Aspies and Emotion

Post Reply New Topic

I only recently got a formal diagnosis of Asperger's. I can't stop thinking about it. On the one hand it explains so much of my life. But on the other hand I question it. I feel many things strongly ... too strongly. I cry easily any time I am feeling overwhelmed by my emotions (not just sadness). At my age, and as a boy, this is crazy embarrassing but I can't control it. This doesn't line up with all of the things that I have read that says Aspies lack empathy and emotions. I've been trying to sort it all out. I came across this article and it helped a lot.

The Empathy Conundrum

BS wrapped in BS.

Autism has nothing to do with "lacking emotion". Empathy is not to be confused with sympathy. And even if lacking emotion were somehow related to autism no single person on the ADS has every trait supposedly of indicative of autism anyway. If you have meet one ASD person you have met one ASD person.

Yeah, that's just not true that we lack emotion. I used to have "too much" as well. I'm also not sure if I agree that we really lack empathy.

Yeah, that's pretty much what that web page (and others on his site) says. It makes a distinction between sympathy and empathy and even distinguishes between two types of empathy. It rang true - for me anyway.

Definitely not lacking in emotion - I think I probably get emotional a lot more than the average neurotypical.

What people are probably confusing as "lacking in emotion" is actually that cognitive empathy is hard for us.

Don't even confuse that with lack of empathy in general. We can do Affective Empthy, meaning reading another person's emotions, just fine. Cognative Empathy, meaning being able to see things from another's perspective (very much essential for knowing how to react to Affective Empathy), is where we lack.

BTW, I got my diagnosis with Asperger's about a month and a half ago at age 36, and I'd say I'm still kind of in denial too. I don't have any problems with the diagnosis, but I still find myself analyzing the symptoms and thinking things like "Gee, I don't think I've ever had a meltdown, do I really have Asperger's?" or "I don't really need to stick to a routine all that much, could I really have Asperger's?".

So you're not the only one who finds yourself questioning the diagnosis. From what I understand, particularly when one is diagnosed at an older age, it's completely normal.

Last edited by SplendidSnail on 14 Aug 2017, 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You used to have "too much"? But you don't now? What changed? I don't melt down the in the same ways I used to but it's still there and I hate not being able to control it.

I am finding many people that actually have Asperger's say this. I don't understand why the professionals and literature are not more clear. At least none that I've read. It is one of the biggest things contributing to the part of me that struggles with my diagnosis. I went and got a second opinion after the first that involved a ton of cognitive testing that is harder to argue with yet I kept wondering if I was somehow fake. I really struggle with my emotions. It's just too much sometimes. And that didn't line up with some of what I had read.

Thanks for the edit. It was helpful and good to hear.

I also cry with any strong emotion, which is extremely irritating and embarrassing, especially since strong emotion also makes it hard, if not impossible, for me to speak, so the last thing I want at the time is people asking me what's wrong. I actually have both empathy and extreme sympathy. I can actually feel what someone else is feeling, to a lesser degree than they do. I just don't know what to do with these things, really, so I don't react in ways that most people would expect from someone who has these things. For example, I'll be able to feel that someone is sad, but I won't have any idea how to comfort them, so I won't do anything because I'm afraid I'll just make things worse. And I am actually very good at seeing things from other people's perspectives, assuming it's a perspective I can understand.

Depression I guess. I had a lot of bad experiences and have felt more "flat" in recent years.

Everybody has emotions. I dare say that many here feel more deeply than many NTS. My problems come when I have to deal with other people's emotions, not mine.

I just want to be able to be in the real world better than I currently am. I certainly don't lack emotion .. I want to struggle less with figuring out how to make a living as a self employed person with a business with fabulous products ... and I have a difficult time competing with businesses that have shoddy products and lie to the customers

I have always considered myself a highly emotional person too. When I get upset, I get very upset (I think this is what people call meltdown, but I'm still a little unclear on that). I literally bounce when I'm happy and excited. The thing is, when my emotions are less strong, I tend not to notice them so much. So if you think of like a volume control, my emotions are either mute or some on at maximum. Sometimes after they've shouted at me for a while they start to get quieter.

