feel a repulsed by even thinking i might feel that way' is a pretty important part of a lot of people's processing.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-13 10:03 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 12:20 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 01:28 pm (UTC)From:A lot of the time I have to put my feelings into words to even realise what they are. Journalling helps me do this, but so does talking to another person. I think for me this is partly (but not fully) because I have been in situations where feeling my feelings directly and immediately is not safe.
For me, I think this lack of immediate access to some of my feelings is connected to the "cold and calculating" pattern of some of my thinking. I don't know if it's a neurodivergence thing, or again linked to childhood trauma, or just something that most people do but generally don't acknowledge because it isn't socially acceptable and because having the thoughts is not the same as acting on them, but I do have thoughts like that quite a lot. An example I don't mind sharing: when one of my grandfathers died, one of my first thoughts was along the lines of "drat, now I'll have to figure out how to fit in some extra childcare for a week while my mother is away at the funeral" (I was in highschool, and already doing a lot of childcare of my younger brother).
These things are tangly, but where does the sense of duty as being less than someone deserves come from here? I think there is something about responding to the human needs of another person simply because they are another person, that is part of what all of us deserve. Yes, affection is important too, and your affection for Ramona is real; but sometimes love isn't about whether we like someone. Sometimes it's about choosing to treat someone well despite it being difficult or despite not feeling quite that warmly toward them. There are times where that becomes unsustainable, which has its own problems; but there is a truth in choosing to care, even within boundaries.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 01:38 pm (UTC)From:Another one I've been turning over and over in This Year of All Years is that I just don't miss people the way most people do, quite evidently. It makes it difficult to talk with, well, everyone right now. But since with things like 'how long shall I be an ambitious international gadabout' most people draw the line when *missing people becomes too much*, where does that leave me? I am at risk of choosing a course that is /comfortable/ and thinking it's right because it is unusual that it is comfortable for me; that may not mean that it is in line with, oh, my /ethics/ or whatever you want to call them.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-12 12:56 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 02:52 pm (UTC)From:I often feel that I don't have feelings the way I 'ought' as well but I try and apply to myself what I would apply to others: feelings can be many different ways and they're all valid.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 06:53 pm (UTC)From:I suspect that people typically learn how to conform to how they EXPECT they should feel and act, and have a variety of feelings including times of surprisingly grief more intense than they expect, and times of just doing a boring duty, but fit those into expect roles. But people who are more introspective or less neurotypical may worry about it more. Personal experience and pop culture is full of examples like that (but often, of only realising when a feeling was suppressed and then explodes, or people lose inhibitions and joke about the feelings they actually have).
Personally, I worry I'm less good-samaritan than a lot of people I know (including you :)). And I have sometimes worried whether I feel empathy wrongly, but I don't think I do -- if anything, I think my problem is more about shying away from caring too deeply because I expect it might be taken away or that I can't sustain it.
FWIW, I think I have heard a few friends wonder more convincingly if they DO lack a normal amount of empathy. But my reaction was, they were clearly DOING empathy, and if they were faking it all the time, instead of some of time, then it was working and that was probably fine. But it doesn't sound like that's you, at all.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 08:08 pm (UTC)From:I also don't 'feel' what I am supposed to feel about certain things. I have never cried about the deaths of any of my grandparents even though I was very close to 1 of them. I don't seem to get very emotional or significant responses to grief although have not lost very very close people for which I am lucky. I have noted that in my LJs of the time and things didn't really change. I was accused of being "excessively pragmatic" age 10 by a teacher and I don't think it was a compliment but tbh bollocks to that teacher.
I do know from talking to some neurodiverse friends that for some of them, they struggle to realise what they are feeling without a conversation or method of expressing their feelings in some kind of words. Some of them are more aware of those tendencies than others, and some are very articulate about their feelings cos they have to explicitly analyse them to access them at all.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 09:10 pm (UTC)From:It is indeed very true that we feel what we feel and that is neither right nor wrong in itself, it is what we do with those feelings, or lack thereof, though it certainly often *feels* like something is wrong. Alice pointed out that the fact of noticing it and being aware of what one is feeling is itself important, and helps one to respond and act better.
