People's emotions might not be fake

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Just a general rant about emotions. I learned today that when people show extreme emotions, most likely they're not acting. Well what do I know? I somehow always feel those jumping and screaming for joy, or crying eyes out things you see on TV are fake. I mean they know someone's recording it, right? I was told they're probably showing their true feelings, people CAN be that happy or that upset. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I won millions in lottery, but couldn't figure out how I'd feel. It's probably a good thing that I never play lottery then.

I seem to skip emotions when things happen and go straight to actions. Someone we know died - oh no, buy black clothes, arrange to attend their funeral, maybe order flowers and send cards. Someone is very sick - send get well card and care packages. Kids fell over and hurt their knees - "Would you like a band-aid?" I do care, by doing something, not by crying my eyes out. I might have some feelings but they're usually delayed, sometimes for days or weeks. Anybody else feel that way?

Is there anyway to LEARN to feel properly? Someone asked me what makes me happy or sad and I couldn't really answer. I don't really know what those feel like. I tend to associate happiness with a very comfortable feeling, and sadness with silence and awkwardness. Somehow sadness is beautiful and fascinating to me, and happiness is a bit embarrassing, I try to not watch happy people. Isn't that just weird?

Somewhat. It sometimes takes a bit of time for an event to sink in. And I doubt it's all that rare that there's be a delayed emotion to a death (not that I've experienced a bereavement yet).



Weird? Not quite. Feel free to call me cold but I do not usually enjoy seeing people being ridiculously happy.
I doubt there really is a way to "learn" - I rarely feel real happiness, but that's just me.



Well it's very difficult to imagine something like that - in this example I bet the majority of people wouldn't know how they would really feel until it actually happened.

Maybe it's why you don't.



I'd say you were an 'earth' person, with an absence of 'water'. Your way of caring is practical.

"The absence or limitation of Water suggests that you may have difficulty understanding the deeper meanings of events and circumstances. Indeed, you may be a little lacking in emotional intensity. This is not to say that you have no feelings, but it does mean that your emotions are not easily engaged"

phleg·mat·ic/flegˈmatik/
Adjective: (of a person) Having an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition.



I'm not sure. Meditation might help you to get in touch with subtle feeling markers that you might not be picking up on. Maybe it's just the way you are, and there's nothing wrong with that. Be aware that other people really do feel their feelings very, very intensely.



Perhaps one or other parent somehow imparted that idea to you. I don't know that it's weird, I got the sense that happiness was frowned upon in my family.

Feel properly? LOL

That's a ridiculous notion.

If you must have an answer it is this, just be.

I feel a lot of emotion but if you asked me to name it, I can only say 'happy', 'sad' or 'angry'. According to my (ex) psychologist, there are literally hundreds of emotions, some of which might fall under my three categories, some of which don't. The trouble is because I don't know what my emotions are, I don't express them the way others would expect. A lot of the 'angry' emotions might not actually be anger as such, but something more like frustration, but because I can't differentiate between the two, they both come out the same way.

As for the feeling delay, yes I get that too. Not always though, but in certain situations where an immediate action is required (like when my Mum cut her thumb open on a bean peeler), I just seem to shut off my emotion and get on with it. Hours or even days later, I feel completely shocked! It was quite useful that day though because my Mum was too scared to look at her thumb, my Step-dad was too squeamish (and this is a guy who injects insulin several times a day!) and my brother doesn't 'do' blood, so I just told my Mum to show me. Yes it was horrible, but it allowed me to make an assessment of the situation. I could see the cut was not going to heal by itself so I told Mum to go to the hospital where they gave her stitches.

This is a hard one....I always find that my daughter doesn't really respond properly to things that happen (she has the as diagnosis). When something bad happens or there is bad news, she is very emotionally "flat" but then when there is too much stress...or bad things happening...she will inevitably have a meltdown. Not when the bad things happen, but sometime later. Like I can always tell when bad things have happened at school because she is quite short/angry and volitile at home, but if you ask her what's wrong...it's "nothing/nothing happened." So she has lots of emotions, but lacks the ability to connect them to actual events. and they are delayed and huge.

So do you lack the ability to connect emotions to events and then have meltdowns at some point later...or do you not ever react to anything?

I have delayed reactions and emotions don't trigger until later. On top of that have a really good memory so it's harder to just ignore.

y-pod, I can really relate to what you've said. It takes me a long time to understand and feel my emotional response to events. I deal with the practical aspects of things first and deal with my emotions when I'm on my own.

Extreme emotional responses always feel fake to me. I distrust anyone like that, but I'm a lot more open to expressing my own feelings than I once was. Even so, this would be me:
"Thom, you've won a million pound on the lottery!"
(grinning) "Wow! Really?" (pause) "What's for dinner?"
Yes, I'm happy for winning the lottery. But why do I then need to leap around the room like a demented kangaroo? I still need to sort out dinner.

Still, it works both ways. People are sometimes baffled that I've been mad at them, and half an hour later I'm friendly again. Yes, I was annoyed. But that was half an hour ago.

NTs are weird, not us. Being in the majority doesn't make you right.

Feeling and emotions are what they are. There's no right, wrong, proper or improper to it.

Display of emotions can be fake, but only the person feeling the emotion can really know if it's fake. Onlookers might sense the display as fake, but they aren't the ones experiencing the feeling. The person displaying it might know their display is fake, or they might not. Not everyone knows themselves well enough to detect their own disingenuousness.

I believe that whether one is Autistic or not is irrelevant. One can never know for certain that someone else's display of emotion is fake or not no matter who we are.

Theory of Mind isn't about KNOWING how others feel and think. Theory of Mind is about being able to IMAGINE how others think and feel. Imagination is often inaccurate.

When it comes to acting, many times the emotions are very real. The directors have deliberately put the actors into scary or unpredictable situations without their knowledge, so the reactions will be authentic.
Even emotional reactions conjured up out of nowhere might be felt authentic when the actors are in character, but I'm not sure.

As for me not faking emotions, I've incited annoyance once for seemingly not caring about the fact that my wallet was lost and not rushing around frantically checking all the places that were already searched thoroughly three times over. I said that I was only trying to keep calm.

Strong anger/worry reactions are a distraction. Yelling takes away valuable energy and lowers your credibility besides, and ruminating makes you depressed.

The people who do those game shows do coach their contestants to jump around and squeal and act like idiots if they win, and I suppose if I were doing that, I'd put on the show for them, for the money I'd be getting, but it wouldn't be my natural reaction. More like breathing a deep sigh of relief that it was over, and a big smile.

I have been bereaved before, of my nearest and dearest, since my grandmother when I was nine (but we had known and been aware that it was coming for more than a week, so we had plenty of time to get used to the idea), and my reaction has never been immediate, but it was surely strong enough. Before my father's funeral, Mom's doctor gave both Mom and me heavy-duty tranquilizers, so we could get through it okay. I had gotten through the days between his death and funeral without being particularly demonstrative, but when that tranquilizer wore off, I had what I now know was a meltdown, starting in front of all the relatives in their house (we didn't have the word "meltdown" in those days, except maybe relating to a hypothetical nuclear plant accident: I guess then we'd have said "hysteria", but no laughing to it). I did get to the back bedroom where I could be out of their sight and bury my face in a pillow to be out of their hearing before it went very far, and they did leave me alone.

No you don't. Now that you've won the lottery, you can go to any restaurant you like and have them sort out dinner.

I don't display positive emotions strongly, only the negative. I'm envious of those happy effervescent social people.

And waste the sausages I got out of the freezer last night? I can't refreeze them!

Maybe these extreme displays of happy emotion are like meltdowns, except happy?