Please help me understand this. Thank you.

This is going to be a long post. Please read and respond. Nobody can help me out with this situation or understand my situation.

I have a learning disability and I have a hard time understanding things. I'm bipolar and have PTSD from abuse. One of my old boyfriend's came back into my life again, at first we hung out only a little bit. He told me he loves being alone and I thought it was me. As we started hanging out more I got to know him better than before. I cried to him in person and told him how sorry I was for disappearing on him, I just got depressed and sometimes do the disappearing act because my depression got so bad and I didn't want to be a burden on him. Since we broke up he ended up getting involved with someone else and in the end his next girlfriend met someone on World Of Warcraft, cheated on him and left him for the guy she met off of the video game, married him and just had a baby. He told me this in person and over Facebook and he was deeply sadden by this. Once he told me. I actually cried by his pain because he's honestly the best guy I've ever met in my entire life. I believe he's depressed because so many people left him for his disorder, he looks so heartbroken and shattered.

As we hung out, we started laughing together, hanging out and as he showed me his new tires of his truck. He moved me to the side lightly by putting his arm around me because I was about to lose my balance and he smiled at me as he did this. Pretty soon he kept messaging me and wanting to see me more and more. Than slowly he started giving me hugs and even kissing me. Anytime I leave his house, he grows very distant and I think it's something I did. I moved two hrs away from him and he kept messaging me and texting me asking me if I was back in town yet and for me to tell him if I ever return. I've visited his house twice so far and I stay in his guest bedroom.

As of right now I'm going through depression again due to things happening in my life, my best friend killed himself, people abandoned me because I got sad and I went through two surgeries, precancer on my cervix and recently kidney stones. He came to the hospital to visit me and held my hand and kissed me yet again. By the look on his face he looked stressed out and I went to massage his shoulders because he works full time. As I did this, he put my hands down gently and told me that I'm in the hospital and for me not to worry about him right now. I love him so much, I just don't want to be a burden on him or for me to stress him. All I want is for him to be okay. I try not to overwhelm him with my emotions because he explained that it really overwhelms him and how he has a hard time relating to people which I understand because I constantly feel misunderstood. However I think he means it differently than how I feel.

Right now I'm just trying my best to support him, be a best friend to him and show him love when he's comfortable. He's not a very clingy person. Sometimes he goes from hot to cold, he told me sometimes he runs away and stops talking to people and he tends to say a lot of inappropriate things and told me not to get hurt by what he says ever. I looked up his disorder and I know the symptoms, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what's really inside of his head. As of right now he's not really speaking to me unless I log onto play video games and he messages me when he's on. He told me he'll see me again one day and when he said it, he seemed yet again distant and I'm thinking what did I do? Is he upset at me? When I was at his house I cried a lot and got upset by his funny comments and he told me he feels like he can't be himself around me and I told he doesn't have to change, I just am depressed by the move and things happening in my life and he relaxed a little bit.

Now when he cracks jokes I try my best not to take everything literally. I'm learning about this disorder little by little, I just need to know more. Right now I'm scared of him disappearing and not talking to me ever again. What should I do? Should I not reach out to him? Should I give him space? I want to talk to him to tell him if he's stressed out that I understand. I just don't want to talk to him online. I rather talk on the phone or in person and just explain very little to him. If I say too much to him, he gets very overwhelmed and it's hard for him to take it all in. He gets upset by people's emotions: including anger and sadness. When other people get angry, he freaks out and goes into his room, then he gets mad. When he gets upset or angry, I wait until he calmed down and than I hug him and when I hug him he hugs me very very close. Than one day he told me, "You're such a good person." When I lived in town and he was driving me home one night, he held my hand and again he was hugging me. He says he's not the clingy type at all, then there's times where he can be. I told him that I'll be here for him and support him. The last time I was there he passionately kissed me and he told me how much he trusts me. Now he's distance like I mentioned before. So why the sudden change? What's going through his head? Help me understand him a little better please. Thank you.

I know this probably all too much for people to take in, I just needed to explain the situation and as people know with bipolar, I just go on and on about things. I'm doing my best to try to talk slowly and explain things very lightly. I myself am learning a lot about my own disorder as well.

i can't see that you're doing anything wrong here. you're being as reassuring and supportive as you can be. i think you're probably worrying more than is really necessary. there really aren't any indications here that there's anything specific to worry about. aspies are renown for shutting down and disappearing occasionally, especially when they feel over-whelmed. i think it would help you if you knew what was on his mind. that way you'll know what might be causing his behaviour. you could try gently prompting him to this effect. but my best advice is to give him whatever space he feels he needs whilst not giving him the impression that you're abandoning him. i will say that aspies often communicate better in writing than verbally. so, the occasional text message to let him know you're thinking of him will help assure him of your continued support. as for yourself, try to find things to distract you from worrying. usually it's a good idea to cultivate other social contacts as an emotional outlet. i hope that helps.

shock_the_monkey wrote:i can't see that you're doing anything wrong here. you're being as reassuring and supportive as you can be. i think you're probably worrying more than is really necessary. there really aren't any indications here that there's anything specific to worry about. aspies are renown for shutting down and disappearing occasionally, especially when they feel over-whelmed. i think it would help you if you knew what was on his mind. that way you'll know what might be causing his behaviour. you could try gently prompting him to this effect. but my best advice is to give him whatever space he feels he needs whilst not giving him the impression that you're abandoning him. i will say that aspies often communicate better in writing than verbally. so, the occasional text message to let him know you're thinking of him will help assure him of your continued support. as for yourself, try to find things to distract you from worrying. usually it's a good idea to cultivate other social contacts as an emotional outlet. i hope that helps.

Yeah the last time I talked to him he mentioned how he was emotionally drained. I tend to repeat myself a lot and I have a very bad memory at times which he picked up on. He ended up saying something and I took it literally and I told him how hurt I was by his comment and he never responded or anything to that message.

I waited a day or two and wrote to him again telling him how I was going out jogging and exercising because I mentioned it to him before how I was going to do that and he never responded either. As of right now I think I should give him a lot more space and wait for a week or so until I message him again. If worse comes to worse and he stops talking to me, I'm not going to try to force it or anything because I'm not that type of person. I'm just confused by his behavior. However I understand how he may need space when feeling overwhelmed. He did this a lot in the past too. In the past he contacted me quite a bit over Facebook and it took him awhile to start hanging out with me more and more. Than it got to the point where he loved seeing him a lot. He did mention how he's not used to seeing somebody so much to me. At the same time though he always wanted me around and loved being in my company. He's a very religious person by nature and I accept that about him. One day he told me how God wanted him to speak to me again and how he's confused as to what he plans on doing next because he's waiting for God to speak to him and how he doesn't want to make him mad. As he said this I just told him I understand. He was raised Catholic and mentions God quite a bit. A lot of people tend to get frustrated or annoyed at him whenever he does this. I of course never do.

Hopefully he'll contact me soon because honestly I truly miss him a lot. I just don't want to look needy and push him away either further so I stopped messaging him as much and now I'm trying to distract myself from thinking about the entire situation. I did ask him though when I would see him again and he said he didn't have time to think about it yet and how he just see's how things go. I just hope I'm not the reason for him being emotionally drained. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I should seriously wait awhile until I message him yet again. Thanks again for your help and I'll update this if necessarily.