Callousness is a matter of behaviour, not feelings, and your behaviour towards Ramona has been the opposite - compassionate, human, generally awesome.
As for the thoughts that pass through one's head, these one control if anything less than feelings, especially if one is the sort of person that has a lot of rapidly firing thoughts on everything all the time. I imagine that most people who lose someone close have a whole gamut of thoughts about practicalities and inheritance and a dozen totally trivial things (and likely feel guilty about them). Again it is about noticing the thought and then putting it to rest in its proper place. (Jesus of course had plenty of unwanted thoughts pass through his head).
One thing I sometimes find useful (though don't remember to do often enough) is specific compassion/self-compassion-focused prayer, which is not so much about making myself feel things, as focusing thoughts in that direction, exercising the mental muscles as the person who recommended it put it to me.
So in conclusion, you are certainly not a monster! But yes, not feeling what we think we ought to be feeling is challenging, whatever we know intellectually.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 10:42 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2021-01-12 12:00 am (UTC)From:As people above have shared these kinds of thoughts and unexpected and/or delayed emotional reactions are very normal. And some flavours of that are even more common for Autistic and otherwise NeuroDiverse people....
It's very common for Autistic people to be "monotropic" and only able to do/process either logical thought or emotion at any one time (actually everyone is less good at multitasking than we like to think but it's even more so with Autism). Some of those logical thoughts will be (within some definition of) distasteful or inappropriate. And some of the emotional responses will be outside of the standard model of grieving. Taking more time to process these things makes them more noticeable. (I also suspect that autistic honesty means we are better at not denying to ourselves that we sometimes have unpalatable thoughts and feelings).
When Gran-who-brought-me-up died i remember feeling annoyed because i'd just done a project on grief in a study group and now i was going to have all this useful data after that was finished!
no subject
Date: 2021-01-12 07:01 pm (UTC)From:Caring is often boring, draining and/or unpleasant (which isn't to say it can't also be rewarding). It's normal and understandable to feel some relief about that role ending even if the ending is in sad circumstances.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-12 02:12 am (UTC)From:While I understand myself well in many ways, bereavement in particular I have very poor introspection into. I never even wept at my parents' deaths but, for instance, years later I still can't face going out in the coat I inherited from my father. I don't think I've come close to processing their deaths and I think that's partly because so much of it remains outwith my conscious awareness.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-12 01:05 pm (UTC)From:I don't know how much of it is linked to neuroatypicality, but I am aware of my own lack of connection with my own felt emotions, linked to ADHD and emotional dysregulation (I am very much aware of my intellectualised emotions, but that is quite a different thing). A thing happened recently that I had anticipated being very upset by, and yet when it happened it was as if I could almost feel my brain going: "ah yes, here is an emotion, let's put it here in this safe little box and every so often we'll mete out bits of it in a managed way". It's something that makes me feel callous and heartless but I have never been incapacitated by grief or indeed by any strong emotion, and I've just come to accept it as my brain's work to protect myself, even though it's not seen as "healthy" or "normal" by neurotypical standards.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-13 05:51 am (UTC)From:It's irritating to go through this every time I get to the top of the stairs, but these days I'm sort of resigned to it being a thing my brain does, and mostly it happens as a background process and then I move on from it. This was not always the case, at all, and I used to feel very distressed and "am I a monster?" about my intrusive thoughts before I learned more about them, so I sympathize a lot with that. Intrusive thoughts specifically take the shape of things you do not like or want and confront you with them constantly, without any appropriate emotions attached, and it can be really upsetting to have that in your head. But if you're not taking monstrous actions, and if you have appropriate responses when actual bad things happen, then you're not a monster; you're just someone with a bit of a brain glitch.
Re item the first, my "footnote 1" tag refers to the fact that any statement I make about myself can reasonably be given a 1 leading to a footnote saying that my information about myself may be out of date and other people around me may have more current information about who I actually am. It can be surprisingly hard to update your sense of who you are and what you think and feel. But it's not monstrous either to change or to take time adjusting to the change.
It sounds to me like you're grieving and struggling with the unfairness and true strangeness of death, which is so profoundly weird that all the ways we respond to it are also weird, and I hope you will be gentle with yourself as you go through that.