Are we emotionless?

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I voted "Everyone is emotionless (including NT's)" but I mean the opposite. That was just the only choice where I have equal amount of emotions to NTs. I don't think I show them as much, and maybe I don't feel the same way about most things as NTs would, but I think I have the same level of emotions as most people, in terms of intensity.

I have very strong emotions, and they show, as well. I laugh and cry very easily, and I have a very big heart.

I can't vote because I don't know what goes on in the mind of an NT. Alot of them seem fake to me. If the emotions are so big that expressing them at all will seem fake (like when someone dies) I usually just opt out and don't say anything. Some things are beyond verbal expression. I have had people I despised come up and console me over a loss and I felt like, how dare you even speak to me about something so important to me when otherwise we don't get along. I felt like if they respected me they would know better to violate that boundary. But to an NT it's improper *not* to express something when this happens. Probably we are talking about emotional expression more than emotion, those are two different things.

From an early age, I was pretty 'emotional' in a sense... I would experience my emotions very intensely, joy, sadness, anger, fear... While most of the time I appeared calm and quiet, when an emotion took over so to speak, it would be fairly excessive... I'd cry rivers for the slightest of stimulations.

That being said, I have also often felt that some of my emotions were 'broken' or 'incomplete'. And those are the emotions that involve empathy or theory of mind I suppose: I'm talking about things like guilt, shame, regret, and also gratitude. Especially gratitude. In my teenage years, I even thought that I was utterly incapable of feeling any of those things, and felt inferior because of this and unworthy of being anyone's friend. But now, while I acknowledge that I still don't quite experience these emotions COMPLETELY and FULLY, but at least understand them rationally, I no longer feel inferior for it. I think it is not 100% related to my autism, but is more something that pertains to my personality traits in general... my autism just increases it.

In my opinion on how the autistic mind experiences the mind of 'the other' and attempts to understand it, I fully agree with what Callista said in her final paragraph.

Why is it even seen as favorable to have (many) emotions anyway? While I agree that some minimal emotion, and expression thereof, is essential in order to survive and function within society, it seems at the same time as though having many intense emotions often clouds rational judgement. And if I had to choose, I'd rather be driven by clear reasonable thought in times of difficulty, than by unpredictable runaway emotions.

I think I generally have the same emotions to NTs, but I express them either more or less intensely depending on circumstances (eg. I reacted less emotionally to people around me dying, but can have really strong emotional reactions to minor events). With regard to self-centredness, yes I do think I am bit self-centred. It is not a conscious choice as in not caring about other people or not wanting to empathize with their feelings, but I think I tend to view other people's POV through my own frame of reference, which is possibly more self-centred than NTs'. But I am not sure really about that one.

Sorry, but i'm definitely an emotional person and sometimes insecure with myself which triggers some of my emotions but sometimes it doesn't show to others and some people would think that i'm being emotionaless and don't care... I just wished that people would understand what its like to me for a day?

I think my emotions are at the same level as a NT person and for that reason I believe that I sometimes miss social cues in conversations.

well The poll seem to have some flaws, like I put I have more emotions than NT's but what I mean really is not the number of emotions but how deeply that I feel them. Most NT's I know dont get emotional about things in the same way that I do...for example, in one of my poems, I wrote,
"I see the vast complexion of the intricately simple as I feel the heartbeat
of beauty surrounding, engulfing my awareness. I pulse
with the rhythms of the unheard and unnoticed.
I am more alive because I had communion with the shadow of
a wrought iron fence."

That ornate wrought iron fence's shadow on the pavement was so beautiful that I felt deep emotions that I cannot tell you the name of the emotion, but that I felt more alive by observing its beauty.

At other times, I dont feel anything, when I should, like when my father died...I felt no grief, no sadness, not upset at all. It felt like just another day. I felt weird because at the funeral, my sister and mother and cousin are all crying. My brother threw a temper tantrem for about a solid week. I felt nothing. It wasn't a blank, cold nothing...more of a just another day, nothing. When I think about his death now a year and a half later...I still feel no grief. I some times want to ask him something (he knew the answer to most trival things) and then I realize that he is not here to ask...then I just go to the internet. I have not shed one single tear over his death. The same thing has happened when my both my grandmothers died 2 weeks apart...and when some of my dogs died. Sure I wish they were still here...but I just dont feel grief like that.

But if I were to tell an NT that I felt something close to love upon seeing a wrought Iron fence and I have not felt grief when my loved ones die....they would think I was nuts. I dont know why some events evoke such strong emotion while other events I am just void of emotion.

I remember the first time that I felt guilt when I was 17...I was so happy that I felt guilty for my concience sake, not fear of punishment, that the guilt did not last long because I was so overjoyed that I felt something that I never felt before

does anyone else have overly strong emotions for one thing, and no emotion for another???

I'm definitely an emotional person; in fact, I've been called over-emotional. I am often driven by my emotions, rather than logic (which I think is a good thing, no matter what others say). What I am not is empathic. This doesn't mean I can't feel for others; when I know someone else is upset, I can reach out and sympathise. However, determining how someone is feeling without them telling me is beyond my grasp. Someone would have to tell me they felt sad or bad before I could offer sympathy; otherwise, I just don't know it's wanted or needed. I think this makes me seem cold at times. This also leads to an appearance of being self-centered. I show my own emotions so openly, yet don't seem to care about those of others around me. (For example, someone had to tell me that it's upsetting to our friends when my husband and I snap at each other...sure it, upset me, but I didn't even know other people noticed!)

I think I feel things more deeply than most people. I certainly react in more emotional ways -- laughing, crying, grinning like a fool, jumping up and down, dancing -- than most people. I recall one time stopping stock-still in the middle of the sidewalk to watch the flight of a black butterfly. It was utterly arresting and beautiful; I almost cried from the beauty and couldn't understand why the people around me had not stopped to observe this moment of wonder. (Still don't, honestly.) Maybe its a matter of how I display emotions and everyone else feels things just as deeply as I do, but I really don't think so. This whole "Aspies have no emotion/no empathy" stereotype is right up there with "Aspies have no imagination" as the two things I think are the least true about us. Just because we experience or express our feelings or imaginations differently doesn't mean we don't have those things!

yep- im over emotional- so i dont fit in either to your offerings.

unsure whether this is due to late dx and an attempt to try and over compensate for not understanding NTs- trying to fit in by appearing normal, showing emtions i didnt really feel??

either way, now im often weighed down by emotion- like wearing sodden clothes- but emotionless with others when im stressed or preoccupied.

If I have learned one thing in my few months in WP, it is that Aspies occupy almost every space in the broader spectrum of human behaviours.

Some of us are wildly emotional, to the extent that it overwhelms us. Some of us are emotionally withdrawn (including me). Some of us experience a full range of emotions, but lack the skills to express it. Others feel a full range of emotions, but cannot put those feelings into context because of their inability to read those emotions in others.

I can answer the poll only for myself. I am well aware that I occupy a very narrow emotional range. My emotions are mercurial, and I have a very poor understanding of emotional response. (I score in the 5th percentile on EQ tests). But be that as it may, it is only my story, and only relevant to other Aspies in so far as it might inform them finding their own place.

Every human being has emotions. Not all of us can express them well or handle them well.


ruveyn