Feeling more than one thing at once?

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I saw my psychologist the other day and in the beginning of the session she asked me how I was doing. After thinking for a little while I answered her question with one word and proceeded to ask her how she was doing. She told me how she was feeling (nothing personal just that she was a bit tired but quite happy and looking forward to the weekend) and then said something like "you know, it's possible to feel more than one thing at once" (referring to the fact that she was both tired and happy).

I haven't really been able to let that go. It was almost surprising to me. I mean, I guess I know one can feel more than one thing at once but I don't know if that's what it's like for me. When I'm anxious I'm anxious, when I'm depressed I'm depressed, when I'm annoyed I'm annoyed, when I'm excited about something I'm excited about something, etc. I probably feel more than once thing at a time but I think I have a hard time distinguishing between emotions. I get very caught up in the emotion that's currently the most pronounced and think that's all I feel. Do you know what I mean?

Also, a lot of the time I don't even know exactly what I'm feeling. I just know I feel bad for example. When I feel very unwell I get emotionally overloaded and lash out (mostly at myself and life in general) but I still don't really know what I really feel.

I'm not even sure if all of this is associated with ASD but I thought I'd check if anyone here can relate to it.

I can relate... It actually hit me recently while watching the movie Inside Out with my partner, (spoilers), and the girl begins developing memories with multiple emotions. This sparked a discussion, and ultimately a realization that apparently many neurotypical people experience multiple emotions at once. I am similar to you, when I am happy I am happy, when I am sad I am sad, and nothing else. If I am feeling other emotions, they are so shallow or obstructed by my main emotion I fail to notice them. I also have difficulty knowing how I am feeling at times, and when I feel very unwell I tend to become overwhelmed emotionally, though I implode and shut down more than I lash out. I can't speak for other people with aspergers, but hopefully this provides you with some relief that it's at least a constant between us.

Well, good to know there's at least one other person who experiences something similar.

You might be interested to look up (here and elsewhere) Alexithymia.

I was identified as alexithymic at my autism evaluation, and what you both describe sounds in the right ball park (I'm not a professional, just speaking from experience). It is not specifically an ASD trait, but is a common co-morbidity - I think the two maybe play off each other a little bit. Anyhow, there were a few folks discussing it here and comparing notes, you'll see soon enough whether it matches your experience.

Yes that's a frequent problem in Aspies, and a very important one IMO. When it comes to the question "how do I feel right now?" I think I still tend to see only the strongest emotion in the bunch at best, though if the question is "how do I feel about x?" then I can often describe more than one, and as early as my 20s I can recall imagining that a friend might have "mixed feelings" about quitting a job. I can often also identify more than one emotion when I'm thinking about how I felt some time in the past. I guess the difference is that the "right now" thing has to be done in realtime when there might not be much time.

That's an interesting observation about your memory.

I feel the opposite is true of me - a lot of my autobiographical memory is devoid of emotions. It was suggested to me that this was because I wasn't feeling anything I could identify at the time the memory got 'encoded' in my brain. I don't have any significant memory deficits that I know of.

Do you also feel a kind of 'lag' with your emotions. "How do I feel right now?", I often find really hard to answer - but often the answer will slowly become apparent over the course of days, or even weeks. When the emotion finally comes, I then have to try and identify which past event was the one that triggered it.

For al long time, therapists were convinced that I was repressing some kind of horrible childhood trauma, which totally baffled me - "I just don't know" never seemed like a good enough answer for them. I did get one insight though - apparently when I'm "searching' for the emotion, my eyes dart about all over the place, and I gesture like I'm physically searching for something. No idea what it means, but it was bizarre that I never noticed I did that before.

A counsellor reckoned that although the memory of factual information could often get corrupted over time, the human memory for feelings was much stronger. Though neither of us knew what an Aspie was, in those days, so he meant NTs, and he also fell into the trap of explaining my difficulty in discussing emotions as repression. I think one has to be very cautious about such explanations from health professionals and counsellors. My longterm memory can often recall an astonishing amount when it comes to cold details, as long as I noticed them vividly enough at the time, though my short-term memory is lousy.

Yes, and my general thinking and comprehension of new ideas is often very slow.


You too, eh? I hadn't read that before writing what I did above about my counsellor's assertions.


In my case, AFAIK my eyes relax more when I'm pondering my feelings. I find it quite a luxurious pursuit, like yoga, and certainly never the painful struggle that Freudians seem to think it is, it's just that I don't always find much when I look.

I've heard this is called "delayed emotional processing," and I experience it all.the.time.

I went on a weekend retreat recently, and didn't really feel much of anything the whole weekend. It was mostly just walking through the motions, and thinking I wasn't getting anything out of it. The whole week afterwards and still now, more than a week later, I'm finding emotions surfacing in response to events on the retreat.

This is also a big part of why I don't feel emotionally connected with people. It's not that I don't have emotions because I certainly do. But those emotions don't surface in response to a conversation or other interaction until long after the event is over. So then there's no opportunity to be emotionally present in a conversation with someone, and no chance for them to know what I'm feeling in reaction to something they say or do, and no chance for them to respond to me on a level with my emotional experience. Makes therapy incredibly difficult, and makes me come across as emotionally distant from people, even people that I care deeply about...

Oooh Yes, yes! I get this too. The more important the event, the bigger the lag. At the time of the event, I get something I call "the Swirly Feeling." The Swirly Feeling is this mixed up sensation that is clearly some kind of emotion, or more likely, a bunch of emotions that are too mixed up and tangled up to identify. It may take hours or days to untangle what the feelings are. All I can tell is that there's a swirl of stuff there that I can't figure out. My wife kept asking me how I felt about things that happened, and I'd say, "I don't know." She thought I didn't want to tell her, but I really didn't know.

Oh, and I loved Inside Out too. I loved how the control panel for her emotions got more complex as the girl got older. It probably should be required viewing for all autistic kids