An example- my husband made a negative comment about the fact that I only liked cheap sausages and he wanted the "nice" ones. I became very quietly upset, had a big cry about it the next day when no-one was there- including the fact that I was a total failure at communication because I didn't understand what he wanted me to do about it, and spent three days thinking about how I could make it better or how I could talk to him about it.

I think that to some people I can seem less emotional, but that is because I express my emotions differently, and I think that different things are important. So, like in the article, I miss out on the subtle cues that someone is upset by something, or that they feel differently about a situation than I do.

I was diagnosed in January, my brain is still seeking and processing lots of information. The thing to remember is that everyone is different, not all the criteria will apply to you, and there is still lots that is not completely understood. Also remember that not everyone on the internet who claims to be an expert is an expert (although I have found a lot of good information from other Aspies online). My approach at the moment is not to try to fit my experiences into the criteria, but to gather as much information as I can and focus on the bits where something matches up or proves useful in helping me understand myself and cope with my challenges.

I always find myself questioning my diagnosis. There are so many AS symptoms that I lack, like not knowing when to be tactful, having high amounts of knowledge of an interest, being unable to read body language, going non-verbal during meltdowns, not liking to be touched, unable to communicate feelings, thinking logically, sensitivity to bright lights and smells....the list goes on. So you're probably thinking "wow, that's a lot of traits you lack!" But, despite lacking all the traits listed above, I still must have ASD because I sucked at making friends at school. Between the ages of 12 and 14 I literally had no friends, no matter how hard I tried. Even the shyest kids at school still had a small group of friends, but me, I had none. Nobody wanted me around. So that sounds like typical AS to me, and AS isn't something you grow out of, so...

I do have ADHD and anxiety as well though.

The "Empathy" question is vexed and misleading because in the research literature it is given a very Precise meaning relevant to the properties the research was investigating. Unfortunately, the research conclusions get bandied about using a much more general meaning for the term, which is NOT the meaning the researchers used and give the erroneous impression of an autistic person somehow being cold, unemotional, lacking sympathy, lacking any means to tune into another persons state, and worst of all, having a dis-inclination to care about another person

The original researchers used the term to describe the abilities to do ALL of the following : Tune into an emotions another person was feeling, make an accurate guess as to their thought process, formulate a typical response in words to describe what they thought the other person was thinking and feeling and the ability to use appropriate words to the other person to support, comfort, acknowledge according to the situation.

The ability to feel emotions very strongly is reported by a great many people on the spectrum. Likewise the ability to tune into another person and feel the same emotions going through them, is reported as common. Less common is being able to put these into words, or guess a suitable spoken response.

It is a case of a conclusion being quoted out of context and without properly qualifying the words used by people who are not fully informed which has caused a degree of difficulty, if not defamation of autistic people.

I don't know if I have autism or not (although these days I'm starting to think that "No, I do not" is the most likely answer). So, feel free to consider this something of a void post.

But for me, I feel emotions. There have been times where people have jokingly called me a psychopath, but like some of the people here- I often feel like I feel too much rather than too little. People have called me this because I don't always pick up on more subtle things (like small hand signals, or sarcasm now and then) and at times facial expressions (I think this is more to do with anxiety though, I tend to read people's faces more negative than they probably are, especially strangers).

Sometimes when I'm watching a movie and I know that someone else is going to hate it, but I love that movie, I end up feeling more negative towards the film because I pick up on what they would hate about it, and it's almost like I feel what they feel. This can make it hard to distinguish what I'm feeling, from what someone else is probably feeling, since what I think they're probably feeling tends to over-rule what I feel on a personal level. If someone else is stressed, I become stressed as a result, ect.

The only time this is false is when I'm in one of my moods, for instance tired or trying to focus on something, then in which case I can be somewhat rude and inconsiderate because I lose my desire to care. Sometimes I simply don't know how I feel, other times I know all too well. Yeah...

I have super emotions, totally over whelming, I cry a lot, far more than anyone knows.

Questioning and pulling apart your diagnosis, obsessing and critically self analysing is par for the course as far as I can see. Its very hard to think about anything else to begin with and its really, really easy to get into pulling apart every thought and action, I did it just this morning with my in-built ear worm radio channel I automatically tune into on waking, is that autistic, I have no idea? But you see how easy it is to do, you could drive yourself mad with it, but then thats what so many of us do, we obsess because our brains are not wired the same, and they rarely ever stop talking to us.