Emotions. What's normal?

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Trying to work myself out. About certain I'm autistic, but I'm emotionally under-reactive in a way not explained by autism so I suspect some sort of emotional disorder like alexithymia.

Everyone's welcome to answer but I'm particularly interested to hear from people who think they're emotionally normal or those who've been treated for depression etc. and so (from normalising treatment) have a good idea of what's abnormal and what the standard human emotional baseline is supposed to be.

How often do you have emotions? What sort of things do you have emotions about? How do you tell you're having emotions? Do normal people have unambiguous emotional experiences even about everyday things?

Most of the time I don't have emotions at all. If you asked how I felt I'd wonder what I was supposed to be having feelings for and say I feel normal. When I read about people dealing with clinical depression, getting upset or being excited I just don't relate.

Sometimes in situations where it'd be appropriate to have emotions (anxiety before public speaking which I am terrible at, or fear when threatened with violence) I have the associated physical experiences like pounding heart and dry mouth but there's nothing else. When it happens my thoughts are along the lines of "What's heart weirdly pounding for..? About to do presentation. Don't feel nervous but must be."

Other times, in situations where it's not just appropriate but expected that I have strong emotions, like if someone in the family is sick or has died, I just don't experience anything. I care about people, I want them to be alive and well, I'll think "well darn it, that's too bad" when told bad news but I don't have an emotional response.

Sometimes I get into moods. They're not really about anything. Low intensity but they can last a day or two. It's harder to concentrate than normal and I'm less verbal and less patient. I don't think anyone else can tell I'm having one, and I usually only work it out several hours in.

Most of the time I'm an an emotional neutral, maybe tired or bored. But several times a day I have a stronger emotional reaction. These are some of my emotions:

Feeling: sad, angry. Trigger: when someone says something that upsets me. Reaction: calling out, yelling, hurting self, feeling like crying.

Feeling: annoyed. Trigger: when someone talks to me and makes me feel like my privacy is invaded. Reaction: tensing up, rubbing arms.

Feeling: happy. Trigger: when someone is nice to me. Reaction: smiling, getting up and pacing.

Feeling: nervous. Trigger: when the teacher is going to hand back a test, or when I'm obsessing over someone. Reaction: pounding heart, feeling sick.

Also, I don't have a strong reaction when someone has died either. Even if I loved that person. I think, "That's sad", but don't really get upset.

Most of the time I am feeling some emotion, although I am often not able to figure out what it is and sometimes my emotions can be confused with other things like being hungry or tired.

Hmmm, what an interesting question.

I used to stuff my feelings down a lot. I have trouble with them. However, it's hard to know what's normal- how the f**k are you supposed to know.

I spend a lot of time either being angry or deadpan at work- simply because I'm not a fan of what I do, but it pays the bills.

Lots of time with the emotion of self-loathing... lots of seething anger. and then mostly just ... not feeling stuff.

I will say I get a lot of psychosomatic stuff going on, and until I read about alexithymia on here I didn't understand what it could be, but now that I pay a bit more attention to my emotion instead of shoving any and all feeling into some other compartmentalized space because I couldn't be bothered to deal with it... now I try and find out what I am feeling and why. I have actually notice that when I do something relaxing now instead I have felt marginally better! I'll take it lol.

It's hard though because if it is a new situation or emotional trigger I have no idea what it is and people are like so what do you think or just say something! and I'm like... sorry I have no idea.
Sometimes I have extreme and bizarre emotional outbursts that I don't know what to do with.

however, I'm pretty sure this emotional daily cadence is not normal. So, not sure if that was of any help or not!

I have really numb emotional responses to things that I should be more reactive to, and more intense ones to things that shouldn't rattle me. Usually, I'm either completely apathetic, or completely emotional.

I have emotions all the time, except if I'm really tired physically or mentally I will feel numb.

Right now I have a lot on my plate with school so I have the same physical reactions you have, but I'm also feeling overwhelmed, anxious, irritable and I could probably cry at some point.

For the past several years I've always had some form of worry that I feel. I would love to have that feeling gone, but then nothing would make me happy either of I had no feeling. Reminds me of a mood stabilizer drug I was on - no feelings whatsoever - just stable.

You sound like one of my ex Aspie friends. He said he never felt anything - no feelings for his cat, his mom, or even when his dad died. He said he ever missed anyone which I guess meant me too - I was more like a habit he got into - he was used to talking to me everyday. I felt bad for him not being able to experience feelings.

Does it upset you that you don't experience feelings?

My experience and definition of emotions is that I will generally be experiencing something at all points in time. It's like, a definition of it. I think this way because I have motivation problems, because I know that in order to -do- something I must want to do something on some level and that level is one that is mediated by emotions. And if I am not doing then I am thinking and if I am thinking there is always an emotional reaction.

So all the time I experience something. I will not be self-aware of the emotional experience or even have a clue how to name it though. That said, I experience emotions too strongly and too many negative ones a lot of the time to the point of not being able to function properly. They are by far the biggest factor contributing to my disablement.

At the same time I often do not care about a lot of things that I know I'm supposed to care about or have an emotional reaction to. Like I've emotionally numbed for a lot of my life. I was depressed at the same time though, due to motivation issues as I talked about above. That said, however, I am becoming an extremely emotional person these past couple of years. It's like the emotions are either on full blast or off completely; I tried to turn them on slowly but it's like I knew I was a hypersensitive person so that's why I numbed in the first place, to protect myself. Either it's that or I just did not learn how to control my emotions enough as a child when my brain was neuroplastic enough to mediate them a bit for me, so now as I try it's like I'm a child again.

How do I feel about not having feelings? Upset would be the wrong word. Curious about why, and on reflection it seems to be an issue that I should try to resolve.

I've had real problems with motivation in school and job. Chronic underachiever, flunked out or quit a few times I shouldn't have. Ought to get myself on track and stay on track.

The possibility of it being part of a serious condition that will cause future problems concerns me some. Lack of feeling/motivation is characteristic of schizophrenia and depression and there's overlap between autistic, depressive and schizophrenic traits, so for a while I was wondering if I might be schizophrenic and destined to develop psychoses, or depressed and a suicide risk. But no hallucinations or plans to kill myself so probably not.

My life's been a bit of a mess so far. Bullied at school, socially isolated, financial and health problems, education/career stalls... so on one hand maybe it's just as well that I don't feel much, because if I did feel things they'd mostly be stressful or depressing.

On the other hand I like the idea of being regularly happy, enjoying my work, being in love, that sort of thing. And if that's possible I think I have a moral obligation to try to give my future self the opportunity.