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nara44
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17 Jul 2010, 4:27 am

ColdBlooded wrote:
nara44 wrote:
Perhaps the way we integrate emotions with the intellect makes us appear flat compare to NT who tend to oscillate widely between emotions and thoughts,
basically what make us looked at and treated as a freaks is our ability to walk and chew gum simultaneously ,
we thing while we feel where NT either think or feel,


Maybe i don't understand what you mean, but i always looked at the the opposite way. NTs seem to let emotion interfere with how they understand something, and are able to use their thoughts to regulate their emotions. But with me emotions don't get in the way of how i understand facts.. A fact is a fact, not something emotional.. And i can't use logic to regulate my emotions very well, which is why they elevate to meltdowns sometimes. It seems to me like my emotions and my logic don't really work together all that well. The way i try to make sense of everything, including my emotions, is through logic though.. so maybe that's where the flat affect comes from. Maybe you could explain more?


Being able to see facts with out projecting your emotions on them is also a sign of the integration i mentioned,
Your emotions don't get in a way because u r aware of their subjectivity and such awareness is needed in order to get objective perspective
in other words,u need to be aware of the relativity embedded in your point of view in order to see the absolute, and AS are better at that than NT hence less prone to self delusional, egocentric driven perception and behaviors,
As i mentioned before "flatness" is not lack of emotions like NT think but a tendency toward sensitivity which is why u spike more radically hence the meltdowns,
a "flat" person sees and feels and know much more about is surrounding because being integrated well he is not putting himself or sensing himself as the absolute center or the control point of the space he inhabits as integration of body and mind leads to integration of the self with the environment or the other selves,
AS lives in a multi centered universe so they tend to get overwhelmed in a society still built around an illusionary ego and the illusion of the ego is the result of the intellect generating a point of view that contradict the one generate by the heart,hence the osculations or the headless chicken style of behavior that considered a necessary social skills by the dummies running this world ,
Regulating your emotions intellectually or vice versa give born to expectations and needs not serve yet by the idiots that try to control reality instead of understanding and feeling it the way a better integrated people do so too many times the autistics are left to stare into a big nothing just when they need and able to give and receive or communicate
so we collapse
what else can we do
Enforcing our needs or projecting our feelings on others contradicts the integration that sustain our identity so the NT ways of dealing with life are not available to us
all we can do is shut up,get out, and hope .

BTW
This things are of course much more involved and i don't have the language skills( i can't even speak Hebrew which is my native language well let alone English) to elaborate what i know and feel on the subject as language itself perpetuate the point of view that tortured me most of my life,
Perhaps that why like many AS i seldom talk or connect with people,
Language,at least as of now is built to express and serve certain sense of space and time , a sense that for the reasons i gave above many AS couldn't share/
I speak some programming language much more fluently than i speak Hebrew
Perhaps i should try to explain my feeling with code :?



ColdBlooded
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17 Jul 2010, 4:51 am

Ah, i think i get it. It seems like you've put a lot of thought into how your thought processes work.



PunkyKat
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17 Jul 2010, 2:12 pm

The way our brain works I guess.


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TruthTree
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17 Jul 2010, 3:40 pm

There's some NT hate in this thread..
In a way, I think it's deserved.

To explain the NT side of it,
The way I see it, as an NT, my brain is wired to do a lot of emotional 'checks'. There's a constant back and forth of "are you ok", "i'm ok", "are you ok", "i'm ok" - it's embedded in every line of conversation, every facial expression, every body gesture. I think of it like a flock of birds. As one bird moves, the whole flock moves with it. If one bird in that flock is independent and is able to act out, the whole flock loses its formation.
Maybe NT brains are wired this way because it's evolution's way of trying out a bird-like behaviour system on humans, wheras AS brains are wired more like that of cats and squirrels.

When I see someone with a facial expression that means 'I'm not ok' to me, my brain makes me NEED an explanation, especially if it's someone close to me. And if that expression turns out to be a false alarm, I feel that person is responsible for communicating the wrong emotion to me. At worst, it feels threatening to me because I am not able to have an emotional connection with that person. This makes me resentful of this person.

Now that I know that with AS people their facial expression isn't necessary reflective of their feelings or their intention, I'm able to control my gut reactions much better. But there is very little education on AS out there, and the learning takes a lot of work because it is not something that feels natural to NTs. The fundamental problem is that this society has stopped putting an emphasis on controlling feelings, and let us NTs run wild with it. It wasn't always like this. For example, Greek Stoics believed in having a tight control on emotions. I do think every NT should take a course on understanding the AS brain so we can learn to emphathize with AS people without relying on emotional communication.



TeaEarlGreyHot
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17 Jul 2010, 3:59 pm

I used to get presents taken away from me because I 'obviously didn't want them'. I really hate having to force a facial expression just so other people don't think I'm a rigid b*tch.

If someone I know is murdered and I'm implicated in the crime, I'll be screwed. :-\


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17 Jul 2010, 10:00 pm

I don't know why. But, sometimes, when I'm exhausted due to something extremely stressful occuring that day, my parents will go and ask, :evil: are you depressed? And the next day, after I wake up, when I'm back to what is "normal" for me, my parents will say; "I think you were depressed yesterday." Grr.

Then, there are times in which my parents have told me to "lighten up a bit". I have never understood what they mean by that, and people are constantly asking me what's wrong, or why am I sad/upset/angry/ apathetic all the time.
Have never been able to explain what I feel to others, and have never understood what they mean when they say that I take things "too seriously".



