Describe a story where someone you cared about had trouble in picking up emotional nuance?

It was our FIRST wedding anniversary. I didn’t get so much as a cup of coffee brought to me. Meanwhile, I looked after and entertained his son so he could go fly fishing for several hours. ???? Now, my relationship with his son is better than my relationship with him. Moral of the story? Don’t go off and fly fish alone on your anniversary.

I remember walking up the stairs at my Mom’s house, talking to my wife. I stopped her, and said “You mean a lot to me!” She slapped me, and said “Why do you say I’m mean a lot to you?”

Yes, and those that don’t “get it” don’t want to get it!
I just had an experience with a friend the other day who refused to compromise on something that I explained from a rational, logical and fact based perspective. She is stuck in her own biased opinion and refutes any new information coming into her system. haha
Oh well…I tried to gently drill through the wall but it’s clearly reinforced with lots of steel encased in the concrete. lol

I dated someone who has asperger’s and also… turned out to be a sociopath !

@bookish1 Nice combo plate of insanity you feasted on there. lol

@Coloma: Hey now, Asperger’s is not insanity. But sociopathy sure is. At least I got off that ride before things got too bad.

Eh… Aspergers can look a lot like sociopathy, especially when a relationship becomes strained and the person gives up really caring a rats ass about the other person. Right now, they are arguing about Breivik’s diagnosis. (You know, the guy here in Norway who killed shit loads of people in cold blood last summer? EVERY, and I mean every looney with a psych degree is trying to weigh in and give a diagnosis.) I am rather sick and tired of the arguing going on about a ‘diagnosis’. As far as I am concerned, he has the ‘killed shitloads of people in cold blood’ disease and need to have less attentioned poured over him and more alone time in a jail cell for the rest of this miserable, pathetic life.

But Yes. Living with two people with an Autism spectrum disorder, this shit happens to me on a daily basis with not picking up on emotional cues. Ironically, they both on a huge ‘oh poor piteous me’ benders and are much worse than usual.

I get that all the time. My husband doesn’t live in the same world the rest of us do.

@Coloma It sounds like you didn’t get your way. What a relief to know that there’s a person without bias out there.

@cazzie who said “EVERY, and I mean every looney with a psych degree is trying to weigh in and give a diagnosis.) I am rather sick and tired of the arguing going on about a ‘diagnosis’.”
Fortunately for you, a 24 carat lunatic is here on the scene to rebut what you said. As far as self-pity, Aspergers robs a person of the ability to interact in a socially conventional manner to one extent or another and it really is very sad. But not everyone who has it wallows in self-pity. Frequently they have no idea why they don’t have friends. Yeah, they’re really hard to live with. How did you come to marry one? I married mine because I pegged him as solid and stable…nothing shook him up.

@bookish1 You need to run a criminal background check on the people you date. Sociopathy is not “insanity” as such. The terms psychopath and sociopath are lay terms not defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. This is a book describing and naming emotional/mental conditions. For mental health professionals and insurance companies who have the book, diagnoses are a shorthand for describing various mental conditions. Mental conditions not in the book are are subject to all manner of interpretation. For me, the terms psychopath and sociopath have moral implications rather than mental health ones. So one can look at the same behaviors through moral terms or so called “scientifically” agreed upon ones or both. One does not preclude the other.

The closest diagnosis to what we think of as psychopathy is that of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. They have a grandiose sense of self-importance, have fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love, believe that he or she is “special” and should associate with other special people, require excessive admiration and seek constant attention and positive reinforcement from others, have a sense of entitlement, and “deserve” the best of everything, take advantage of others, lack empathy, show arrogant, haughty attitudes and react to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliation.

The closest diagnosis to what we think of as sociopathy is that of Antisocial Personality Disorder. They have a failure to conform to lawful behaviors as indicated by criminality, repeated lying, use of aliases, conning others for personal profit, repeated physical fights, reckless disregard for safety and repeated failure to honor financial obligations.

Less than 1% of court cases involve the insanity defense, and of those, only around one in four is successful. In the US of A, there is a category of guilty but nuts. Anyone who kills shitloads of people would most likely fall into this category. When this happens, they go to the nut house. If they get better, they then go to trial and serve the same sentence as they would if they were not crazy. I they don’t get well, they serve about twice as long as they would had they been a non-crazy person. My point is that they will get what’s coming to them no matter what you call them.

Gotta go shoot myself in the foot now. Bye.

@Carol I didn’t want to go into details, but this person had those diagnoses you mentioned (Antisocial, Narcissistic) AND more.

@Carol I was referring to the Breivik case. What the hell are you going on about?

@Carol It had nothing to do with not getting my way and everything to do with this person refusing to even discuss an option from a fact based perspective that might possibly alter their bias. An opinion based on heresay rather than fact. I believe that new information entering a system needs to be taken into account. Soooo….I guess you could say I didn’t “get my way”, but that “way” would have been my strong preference for being able to have an enlightening conversation that might lend a new perspective on a situation.