I thought it was just a metaphor.

Hi everyone,

I've been doing everything I can to understand my psychological condition(s) ever since I can remember. I know that I've always been pretty much the same for most of my life. Just a little bit of background before I proceed:
I guess I have high functioning autism, but I also have stress induced amnesia, which blocks out the cause of stress and chunks of my life that happened during the stress. While I have stress, all the associated stress memories are unlocked, and it hits me like a flood all at once.
I developed something that detaches my emotions from me, and was able to handle the memories that were triggered periodically during the last few years, and I was able to communicate it all to my therapists, but they seemed confused and said it seemed too complicated.

Anyways, I have a photographic memory as well as a bunch of other mental gifts probably due to the autism wiring my brain weirdly, so I am able to sort and process huge amounts of data. I recently noticed that something strange, something that I had never heard of or witnessed in others, was happening to me over the course of my life:

Basically, when people pay attention to me, and when they try to attend to my emotional needs, I start being able to feel something. My parents were both cold hearted individuals (mom paranoid schizo and biopolar) (dad high functioning autistic and distorted thinking) (sister with anti-social personality and quite a bit of rage issues), they preferred isolation and didn't allow me to make any friends or meet anyone who could offer me tenderness and kindness. Normally, I am a weakling, a cripple, with severe anxiety and chronic illness.

Lately, I've been taking opportunities to meet kind people, people who care, people who avoid types like my family. I've been able to shed tears during dramatic moments in television shows and movies. My back stops hurting when I'm around those people. My severe arthritis seems to go away for a while. I begin being able to imagine what I would do in social environments with those people. I start imagining what it must be like to have friends, and go out once in a while, and do stuff. I'm even deeply touched when I hear a song with powerful meaning. I want to go out and help everyone I can. I start feeling like I would like to meet a nice girl and raise a family somewhere quiet and peaceful. All of these kind people are quick to tell me how nice I am, and how good I look, and how helpful and intelligent I am, and how much they appreciate my company.

When I go back home, I'm the same as I always was, sore, fatigue, pain, bad memory, attention deficit, -- ugly, irritable, argumentative, wasteful, threatening, judgmental, super negative, as far as my family says. I'm not that way because of a hard day's work, I'm too disabled to be employable! I stay in my room just to avoid listening to them yell at each other when they're together. The sounds of their voices echo through the house. I hear them laughing, but I try not to ask anymore, because they're always laughing at the hardships and misery of others, even each other and me. There's no limit to age, my 86yo grandma steals from me, and she's even admitted that she thinks she deserves to take whatever she wants. I learned only this year that my dad can only respect me when I verbally abuse him and tell him how worthless he is, then he actually pays attention to me and does what I ask him to help me with. I hate doing it, but I need his help with things, and I don't drive.

It seems amazingly black-and-white, but that's exactly how it is. I have always tried to be a good person, honest and fair, understanding the point of view of everyone, and always freely offering ideas to anyone who has a problem. Among the nice people, I am known as the idea guy, and I'm proud of it. The only people who ever have anything bad to say about me are my own family! The people who I thought were sheltering me from the harsh realities of the world! Instead, they socially crippled me. They taught me to hate polite people saying please and thank-you and giving compliments. They said that anyone who says anything nice is lying to me, and when I do something I want to show them, they immediately tell me how meaningless and worthless it was.

I think I may literally be powered by kindness, affection, love, positivity, acceptance, and so many other positive emotions that I rarely ever experience. It makes me feel like I don't need to eat or drink or sleep. It makes me always have a kind word for anyone and a smile on my face.

Thanks,
Kristan