Sensitive to others Moods/Emotions?

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Usually if somebody near me is in a bad mood, I think they're annoyed with me and that they're dangerous, and my natural reaction is to stay out of it. But as I got older I began to question my reactions, and since then I've sometimes gone completely out of character.....e.g. there was one guy I was working with who scared everybody else when he lost his temper - they moved away from him, and I moved towards him, and talked him down....I felt that the reaction of the others might just make him feel worse about being angry, so I wanted to convince him that it was OK to get mad occasionally.

Bosses and supervisors in bad moods are something else. I've traditionally found them too scary to be helped when they're angry, probably because I see them as particularly dangerous on account of the powers vested in them. Since my DX and the workplace adjustments I've begun to feel safer (probably going to retire in another 3 years anyway), and there are hopeful signs that they won't trigger as much of my anxiety if any of them should turn up in a foul mood again. There's a rather miserable one who has been more courteous to me since the DX.....certainly in the past her mood hasn't done me any good at all.

Another effect of other people's anger is that sometimes I start feeling angry back, and feel sorely tempted to pick a fight. I guess that's normal.

I can pick up on anxiety and misery as well, in very similar ways. I guess a lot depends on what other factors are in play at the time - if I'm already under stress then another anxious person can make it worse, and if I'm struggling to keep myself cheerful then another misery guts can drag me down with them. But when things are reasonably OK in my own world, I can be of help to them. I'm not one for social duty, but I tend to feel a duty to try to help people to cope with bad emotions, because it'd be a really lousy world if nobody ever did that.

I get very moved by people's moods as well. I'm sure my interpretation of them is wrong sometimes, too. If not most of the time.
Isn't it human nature to be easily unfluenced by other's emotions? Or is it dulled/amplified in aspies?

When people aren't nice to me, it's hard to be nice to them. Depending on how people treat me, they can get a different reaction out of me. But if people are nice to me no matter who it is; my enemy or someone I dislike, someone I can't stand, I am easily nice to them. So yeah peoples moods can effect me.

It's worse when someone is having a meltdown in public or putting on a scene, I get real uncomfortable. Same as when people whom I don't know start cursing. My mom told me that's very normal to feel that way.

I think League Girl has stated it pretty clearly here!

SOme ASD people seem to be hyposensitive to others around them, and some seem to be hypersensitive.
I fall into the latter group, although I have been accused of the former by others. (which leads me to wonder about the inner and outer not really matching up very clearly.)

The Markram's research on some ASD people feeling too much rather than too little was a welcome bit of light reading for me and some others in my family. It explained so much about why I cannot stand to be around other people and why i prefer solitude. I simply cannot cope with the level of irregularity that comes about from being around others daily and face to face. I am like a sponge, and it is as if my sensory realm extends beyond my material body and merges with what is around me. It is the same response i have with any sensory stimuli......Overload.

The best solution for me is to live a fairly routined and ordered life, that is peaceful, stable, healing and respectful of self and others and founded on low sensory input, management of my SPD and a careful consideration of who and what comes into my life. (still working on the latter and fail often at it!)

The world and all the things and people in it is just too much for me.
that is fine by me. Glad i finally got a formal dx and was able to work it out instead of living in self-loathing and struggling so much with everything.

I feel very connected to my brother and what I think of first of all is if we were to sit down and watch a television show or movie. If I sensed he wasn't happy, if he was subdued and quiet, I would be paralyzed and be unable to enjoy myself.

Also even if I'm not directly involved and members of my family are arguing, I am very sensitive to this and in these moments I feel that if I move an inch they may explode at me such is the volatility of the situation.

Sorry if this isn't so relevant to the thread.

Yes and no. No, in that I have a lot of trouble telling what facial expressions or body language mean. I have had people who were angry with me smile at me and greet me pleasantly, throwing me into confusion when someone else said they were angry and I owed them an apology. I saw a smile and since I know smiles stand for "happy," had no idea there was anything wrong. With my friends who aren't afraid to hide their feelings, I know when they are angry or sad -- it's like picking up on vibrations.

My NT husband, however, is always effected by the moods of others.

my sensing of other's emotions is rather 'direct'...that is, I don't sense where it's coming from, it's like the emotions of another person suddenly jump into me, rather than me feeling it from observing. Like, I've got a direct line to what someone else is feeling, without knowing where it's coming from specifically.

