My wife, a wonderful human, has come to me quite often before, expressing her jubilation over legitimately awesome things: artwork, design, experiences, even things that happen to me — you name it.
She’ll then turn and ask:
“Aren’t you excited?”
I nod.
I grin, even.
I do try to sell it.
“…yeah….no?”
She hasn’t yet stormed off after asking what’s wrong, or how any normal human could fail to be excited or enthusiastic about things.
But we know.
I’m not a normal human.
I don’t get all that excited about stuff.
While depression is a serious challenge that many of us autistics face in some shape or another, that’s not always the root of our excited-less-ness.
Emotions are tough for us to understand, to process, assimilate, and synthesize. Not that we lack them, but they wax and wane in different ways, and not always for what we should get excited over.
But it’s OK.
We get that you’re excited, and we’re happy for you.
We’re just not always on the same bandwidth. We get excited about different stuff.
My wife chided me for being more giddy over the BattleBots final than I was for when I was promoted at work, or something truly important.
We’d help if if we could.
So am I excited, ever?
Rarely.
But I’m OK.
I understand; I often have trouble understanding my emotions or other peoples emotions; outside of writing. A lot of times I miss social cues or my perception of others. I really enjoy your posts and I hope you can find a way of learning how to express your emotions so that you can be better understood. You sound like a cool guy and I am happy to know your wife loves and accepts you for who you are; I’m sure she’s an amazing woman.