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17 Jul 2010, 10:28 pm

zeldapsychology wrote:
I've read topics on here before about this but just thought I'd toss an experience I had tonight into the mix. I had my Ipod on while in the mall. On the drive home mom/dad were like OMG you didn't seem like you were in a good mood if you are going to be like that you can just stay home!! (I was focusing on my music and thinking ignore ignore ignore (as not to say/do something to upset them) Yet alas the whole Ipod ignore idea DID upset them. Darn it!! ! (I thought if I tossed myself into my Ipod I'm less likely to do/say a wrong thing) So much for that logic. So I was wondering while I know some of you get the "You seem depressed etc. lines" but was wondering WHY do we as Aspies show emotion differently? Thanks.


Yes, I actually DO get that line a lot, only depressed is replaced with anger a lot of times...sometimes sad.



marshall
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17 Jul 2010, 11:08 pm

Yea. Apparently I'm hard to read. My inner world is quite emotional but in social situations I feel quite forced and wooden. It takes a lot of effort to force a smile in front of people.

In another thread I made a point about the distinction between intentional emotion and spontaneous emotion. I think intentional emotion is what we tend to see in NT behavior as "acting". It's a willful communication of emotions, thoughts, and intentions through body language rather than largely involuntary spontaneous displays.



zombiecide
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18 Jul 2010, 12:22 am

I do get reactions like that from my mom. It's gotten better since I picked up the habit of later explaining what I was doing. Like that I had to put on music to blast over the outside noise because I just couldn't process language any more.

The reasons why I do not always show the emotion somebody expects from me are
*I don't know how I feel
*I know how I feel but if I were to show it, it would become an outburst
*I don't know whether and how you're supposed to display the emotion in question


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Grambo
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18 Jul 2010, 9:02 am

Good god these comments hit a key. Wow! I was married for 10 years and we got into nasty fights the past 5 years. I always got the :"What's WRong, why are you angry" People in general in public stay clear of me because I always look mad. I can show emotion in my face, but I have to be in the right mood and those moods are usually caffeine highs. People think I'm Cold and heartless. I have trouble consoling my sons when they get hurt. I'm just usually thinking or saying " Quit Crying your fine" My routine is soooo defined that if it's broken I start to panic and get stressed. I do not like my routine changed.

I find myself very into Hard Rock music. I just Feel it! Most of the time I don't have much feeling, but when I listen to music I can find it. My wife left me to become gay. While we were still married she asked me permission to go see her gf in Chicago. I knew they would have sex. I knew it was over for me and I let her go and I didn't cry or have any hard feeling until a week later. And even so it was short. but now I'm thinking that No one will ever fall in love with me ever again. I fear I will not have sex for a long long long time. (Typical guy thoughts I know) ha ha ha! But I'm just not confident. Never have been. I can lure women in on personals online, but they usually scamper away after a few emails. And now I'm so broken and hurt I just don't even know if I can have feelings for anyone. I know I'm wrong, but lately I'd rather spend all day on the computer doing nothing becaue it's my comfort zone. I HATE my comfort zone. I really need to force myself out, but I don't have any friends either and when I go out alone, I feel like I'm in peoples way or that people are looking at me thinking I'm a criminal or going to do something illegal. People are always looking at me like that, because I just have this shy nervous thing in public.

But my ex wife knows about aspies because our son was diagnosed, But I just cannot explain to her in any way shape or form in a way that she can understand what it's like. She just thinks I'm depressed and not trying. I don't want to try, because I have tried and I get nowhere fast.



Joe90
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21 Sep 2010, 11:56 am

This is a part of AS I don't seem to have. I'm good with expressing my feelings and emotions. In fact, it's a bit extreme for me, because if I'm feeling frustrated in public, I will make a correct face to show that I'm frustrated, or if I'm feeling happy or excited I can put on a correct face to show I am happy. Also, I don't speak in monotone.

It's the anxiety part of AS which I suffer with the most.


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21 Sep 2010, 1:55 pm

I think I mainly express emotions by saying something. If I'm happy, I'll talk about a special interest a lot, or things I notice around me and patterns I see. If I'm feeling neutral I only really talk when people speak to me. When I'm upset, I either don't speak at all, or I rant on and on.

I used to have tantrums as a kid when I was being bullied. I'd grind my teeth, clench my fist, jump up and down, etc. It probably looked hilarious to an immature sense of humour, so that was the game at school - to get me angry. I learned not to do that as I grew older. The only problem is now I don't know what to do when I'm upset, instead. I mostly just shut down these days.



mikey1138
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21 Sep 2010, 2:17 pm

I am very monotone naturally, but over the course of the past three decades I have learned to add inflection into my speech so as to sound a little more "normal". I most definitely come off as flat and am certain I do not reflect my emotions through nonverbal ways very well. But when I was little, my mother taught me that a smile is contagious and it makes others smile (which is an extension of happiness) and I took this as an important thing to do so I grew up smiling all the time. Even if I am not happy, I'm usually smiling and I guess people do not feel threatened by my awkwardness because I seem nice due to my pleasant facial expression. There have been several instances where someone was creeped out by my excessive smiling but those are few and far between. I've gotten the nickname "Smiley guy" and "The Joker" from people in the past but these names never seemed mean in their intentions. I have gotten into trouble with my wife during heated arguments for smiling inappropriately but thankfully, since my diagnosis, she now understands to take these instances with a grain of salt (whatever that means).



mikey1138
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21 Sep 2010, 2:19 pm

I adore Wrackspurt's avatar!