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Keniichi
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28 Aug 2012, 5:29 am

It seems to me that I appear to not show my emotions correctly. Like for instance I get the "*stop being selfish, and stop talking about yourself when someone else is hurting!! !" when the matter of the fact is that I DO feel sad for them but I dont know what to say to the person...or I just start talking about myself in my attempt to cheer them up, all the while coming across as being selfish. I have tried to properly show emotions but it just doesnt happen, especially with other aspies.... We seem to get into fights, whereas sometimes they think about each other that one person is being selfish, and needs to be quiet, whereas the other person really just doesnt know how to express themselfs and this leads to arguements?

Also while it is true to an extent that I am into myself a bit, does that give the person* up above the right to say these things about me? It frustrates me to no end sometimes that I just dont express myself right. To be honest I think Im a deep emotional person that understands people and their emotions, and just dont express this in the right way??? Infact SOMETIMES I can be feeling emotions for hours, but know I wont express myself right...
Any advice? Does anyone else get this way or is it just me?


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KaminariNoKage
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28 Aug 2012, 8:18 am

Not just you.
I just outright cannot feel anything, so I cannot 100% relate. But I have had to find a way around it due to situational demand. I smile on impulse because I am somewhat trained to do it (polite behavior, on the phone, etc), am supposedly nervous, or if I find something amusing/ironic. If I become hyper I become a semi-sadist, if I become frustrated/confused I become a masochist - which are usually the only states I notice because they can be pretty physical. I do not refer to them so much as emotion but just surges of energy that need to get out somehow. Not exactly common naturally, but I know how to trigger them.

You might have alexithymia? It is pretty common for people on the spectrum, and I believe a decent portion of the NT population. The only solutions I can think of is just to find how you react in certain situations and try to fix them, or find an outlet. Yes you can train yourself how to act with certain emotions or in certain situations. You will just need to do so consciously until you can do so without thinking. Try watching other people, from movies/media or real life even to see how they do things.

Two tips I use:
#1) Do not use the word "I" (unless you are answering a question about yourself)
This is useful because I usually speak in complete sentences, so it strictly limits the whole "selfish aspect".
#2) Asks questions about them.
This not only shows caring, but also makes them the focus of your conversation. You will need to figure out what to ask, because some people can take offense to certain questions.



Keniichi
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28 Aug 2012, 5:48 pm

KaminariNoKage wrote:
Not just you.
I just outright cannot feel anything, so I cannot 100% relate. But I have had to find a way around it due to situational demand. I smile on impulse because I am somewhat trained to do it (polite behavior, on the phone, etc), am supposedly nervous, or if I find something amusing/ironic. If I become hyper I become a semi-sadist, if I become frustrated/confused I become a masochist - which are usually the only states I notice because they can be pretty physical. I do not refer to them so much as emotion but just surges of energy that need to get out somehow. Not exactly common naturally, but I know how to trigger them.

You might have alexithymia? It is pretty common for people on the spectrum, and I believe a decent portion of the NT population. The only solutions I can think of is just to find how you react in certain situations and try to fix them, or find an outlet. Yes you can train yourself how to act with certain emotions or in certain situations. You will just need to do so consciously until you can do so without thinking. Try watching other people, from movies/media or real life even to see how they do things.

Two tips I use:
#1) Do not use the word "I" (unless you are answering a question about yourself)
This is useful because I usually speak in complete sentences, so it strictly limits the whole "selfish aspect".
#2) Asks questions about them.
This not only shows caring, but also makes them the focus of your conversation. You will need to figure out what to ask, because some people can take offense to certain questions.



