And to be very vague in my response to your question Psych... I can only say that I have life experiences that have enlightened me... the truth... if I say more than that, my sitch... well, to preserve anonymity, I need to be vague...
Opening the gates to your feelings, yes... I understand that will always be a challenge. One thing I know with "Aspies" is that very often, one would never even guess that of you... I don't know how many even know that "label"... You have the luxury of being anonymous of the label, people more often just find you... eccentric... lol!
Anyhow, on the feelings, that's something you may never get a handle on. But if you can experience them, carefully and methodically, you can probably find a folder that fits, when they come up and you need to deal with them. Sorta like the "red light" thing...
Very impressed on catching yourself (even though it seemed "late") and putting yourself in "time out". That's exactly the response you can do in those situations.
I see that as part of the "other" folder. No single human is going to perfectly and always stem off the reaction. So as fast as you can notice the reaction, that's when you can ACT accordingly.
"Open the gates a tiny bit", conduct yourself in real life, feel the anxiety well up, and then shut off the gates, call "red light" and get to a safe place to process...
Makes sense to me... maybe for you, too...?
The sense you got when your W appeared cold after the hand incident... that's OK... that's normal, both in your feeling and in her outward expression... what we can't know is what she was feeling or thinking... and that's the mysteries that can never be categorized nor have a folder...
