emotions and autism?

Post Reply New Topic

I also cry easily about stuff like that. It makes me feel good in a strange way. I frequently crave poignant things that make me tear up, sad music, works of art, stories, epiphanous moments, etc. Somehow it releases something that breaks up the awful soul-sucking sterility/austerity/emptiness of everything else I feel about my life.

Your so lucky to have a co-worker who would do that. I always feel like that's what's missing from my life. Where are all the real people? For when I'm too depressed / out-of-it to stand around and smile while making small-talk?

Anyways, I think I'm overly sensitive and emotional for a guy though I don't know if I come across that way to any old random person I bump into. Around people I always feel detached and distant, like I'm on a completely different plane. When I'm around a bunch of NT's and everyone else laughs in unison at some joke I'm always just standing there stonyfaced, like I just can't make myself get into them. Same when I see people hugging or patting each other on the back. I just can't get into it. I don't know if this is perceived as being "unemotional". On a deeper level I'm certainly very emotional. I just can't get into that NT behavior that appears superficial to me.

I feel the same way - everything yAsp-Z and Perin have said. It feels so obvious when someone's excited about something and expects the same out of me and I'm thinking, thinking, my wheels are turning trying to figure out how I should react and my response is like, "oh, wow.....yay...?"

And on the other end of the emotional spectrum I've irritated more than a few coworkers by not getting irritated by the same things they do - or much at all really. Meh.

I get very very emotional when music is added to a visual image in a way that creates a beautiful mood. Even the end of "School of Rock" did me in.

The TV show "I Survived" also creates intense feelings in me.

I find I don't really feel these things for anything in real life though...

Yeah, back in the day, I was in a group of 'friends.' It was night, which meant neon lights and cool air. I was just taking in the atmosphere and enjoying their company. They were all excitedly talking about a subject, and I was interested too but listening intently. One of them stops, they all stop talking, and she angrily asks me "Well? What do YOU think? You look bored. Atleast pretend to look interested."

Countless situations like this make me a little sad. Thankfully nowadays I have less friends that require apostrophe marks. Zing!

I can't really describe my emotions too well. I guess you could say I usually feel...calm? Sometimes, though they can get out of hand. Like if I remember something, it makes me very sad and I can start crying. I actually cried the last time I watched Aladdin, and Genie and Al were saying good bye at the end. That was the first time that happened.

a catharsis is what this emotional release is. it seems to empty the bile out of one's system via the tear ducts. it makes one feel emotionally alive.



yes, this fella was one of the very few people i was on the same wavelength with. it is all about wavelength. i find most folk seem to resonate at a different frequency, totally off-key from my own. "desifinado" as they say in brazil. the "real people" are largely in the woodwork, just waiting for somebody else stuck in the woodwork to raise their heads out of it long enough to be noticed.

My Mum is alot like that. I can't think of an example at the moment, but it took me a long time to realise that most of the time she isn't angry with me, she's angry at something else but she gets consumed by the emotion and can't seem to focus it on the right thing. If she's angry about something that anger becomes a part of everything she does and everyone she is around until that anger evaporates. Then she's fine again. I never could understand it as a child. My sister and I were terrified of her. My sister and I can be like that at times too. But we tend to contain it more. We go very silent if we are upset. People around us don't know why we are being silent the same way we didn't know why my mum was shouting.

It's like the emotion is consuming. It's like my brain can't work out how to associate the emotion with one thing and leave it there. My sister and I (probably because we don't want to be like my Mum) are obsessive about not offending people and just don't show any emotion. Although I don't suppose we actually feel emotion like other people. Like when my friend told me she was engaged. I didn't feel anything, but I know I was supposed to, but then I didn't know what to do or how to behave in a way that showed I cared, meh. Emotion is all too complicated for me.

I cannot express them in words appropriately I don't think, or control them well. Anger is groaning or soon hitting, throwing and stomping, sadness is crying and laying on the floor, happiness is jumping up and down and smiling, overwhelmed = meltdown, etc. At the most for words it's "I'm _______!". If I'm on a computer I can look up the dictionary definitions for emotions and say anything so it's much simpler.

I think, and this is my opinion here, that how we "feel" emotions is based on what coping skills we've developed to deal with emotions.

I think the base emotional response we get to something is stronger than that of NT's. But because we get it stronger, we also get a lot of OTHER emotions going on at the same time, and because of that we have a hard time labeling them... we often get irritated that people find the need to label emotions in the first place (well, at least I do... Yet i try overly hard to label them myself, pedantically even) So what happens is we're left with a blur. Some of us can learn to see what the main emotion in it all is. Others learn to create a block that stops the emotion before it takes hold.

Myself, it's like all emotional response gets run through a filter. That filter is my consciousness, so to say. I get the thought "I should feel jealous" and then I decide whether it's worth feeling jealous or not. If i decide to do so, I don't think I get the full jolt of it though. It's reasoned out... but.. it looses it's raw edge. Passion is perhaps a good example. I think "I should be getting turned on here" so, I let myself (or don't depending on the situation) but.. it's not the same thing as a real unclouded passion, is it? It almost feels like a lie at times. That I'm forcing myself to feel it. Some emotions seem like they have to be unbidden. But to have to agree to feeling it... it's lacking.

I think the worst one.. is that I have to "decide to smile" when playing with my son. But I WILL NOT SECOND GUESS the authenticity of that one. It is.

There are times when emotion over runs my ability to filter it though. It's almost always Anger, Fear, Frustration, Irritation things like that.... they are ones that build up, as opposed to hit you. And they just start overwhelming my filters, eventually they swamp it, and the whole of the emotions just burst through like the hoover dam letting forth.

I'm sure there's lots of other coping mechanisms, but I think that they are something we all have to learn one way or another. It also might be the case that a given level of emotion is felt stronger in us, as opposed to that the emotional response itself is actually stronger (though that is just another case of relativity, so rather moot)

me too. i need to trigger emotional responses inorganically, if that makes sense, or they just well up. i have always relied very heavily on music for this.

i do cry a lot, a lot. a lot. but usually out of frustration. i also get easily angry - also out of frustration. when it comes to really feeling something in a situation with another person i'm generally confused. i know it's in there, it just doesn't work properly. i smile or laugh when i hear bad news sometimes.

i'm actually very emotional, but in reaction to my thoughts about other people rather than their emotions? i will come to a conclusion and then react emotionally to it. but sometimes quite a while down the road. or sometimes quite rapidly, but not in response to anything the person can follow. it is definitely independent of interaction with the person. and i think when it does get expressed it's much smaller (the expression) than the degree i'm feeling it. or i don't express it in a way anyone else can understand. ?

?

that's the best i can do.

you expressed it very well, you hit the nail on the head.

It's there, it's real, but... it's controlled (thought about, judged, rationalized etc), and it's not expressed the way others do it.
Yup, good way to put it indeed.

I think we on the spectrum, we tend to, on average, not have as good of skills for dealing with emotions as normal stuff, because we don't learn those skills. First, a relative lack of people like us to learn from. Second, lack of social skills and lack of ability to read non-verbals affects our abilities to learn emotional skills, since those skills aren't usually explicitly taught.

For me, learning skills explicitly plus one particular person who's been a great example for me (and who's fairly open talking about his emotions) have done a lot to help me in this area.

I don't think it has anything to do with autism. Everyone can overflow with emotion or on the other hand not feel anything at all. Just comes down to what you're experiencing at the moment.

My emotions are too strong all the time, that's why I'm dxed with a mood disorder. I get too sad, I get too excited, etc...

Also as a kid, I would meltdown a lot. Emotional overwhelmed... I couldn't control it.