With Ms. Mulaney, maybe I'm continuing to hurt her without even knowing it. If so, maybe it's in the way of expectations. She could do something little, hoping I react in a certain way, and if I don't then despair. She might use magic to see my emotions, be disappointed, and feel a stab of pain inside. Of course, maybe she already long gave up on me. Whatever the case may be, I've tried playing by her rules for six months. If she feels I don't love her, there's nothing I can do about that. I know I have feelings for her, and if I and my feelings aren't where she would like them, I'm stuck to know how to answer that. I care about and want to be there for her, but if I'm not allowed to be, then I can't be. If I don't understand the rules of the game, how things work, I can't play by people's rules. I am not socially conditioned to just understand everything that's going on.
The world can't expect me to already understand everything it feels I should. When people don't try to make things a little easier for me to reach a place I should be, it is all the more hurtful when they give up because they put their way of understanding, their lens, to me and see things that look differently from my own lens. While there is only one truth possible in life, it is comprised of many lenses that work together to form the whole. People think they can see the whole truth, when it is only a piece of it. It's something I see in day-to-day life, and I am very aware that I can't see everything. Systems have to change in order to embrace people like me who have different lenses.
Anyone ever hear of the movie Off the Rails, or a person named Darius McCollum? I don't think your lenses are going to work to try to understand his situation.