Thank you all for your sharing your thoughts. It is sooooo appreciated. Ya'll are awesomeness and then some. And thanks, Amandalouise, I will check out that book.

There is question about what and where my lack of/inappropriate emotional responses come from. Having an autism spectrum disorder kinda throws a wrench in things for me. I do have a flat affect... not just in how I present to the world, but how I respond on an internal level. That is how I have been proceeding since I showed up in this body again to be one who lives life. Until now it has been really helpful and allowed me to get a lot accomplished on an intellectual/practical level. But as a result, I have never spent any time dealing with anything on an emotional level. I just figured I did not have it in me, so I should focus on my strengths and that was my contribution to bettering myself as a whole. Now I wonder if that was me just ignoring what would seem impossible or intimidating to me... a chicken sh** route, if you will. I think it would be not only practical and sensible for me to explore if I even can feel and process emotion on my own (in an even somewhat balanced and 'normal' way), but something that would help me grow as a person and benefit me, the whole of me, in the long run. I don't know if flat affect can be fixed with me or if it simply something that I must accept. I'd like to figure that out though. Or at least try.

I do not have a therapist... I have been wondering if I should get one, but I have no idea how to get the rest of me/us on board with that. I'm also not sure how to get there or pay for it. The best I have at this point is a friend who gave me a ton of info about me as a teen that I had completely forgotten about. That helped set off a kind of chain reaction in my head and I have been working on creating a 24 month span timeline. That gave me a huge reality check that I don't really like... I thought I had a good handle on those couple of years and I was really wrong. I don't know if we had someone living those years we didn't know about or what, but that's kinda step one... get a handle on what was going on.

Now, I'm kinda thinking maybe a good thing to do is work on reassigning blame next. I always thought it was me who was the main jerk in that time frame. Not that I was all innocent or anything... I was a rotten teen, but there were reasons for it and I need to own that and deal with it. Ideally, the next step in this process would be to experience the emotions attached to those things in order to move through and beyond them, and that's gonna be hard for me since I'm not sure if it's my emotions or someone elses or if I can even feel the emotions in the first place. It's messy. Guess it's good I have the time to drop into this... I was thinking about blame last night and that I was not to blame for x y or z and I thought on who was to blame so I could own that reality and my brain was not having it. I kept stopping mid thought and then would struggle to get back on track. I wasn't melting down or getting set off or anything... heart rate not even elevated... it just shut off. I keep shutting off with this stuff. Maybe all I need now is time to keep settling into it. It really did tilt my whole lil world. Time seems reasonable.

I'm not sure where I was going with that and I think I got sidetracked. I'm gonna revisit this later and maybe have a better handle on what I'm trying to say.

-V