3:23am June 27, 2014

“We assume others show love the same way we do - and if they don’t, we worry it’s not there.”

—

This is incredibly important to remember when you’re related to, or in a relationship with, a non-neurotypical person. Many neuroatypical people express their love in what could be considered atypical ways. Just because the ways you’re used to love being displayed aren’t there, doesn’t mean the love isn’t there or that they’re not expressing love. You may just have to learn what expressions of love look like for them, and learn to accept and appreciate those displays rather than expecting a specific type of affection.

(via squidsqueen)

This can be important to keep in mind even when you’re not necessarily around neurodiverse people. Different people just express themselves differently. Some people may need to hear the words “I love you” to really believe it, or spontaneously say the words when that’s what they really feel. For other people, the words just don’t have that emotional tangibility for them, if they say the words at all they say them by rote and instead feel more comfortable expressing and receiving love via physical touch. Still others attach a lot of emotional importance to presents or cards: each physical object a person gives them is like an expression of love, a sign that the person was thinking of them even when not seeing them. While other people may not even be able to grasp the concept of presents as anything other than a formality or obligation or something materialistic (I know for a long time I had trouble grasping that presents for some people were an expression of love and not just something they did out of duty or because they happened to see something they knew you would like) and instead view spending time doing things with other people as an expression of love. While other people may still be able to feel another person’s love even if they rarely see them. (They may MISS the other person’s company but don’t NEED their physical presence to “feel” their love). And of course neurodiversity can have a lot of impact on what ways a person naturally tends to give or receive/understand love, but isn’t the only factor.

I think it can help all of us to do the best we are able both to express love and “read” love in ways that may not seem natural to us. When expressing love toward others, it may have more impact for the other person if we try to at least sometimes express it in a way that they understand better. And when “reading” or receiving the love of others, learning to recognize the things they are doing to express love even if these things may initially seem “odd” from our frame of reference or initially seem disconnected from love can be tremendously reassuring to people who are more accustomed to thinking of love as something expressed in only one or two possible ways.

I wish more people understood that there are so many many different ways to express and receive love. I think one of the worst consequences of people not understanding this is the ways in which some people profoundly dehumanize others for not expressing love in the “right” way. Too many people assume that if THEY do not recognize someone’s expression of love, that the love is not there at all. And then use that supposed absence of love as an excuse to dehumanize others. :-(

(via andreashettle)

Notes: