Handling Strong Emotions

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Fear and Sadness are pretty strong emotions so is happiness for that matter. I tend to get pretty loud and hyper when I am in a happy mood and freak out, a great deal of something scares me or makes me upset. I sulk a lot and get distant and quiet when I am upset. Yesterday I was watching a movie with the fam (or early morn? still dark outside) and I am SCARED Of clowns and harlequins and such. If regular human faces make me thing of fish, imagine what those things look like!

So here I am, trying not to run away or cover myself and shriek until everyone can't enjoy the movie anymore so I start sketching (i have a small hard cover sketchbook I carry everywhere, even around the house these days) and lo and behold, I draw one of those creepy things. But it sure made me feel better.

I realize drawing has become a very strong way for me to communicate and express myself in terms of feelings, ideas, whatever. I used to write, a lot but I have discovered that lately I cannot use words that way in terms of expression. I can relate information, rather well as you can see by my diction, but when it comes to expressing inner . . . feeling stuff, I just can't. Drawing is like getting the stuff out of my head in a way that I can't put stuff together with words so I was curious as to what everyone else thought about that and what type of communication you prefer. sorry for the long tangent before I got to the point.

P.s.: Here is the creepy picture that helped worked out my stint of utter terror.

I think it's really great you can do that, I'm envious of your drawing ability. When I try to express feelings, I do it best on paper, followed by speaking. I've never managed to express feelings of any sort by drawing.

How do you express them on paper?

I just spill it all out, I dunno really! I suppose I write about what has happened and then what I feel about that. It's hard to describe, sorry!

Ooh. I do this, too. I usually notice that I'm feeling something strongly (I usually have a hard time figuring out what it is or why though... Is that normal? Whatever) and then I write down whatever comes to mind. I use that to figure out what I'm feeling and what's bothering me.... I've been told that it's weird to be that out of touch with your emotions but eh....

I wouldn't worry about whether it's normal or not! I get the impression that it's not unusual for people on the spectrum, so why not, if it works for you. I do need to edit sometimes, though. I write it down, and refine it, and I'm refining my thoughts at the same time. I find it very hard to think things through without writing, but I sometimes can do it, if I'm talking with someone who's trying to help me figure out what I feel.

That happens to me a lot but it usually ends up being frustration in the end. No matter what it was before, because if i do not notice it or handle it soon, frustration is the outcome.

I tend to do it verbally to people I trust, which is only my husband these days. He calls it 'downloading'. lol! He's a great listener.

I used to draw, paint and write quite a lot; I wish I could get back into it.

Love your pic!

I can only think things through in my head if I imagine I'm having a conversation with someone about it. I think I only realised that today while reading this discussion!

I write stream of consciousness. once the emotions are down "on paper" (or screen, usually, since I can type much faster than I can write) I can eventually look at them and realize "hey, that stuff I was feeling...that's over there and I'm here now...I'm not what I think, I'm not what I feel, these things pass."

of course, it took me about 10 years of doing this constantly and several thousand pages to get to the point where I realized this, and it's not like I've mastered my emotions now. I just have a little more distance from them. meditation helps, too. if not so much in the moment of the emotion, it helps develop a mindset where when the emotion starts to happen you approach it differently.