Emotions

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I'm currently reading Edgar Schnider's book 'Discovering My Autism' which I highly recommend - it is the best one I've read so far . . .

Anyway, he says that he has no emotions except fear and anger - and I don't find that to be true - and from your posts I don't think that you guys find that to be true, either . . .
I do find that I have a vastly smaller range of emotions than NTs (love, for example, is a total mystery to me - the closest thing I can think of is what I feel for my cats and rats - but what humans feel for each other when they are 'in love' I just don't get) - and I do think that basic emotions like fear and anger are stronger for me . . . but I don't feel that those are my only emotions . . .
In addition, I rely almost entirely on intuition when dealing with people (what I feel from them - almost like an aura) - this is to the point that if they are truly suffering (like when my favorite person to be around basically broke his neck and was in horrible pain) it feels like someone has hit me with a baseball bat when they walk into the room - Donna Williams describes something similar in one of her books . . .

There are two possiblities for why Edgar feels this way:
1) this may just be a symptom particular to his AS - no one experiences any condition the same way

2) he is male - and men tend to experience emotions differently than females. . . I've always heard that females rely more on intuition generally, anyway - though I don't consider myself to psychologically be of either gender, unfortunately, biologically I am stuck with estrogen producing organs (since I weight lift I'd prefer to have the testosterone producing ones for asthetic reasons) - but the estrogen may explain the intuition thing . . . maybe not - it is just an idea . . .

That's sad, can't he experience happiness at all?


I can definitely relate to that. My social emotions are weak or non-existent (with one exception). For example my remorse and guilt are very short-lived. I have strong moral rules to compensate. I was thinking a lot about love, and it seems that I do not know what it is. Until recently, I was also not able to experience grief, but a tragedy in my family has changed that. I have also gained the ability to empathize with other people struck by tragedies, which is something new for me. I haven't learnt how to deal with this emotion yet.

On the other hand, my egotistic emotions are rather strong, or even wild. These are excitement (includes happiness), anxiety (includes fear), anger and self-pity (and maybe something more, but not too much). I can deal with some of them, for example I am often able to contain or dissipate anger. I don't (and can't) hold anger infinitely the way most people do when they get offended. I do not deal as well with anxiety, which ocassionally shuts me down in a "big-bang" style - I physically pass out. Excitement often induces stimming, and even a minor one can cause me to stim very intensely (if I am alone).


I wish that I had intuition and empathy as you describe. Unfortunately, it seems that I largely lack them.

Last edited by magic on 12 Jul 2004, 1:43 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I am not in the same case as Edgar Schnider. I think that, although I do not feel emotions like NT's, I can experience feelings other than fear (and anxiety) and anger.
I do not really understand love, friendship and all these feelings. To me, it is : either I like person and they are people I like to be around, or I do not like them. I have read that love (when it means "falling in love") is biological and caused by the production of hormones.

Concerning what animallover wrote about relying on intuition, I think it is the same for me. The experience you describe is familiar.

Loy

I feel emotions, but in a very dull, distant way. I don't get excited over things, I look forward to them. I don't get angry, I get irritated. When I do experience stronger emotions, it is usually in a very detached way- I will be feeling something in my body, but will reflect on it intellectually as though my thoughts and my emotions were completely separate. Often, I don't even notice how I am feeling unless I'm asked or told how I feel. Generally, I am content, which is something many people don't seem to be able to feel, so I am happy with what I've got. I just wish that other emotions weren't so baffling to me.

Do others experience emotion in this "detached" way?

I experience a wide range of emotions, but I'm only capable of expressing and experiencing one at a time. Since anger and fear are more dominant than happiness or love, people see me as angry and afraid and I often am. On the other side of that coin, my few, but very close, friends have often been able to use this to help me. When I'm really afraid or upset, they start telling me funny things to cheer me up. I can't be angry or in any way upset while I'm in the slightest bit happy, so the result is that I get over being angry.

Also, I express my emotions innappropriately, by screaming, running around or hurting people. this is because I get emotionally overloaded. It's the same kind of thing as a sensory overload, only more difficult to avoid.

Although I think I experience my emotions somewhat differently than you (probably stronger), it is true that they often feel detached. For example sometimes I start shivering, and this makes me wondering - am I cold, worried or excited? And over what? All three at times manifest as shivering. It is as if the emotion were coming from the outside.

I get excited very easily, and even a quiet happiness often bursts into a wild excitement. My anger is strong and I experience it as if my brain were swelling and pressing against the skull, and this pressure (that I feel) makes it stop working. The emotion effectively locks up my mind and is rather unpleasant (as, I guess, anger should be). Again, it sometimes feels as if I am attacked from the outside (as if somebody put a weight on my head). I try to dissipate anger as soon as I can.

By the way, what's the difference between anger and irritation?

