Hello everyone.

For a bit of context I have been primarily living with my partner at university for almost 4 years now, only ever being apart during Christmas and summer, and we have both just moved home to complete the last semester of our master course that we took together. Our first summer apart was very difficult for me as I've always found it very difficult to be alone and having found my first serious relationship both aleviated and exacerbated this anxiety.

They are much more outgoing than I am and have have never found it difficult to keep themselves busy and maintain a lot of friendships both in real life and online, whereas I find that I am often content to just be in their presence and have only a few other friendships that are of a similar intensity. We've always managed to compromise with each other and are often very open to discussing our feelings with each other and have what I would consider a very healthy and committed relationship, but now that we are living apart without a solid plan of when we will be able to move back in with each other I've found that I'm having very frequent periods of panic often followed by intense bouts of depression over feeling isolated and lost. Usually when we are together if I'm feeling particularly down or even just affectionate I've always been able to ask them if I can lay beside them or have them stroke my hair or something similar which doesn't require much from them but gives me a great deal of comfort in being able to feel that someone is there for me, but now that we are apart and aren't able to talk all day I'm finding it much harder to process my feelings and often fall back into a pattern of messaging them and spending hours waiting for a reply only to feel crushed when the reply isn't incredibly affectionate.

I feel that this is influenced by my autism, as most of the time I feel completely overwhelmed with how much I love them and I find that when we're together there are many ways of me expressing these feelings that aren't intrusive or require much from them such as getting them food or just tickling their legs which they find comforting. Now that we are limited to online communication I feel much more isolated and find that I have to stop myself from constantly telling them how much I love them because I don't have any other way of expressing it, which in a way also affects how I comprehend their displays of affection. It's not uncommon for us to turn to each other and say that we love each other or having a quick hug in between us doing our own things which helps me to understand that I am loved by them and aleviates my desire for reassurance.

Its not that they aren't very verbally affectionate, moreso that because of my autism I find that I have such strong feelings toward them that I almost feel as though I don't need anything else in my life, which is not how they feel given that they find just as much comfort from talking to friends and just spending time alone, which I completely respect. I think what I wanted to ask was if anyone has any similar experiences or advice as to how I can become more comfortable with being alone without the same level of constant reassurance when my partner is at work or is busy doing something else? I understand that ultimately the issue isn't them not being affectionate and is about me not feeling comfortable on my own due to an inability to distract myself from thoughts that because they don't show their affection in the same way as I do that they don't actually feel the same way towards me, which I know in my rational brain is not true.

I hope this isn't too much information and any help is greatly appreciated