As for asking about others MOST of the time I do ask how theyre doing, and they go on and we have a good conversation. (Im referring to the so called 'normies'). Its just with Aspies that you know have asked me in real life(and online) "how do I make friends?? How areyou so succesful?" all the while getting called "selfish" and "stupid". Yet when they ask me to teach them some things, they dont want to do them... Most of the time when I start teaching them (in a friendly way) i get one word answers, and have said in kind and obvious ways that one should talk a little more, and then asked them "do you know the rules of conversation?" they answer(again with one word) "no", and I ask them "if they want to learn some cool tricks", most of the time I get "no" for answer, unless they're desperate for friends. Then I tell them(when they saID "YES") and explained some good conversation rules, which they dont seem to be applying,and when they do theymake fun of me and some of the others who are less intelligent. Yet the people they make fun of are in school, have friends, have a job, and pay their own rent, while the Aspies I KNOW (not saying all of us on the spectrum are like this) Im referring to in REAL LIFE do absolutely nothing, and want EVERYTHING handed to them, without having to work....


Sometimes its hard for me to feel any emotion at all sometimes. So what does one do, when one gets told their selfish by some but not by others? You see most of the time I get judged like this is online, (sometimes in real life by other aspies who are thesame way as me.... sometimes I want to say to them "look whose talking!"). In real life Im generally not like this, its just online...
Is it possible to appear this way online because I might do better in real life(as in reading people and just generally being better with people in real life vs online?) My mother and some others seems to notice that I struggle with friends online this way compared to real life.
I thought us people on the spectrum would be better at interacting online? (which btw I dont appear to be on the spectrum anymore from the eyes of alot of people in real life, including professionals)


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KaminariNoKage
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29 Aug 2012, 1:40 am

Keniichi wrote:
As for asking about others MOST of the time I do ask how theyre doing, and they go on and we have a good conversation. (Im referring to the so called 'normies'). Its just with Aspies that you know have asked me in real life(and online) "how do I make friends?? How areyou so succesful?" all the while getting called "selfish" and "stupid". Yet when they ask me to teach them some things, they dont want to do them... Most of the time when I start teaching them (in a friendly way) i get one word answers, and have said in kind and obvious ways that one should talk a little more, and then asked them "do you know the rules of conversation?" they answer(again with one word) "no", and I ask them "if they want to learn some cool tricks", most of the time I get "no" for answer, unless they're desperate for friends. Then I tell them(when they saID "YES") and explained some good conversation rules, which they dont seem to be applying,and when they do theymake fun of me and some of the others who are less intelligent. Yet the people they make fun of are in school, have friends, have a job, and pay their own rent, while the Aspies I KNOW (not saying all of us on the spectrum are like this) Im referring to in REAL LIFE do absolutely nothing, and want EVERYTHING handed to them, without having to work....


Kind of falling into the self-pity "You don't understand me! You don't understand what I go through!" thing? One pitfall of being diagnosed is that it can give some people an excuse to be lazy. Life is hard for them, but not for NT's, therefore they should get the easy way out, etc. And because Aspies are so "smart" they also run into another pitfall of thinking people are idiots (they are in general, but we are all idiots about something) or establishing themselves as intelligently superior (which helps to boost their own ego and help them to not feel like an idiot). If you are doing what is asked, you are not in the wrong - you should not have to defend yourself on that part.

Keniichi wrote:
Sometimes its hard for me to feel any emotion at all sometimes. So what does one do, when one gets told their selfish by some but not by others? You see most of the time I get judged like this is online, (sometimes in real life by other aspies who are thesame way as me.... sometimes I want to say to them "look whose talking!"). In real life Im generally not like this, its just online...
Is it possible to appear this way online because I might do better in real life(as in reading people and just generally being better with people in real life vs online?) My mother and some others seems to notice that I struggle with friends online this way compared to real life.
I thought us people on the spectrum would be better at interacting online? (which btw I dont appear to be on the spectrum anymore from the eyes of alot of people in real life, including professionals)


Emotion is dead online, and in text. People read the words and set whatever mood they feel like (literally). I once wrote a straight forward-honest letter to someone and they translated the entire thing as anger and hate. Now every time they ask me something, I have a paragraph dedicated to my "emotional state" while writing it. The best possible compensation however I think is Smilies, which I use as symbols of "intention" ( ":P" means I am being playful/sarcastic for example). You did mention being very sensitive to emotion however - perhaps this is another reason why you struggle online?
As for being better online - that is debatable. Easier to some extent, but it is still the social world.