Last edited by magic on 12 Jul 2004, 2:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I can remember a clear example of the sometimes short-lived nature of my social emotions: I accidentally ran into someone on my bike on campus, trying to get to one of my classes to take a quiz. I felt the deepest regret for my inability to prevent this and an urge to help the girl I had knocked down onto the street until she became angry, which turned me off entirely, so I continued on my way. Passers-by must have thought I'd been awfully callous. That mistake bothered me as I was taking my quiz and for days afterwards. She was completely justified in being angry, after all, even if she had attempted to cross the street without looking (yes, I had tried to stop my bike before hitting her).

I, too, have developed a strong morality that mainly revolves around the principles of "live and let live" and "help others."

My ability to feel genuine love is rare but intact. I actually fell deeply in love with a girl during my first year in college and wanted nothing more than to spend time with her, share her happiness, and help her when she was feeling down. That relationship is over, unfortunately. My love for my family isn't expressed in precisely the same way; it's more a feeling of obligation to help them out and be kind and respectful to them rather than the vibrant emotion of love I felt for that girl.

For years, I nearly completely hid my emotions because I felt they were something embarassing, especially the emotions of sadness, remorse, etc. (i.e., the "weak" emotions). I never wanted to let on that I was feeling anything less than perfectly all right.

I really question Edgar's description of not feeling any emotions, because if you read his book you will notice that he describes emotional feelings - like enjoying helping other autistic people - so I think that he may just not recognize them as emotions . . . or may be describing exactly what we are describing here - that is that they are just nothing like NT emotions . . .

Hey Civet,,

I feel that way most of the time, although I tend to be more happy than the word "content" suggests, but I also am susceptible to the occasional down in the dumps - usually when I forgot to not think about being lonely or without a girfriend. <grin>

mentalman

The interesting thing is that in that book he also describes joy and other things, but describes feeling them from different stimuli than NTs feel them. That made it seem very odd to me that he would then describe himself as not feeling those emotions at all; almost making me wonder if he had partly absorbed the NT definition of when you feel those emotions.



I've read a lot of books by autistic people. (I maintain a booklist of them, in fact, and own a good deal of that list.) Among those books, there are a fair amount of men who experience a wide range and depth of emotions. Also a fair amount of women (such as Temple Grandin) who see themselves as less emotional than average. I've also known (in person) many autistic males and females and seen the same thing. I think it's an individual variation thing.

I am quite the opposite of this. I am *extremely* emotional. I have extreme anxiety most of the time, I can be ecstatically happy, I get very suicidally depressed (though, more like severe sadness and loneliness to the point where I appear psychotic). I am very capable of love and am capable of loving multiple people very deeply, even when I rarely see them (very different from infatuation, and it has nothing to do with sexual attraction, usually). I will do almost anything for the people I love and I can't handle *anything* critical towards me or anyone else. I get nearly hysterical if I see a human/animal in pain. I can get extremely angry and hold grudges. I feel intense remorse and guilt over feeling upset with people and my mistakes.

I have been on tons of medications in the past (including a few mood stabilizers), and nothing altered this trait. I consider it an innate, albeit often debilitating, part of my personality and essence. Normally I am in a fairly neutral mood. But I can become an emotional basket case very quickly, especially if I'm around a bunch of people and there's some sort of disharmony. I internalize all the emotions people/creatures around me are showing or that I think they might be feeling. I used to be diagnosed as schizoeffective and then "atypically" bipolar partly for my extreme emotions. However, my moods never cause me to be destructive towards living being or objects, so it's not a scary thing, just sometimes very painful. And my moods aren't extremely erradic (they last awhile and have a specific cause).

I'm not sentimental, however. I don't cry at weddings, funerals, or sad movies or anything like that. I generally react differently to most events/things/creatures/situations than most people (NT or AS or otherwise). It's really rather undescribable.

Some days I feel extremely disconnected, other days I feel every darn feeling at once. I don't have a middle ground

I think everyone is different. For me, I can feel just as much emotional as any person, although, I'm very bad at expressing it.
I can feel love, happiness, joy, anger, fear, sadness, heartbreak etc. Sure, some of those aren't good things, but I couldn't imagine living without those feelings. I would just be empty.

No, I agree with him. Love, happiness, sadness has no definitions. Fear and anger I am very well aware of. You could ask me "What do you love? What makes you happy? What makes you sad?" and I would have no answer for that.



See, this is what confuses me and I pointed that out in my Emotions thread. If a family member of mine were at a hospital, I wouldn't feel anything. I'd just ask "When is he/she getting out?" and never think much of it afterwards. I've had people I've known for years die and my emotions wouldn't change. I dont think "Who is next?" I don't question my mortality. I just say "This is the price we pay for living. I should be more grateful of my own mortality/existence"

I don't understand how you people can have such strong emotions/attachments.

I just noticed this is an old thread. Oh well, I'll keep posting as it was new.

I'm not going to speak for him but for me at least. When I hear words like "sadness", "happiness", "Joy" etc. they appear very strong in my head. They appear very powerful that they just don't seem attached to whatever I might be experiencing at that time. Anger is something I can quickly relate to. I can feel it very strongly. Fear is another that causes my body to react. With these two emotions, I experience that I am outside myself. That is how I am acquainted with them.