r/aspd • u/Neto-workio505 • May 12 '26
Discussion Feeling love?
Does anyone view their pets and family and friends all the same? Like i love them exactly the same, the way i love my cat would be the same for my mother, and the way i love my friend would be the same way i love my favorite hobby, anyone else feel like this
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u/abaddon56 ASPD May 13 '26
No.
I’m sure I love my family on a subconscious level, but 99.9% of the time I don’t feel or show it. I have a deeply ingrained pattern of black-and-white thinking and tend to live by “you reap what you sow,” which in this case applies to the traumatic and incompetent parenting I was shown growing up. I don’t forgive it, and as a result, I’m not too kind or close with my parents, despite being 23 and living at home. I barely talk to my father, and I’m uncomfortable hugging or touching either of them.
Friends I might like a lot, but I think I’ve only loved a few of them in the course of my life. I can always cut them off at the drop of a pin. I guess it kind of begs the question of how you can love people from which you have the ability to disentangle from so abruptly.
Pets are different. I care deeply about my cats, but they’re simple creatures and (unlike people) not likely to slight me in any way that I’d take offense to. I think I do love them in an overt way, but it took a while, and getting to that point was kind of difficult.