Can't sleep (I blame the heat!) But am I a psychopath, neuro diverse, or just odd?

[Onlyrainbows]

I genuinely can't sleep between a stressful day at work and the heat my brain is definitely not in the right place. I guess the biggest disclaimer is that I can relate (and do relate) to people IRL but my interactions with the outside world outside my house are fairly low. I WFH and have done some for the past 10+ years. I have a highly dysfunctional family and I'm not mumsy in any way shape or form, but I do love my DC and I think I'm a decent mother in my own way. I'm not very emotional (so things like walking the DC on their last day of primary school seems cheesy to me and I would openly day it online). I always try to back things up with hard evidence, for example I tell my DH that he has to keep an eye on his DD as teenage pregnancy is statistically higher if the previous generations were young mother too. He didn't take any offense, but he said it wasn't the end of the world. I just said that I wouldn't know as nobody from my social circles ended up being a teenage parent, unplanned pregnancies sure, but we all had university degrees when they happened. Is that lack of empathy? I don't know I do question why I can rarely find people who do think like me.

Nothing here sounds that out of the ordinary to me. You love your kids, your main relationships are with people you live with, you prefer to have good reasoning behind things you say, you're not particularly into sentimental stuff, but nothing that seems overly weird? Maybe some other people spend more time out of the house or enjoy marking milestones in an emotionally meaningful way more than you do, but it doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong.

Well that's reassuring! I think a lot of it comes down to the "mumssy" expectations. For example, the weekends are most certainly not planned around the DC, they tend to be around what needs to be done and yes having some time off. I guess, another side of things is that as much as everybody's feelings are important (and nobody is more important than others) sometimes there's no choice but to get over things and move on (oddly enough this scenario happened at work today).

You sound fine. I mean this nicely, but maybe get out there a bit more, and it'll become obvious how unusual and diverse so many people's brains are.

And that's good because human society needs us all to perform different roles. All lionesses, say, do a similar job: hunting, looking after cubs, whatever. But we could be doing all sorts: scientific research, cleaning, managing, farming, writing, caring etc, in all sorts of combinations. If we all thought the same way, we'd all excel at the same sort of thing, and society would be fucked and never progress. So embrace your lovely unique brain!

About five years ago o did start to go out more! Joined the LibDems and a national charity. I got divorced and then COVID happened and I'm more or less back to square one (in terms of getting out there).

I see a couple of autistic traits in what youve written.
Trouble sleeping.
Honesty
Basing actions on evidence

But having traits and being autistic arent the same thing.

I've always had trouble sleeping. When I was younger (from when I was 13 to Kate teens/early 20s) I couldn't sleep because I thought I would get abducted by aliens (I clearly watches too much X Files). I sleep a lot lot better these days.

You’re too ‘in your head’.

I think that's accurate too, but most likely due to my lack of social interaction for the past 10+ years. It didn't help that mye exH said he had no interest in making any new friends (at least not without shared interests) and a current DH that is willing/ happy to socialise but who doesn't have any friends himself (besides his mon-fri friends from work).

I sort of know what you mean - I am very practical and hard headed about things that other people seem to get very emotional amount. When my child had a really quite bad accident (could have been fatal), complete strangers were far more reactive than I was - I looked at the injury, decided what was needed in terms of treatment and got on with it - I was sort of more irritated at the disruption than anything else. I have never ever understood the depth of feeling people express when someone famous dies, someone they didn't know but people describe themselves as "devastated". I don't remember the exact time of my kids births, their first words etc, it doesn't seem all that important. I often wonder why my reactions to things seem so "cold" compared to others.

AQ test will give you a good idea whether you display significant autistic traits. You can find it online. I did it when ds diagnosed and expected to be borderline but my score was actually very high. Was a lightbulb moment for me.

Yes Chisel that's exactly how I feel at times.

I'm like this. I can get upset and angry about things but on the whole, if there's a problem, I tend to want to try to solve it and move on. I have a creative job but it's sort of based around problem-solving so maybe over the years I've over-trained my brain!
I also worry that I'm not motherly enough. When my eldest and his friends went to university a few years ago, the other mothers in our WhatsApp group were all 'oh I'm in floods'; 'can't bear it'; 'my baby' etc etc but I was just really excited for him! Such an important life stage, why wouldn't you be? But I did worry that I wasn't upset enough.

Barkcloth same here. I remember when I almost divorced my husband I went straight into the practicalities rather than the heartbreak. I seem to have a colder reaction but I don't see it as a bad thing.