I'm a mood chameleon. I wake up in a nice mood and if I'm met by a grumpy one I'm done for for the rest of the day.
I don't know why this is.

That is exactly what it's like!! I am not so great at putting things into words but if I were I would have said that.

I can always pick up on when my husband is feeling anxious or depressed because I will almost automatically feel that way myself without even realising that I'm picking it up off of him... Its very weird.

I have even gone so far as to be obnoxious enough to tell him to "relax" or "get happy" which I know is out of line and totally unfair but it has such a profound effect on me. Same thing happens with my mother and even total strangers.. If they are close enough to me that is all it takes.

Only a couple of weeks ago my sister in-laws 17 year old niece was having a meltdown/tantrum and it effected me so much so that I was a nervous wreck.. It took me quite a while before I came right... It really isn't a nice feeling and I find it very hard to be around moody or emotional people.

I find neurotic and tense people to be the worst, because those are feelings I often have myself. So I pick it up from them and then spend the rest of the day trying to figure out what's wrong in my life since I feel so tense. That of course multiplies the feeling. I have to stop trying to find reason in emotions!

On the flipside happy people, if they're generous in their happiness, can change my whole day by their demeanour, even if I don't interact with them at all. Seeing them interact with others is enough.

Yes, perhaps a bit too much.

Yep there is a difference between empathy and mirroring people emotions.......and people just basically frighten me if they don't seem "right"......or they "feel" different. Even when there is extreme positive outcomes, when it is expressed, I still get frightened.

Thank you Lipstickkiller.........just what I wanted to say but you worded it so much better

Mics

My aspie husband is like this, I believe. However, I think his discomfort due to someone else's discomfort is not really "empathy" as I might understand it. He has self-expressed very little theory - of - mind. (He has little clue what is going on often with someone else's mind or mood most often). However, if one of the children cries for instance, or I come home from work with "sad, angry face" his mood will immediately plummet because he realizes something is expected of him, and he doesn't know how to deliver it. The more upset the person, the higher the stakes are for him. He is afraid of failing in this area where he has felt a failure a lot of his life, I think.

He also does understand, once you tell him why you are sad, and he feels the sadness. If my boss yells at me and I come home and cry,he will very much relate to how upsetting that is to have a sh***y boss, and remember times in his life when his boss was a jerk. But he doesn't GET the feeling WHEN I get the feeling, if that makes sense.

Awww, sweet. Thats nice he tries that much.

The following is an excerpt from the writings of Dr. Stephen Shore (autistic and autism advocate, researcher and writer.)
It pretty well explains the issue clearly:

A word about echolalia, echopraxia and echoemotica

I went through a period of "echolalia," the unintended imitation of sounds from the environment, prior to the return of speech. I still experience residual effects of my non-verbal period, however, which can be the cause of some social embarrassment, so I try to be aware of them. Recently, while speaking with a student in my college office, I logged off America OnLine and unexpectedly echoed the "goodbye." When the student thought I was speaking to him and turned to leave, I quickly explained that I was speaking to the computer. I also often pick up accents and expressions and begin speaking like the person who is talking to me.

Another residual of my youth is "echopraxia," or imitation of another's movements. Sometimes I feel like my interactions with the environment involve many little pieces of other personalities I come in contact with. These little bits get compressed and employed here and there.

A third residual is "echoemotica," or taking on other people's moods and emotions and not being able to separate them from your own. This happens with most people to some extent, and quite often in children who pick up on a parent's or a teacher's emotion and act out accordingly. At this point in my life though, I know that if I feel an emotion that's out of context with the environment, I need to look around and say, for example, to my wife, "Are you feeling upset or agitated today?" Once I find out that she does feel upset, I can then separate from her feelings, still empathize with her, but also realize that it's not my emotion. In doing so, I've cognitively built typical empathy.

in my case, I have accent echolalia fairly severely. My son's dad says he can tell who I am talking with on the telephone from the voice I adopt. I mimic the other person's accent without even realising I am doing so.

I give echopraxia a big tick also.
I am a cobbled together smattering of imitations very often.

And as for echoemotica: it is one of the main reasons I loathe being around groups of people. I simply operate like a sponge and have to work hard and cognitively to overcome it.