emotions and autism?

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hi all,

how do our emotions and autims work?

i get emotions over loud and it not nice and i dont now how to control it, it can happind anywhere any time of day for no reastion of for good riason!!

so how does emotions work when it comes down to autism?

thanks
cazzie

Mine seem to come of their own accord and I get confused by them very easily. I also think I don't feel the full range. And very few of them are strong.

my emotions overflow when i see something with emotionally stimulating content which exceeds my brain's ability to assimilate it, such as when i see people crying or see/hear/experience a beautiful work of art such as transcendent music. there was an NBC [TV] news segment about this american army GI who in the thick of battle in vietnam 30 years before, ended up shooting a vietnamese soldier, and when he went to the corpse to collect the soldier's personal information he found a family photo with the soldier's daughter, and for 30 years he kept the photo with the soldier's daughter's eyes burning into his own eyes everytime he looked at the photo, and it ate at him until he couldn't stand it anymore, so he arranged to find this daughter and apologize to her personally. the rest of the news report covered the difficult time the vietnam vet encountered on his quest to atone to the vietnamese soldier's daughter for killing her father. when they finally met, it was a heartbursting moment that made me weep, and a coworker called me on the phone and was weeping also because he was watching the same thing on tv and asked me if i was watching it. so we were a couple of guys crying like babies, over the phone.

I'm not really sure how to put it into words. I feel emotions over music a lot. Mostly music actually. I used to feel emotions over my mom's problems, so I guess you could call that empathy. She had very serious problems, that I'm sure most people would feel something towards. Today I found out my grandfather has cancer and to be completely honest, I feel nothing. I want him to get better, very much. I don't want him to die. But I feel no emotion over it at all. I guess I feel a little bad that I don't feel much, but that's about me not him.

I have a lot of sympathy. If someone is going through something I've gone through, I feel a lot for them and want very much to help them with it. If it's something I can't relate to though, like for example cancer, I don't feel anything. I can cry over movies, but it has to really relate to my own life. Otherwise, I don't really care.

At times my emotions can come out of nowhere and explode out of me. Like when I'm physically tired and people keep pushing and pushing, I will react badly sometimes. I'm getting better at this though. I'm learning to ignore people when they are annoying and also treat them more like people, instead of forms of entertainment for my own amusement.

More often than not, I have to think about my emotions and I'll randomly work it all out a few months later. I almost always have to make an effort to feel and show my emotions, because if not I'll sort of guess that they're there, but not really feel them.

I hope that made sense. It's a hard thing to explain.

I know exactly what you mean. I do the same. I don't notice my feelings until I really take the time to sift them out. And often, problems are worked out unconsciously. Also at times I'm not sure how intensely I'm supposed to feel an emotion. But usually, that only happens when I try to measure up to NTs.

Otherwise, it's all good.

Exactly. Also, I often have to fake emotions when I see NTs feeling something and I don't, they make me feel guilty about it when I don't feel the same emotional reaction as them and I hate that.

That's amazing. I feel the same way. I'm glad I signed up for this forum just a few minutes ago. Been trying to explain this to NTs all this time.

And even when I fake an emotion, NTs know that something is off, and therefore it doesn't work anyway. Changing and using expression with my voice is a clear giveaway with me. I stopped bothering. Ironically, I'm good with musical notes but trying to fake vocal intonation is just like shoot and miss with me.

I feel the same on here

Yup, I've given up too, though if I don't fake it they think I'm purposely being horrible or insensitive, that's their problem with their interpretation, not mine.

Yeah, originally I was really distressed about it. I was called arrogant once. But I find this to be useful in some ways. People who know you over time will realise what you're like, and those that do not probably aren't worth the trouble.

I remember many adults saying that you start out with a lot of friends, and as you get older you can count true friends on one hand.

We have the benefit of knowing early! I have no time for the social game. But I have time for true friends.

True.

And hey, not showing emotions can be good in a game of Poker! Us Aspies should all go to Vegas for a week and make a few million

Hehe. Honestly, it worked for me. I used to play poker in between class with friends during high school. Never got called out. On the other hand, I wasn't good at the game itself. :S But I've been learning about microexpressions and neuroscience recently, so being able to read other's intentions and having your own hidden would make quite a potent human lie detector. If only that were a real job.

It is a real job. Spy organisations train people to be human lie detectors because the machines are rarely accurate. Though, it isn't a job in itself, it's usually a part of being an employee of the secret service. I think, anyway.

I'm bad at labeling my emotions. Sometimes I say, "I feel something." And then, before I can figure out what it is, it explodes and I have a melt down, and it comes out all wrong. The other night at work a kitten died on us, and I ended up getting mad at my best friend because I was upset about the kitten. I get it all backwards.

NTs do that very often as well. Don't feel so bad in this case. People lash out, NT or not.

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.