Emotional knowledge

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I've been starting to feel emotions in the past year - proper visceral ones. I never realised that when people talk about 'heartache' it means that your heart actually aches, or 'a weight on your chest' actually feels like a compression of the ribs. In years gone by, I think I perceived strong emotion as a white noise in my head, but now maybe I'm channeling it to the right places. (?)
Anyway, it's more than I can cope with (though better than the white noise.) Does anyone have experience of help with emotional recognition etc. I've got a diagnosis that makes this a priority, but there's nothing for autistic adults where I live.

Recognizing emotion is SIMPLE even though it isn't always EASY if that makes sense. I'm willing to bet you have many times felt deep emotions and feelings even though you don't realize it. You have to let your emotions speak for themselves. If you are trying to feel emotions, you won't feel them. They have to come on their own. It's when you are NOT trying to feel them that they will appear.

It can take a while for the brain to figure out how to process sensory information from the body. I was 29 when I first felt physical attraction in my body (in my chest) and that was a revelation. I'd had the impulse to hug before, but I'd never been aware of any sensation in my body prior to it. I found that over the next five years or so, I got to feel and understand my body better and it gradually made more sense. You may find that it makes sense if you just take it easy, give it time. Your brain takes a while to write the software and modify the wiring.

What you guys say sounds very true, it's just I am so wildly up and down at the moment. I've never known anything like it.

It used to literally take me months to figure out how I felt about things. I was about your age when things started to come through quicker, and I was able to discern what I was feeling at a much more rapid pace. It was quite overwhelming at the time. But for me, it did eventually get easier to cope.

Wait til you experience 'seeing red'! It is very literal as well!
I never realized this until I experienced it.

Be aware that sometimes you may also be having mild anxiety attackes caused by new emotions. This is a very real deal and one that can cause extensive physical discomfort.

Lately I've been finding myself more and more experiencing or sharing some emotions of empathy. There are other things that I've "grown out of" so to speak. I have heard that aspies can grow out of some of these quirks which make them "different" from NTs depending.

As for emotions, it is one thing to learn or respond to an emotional reaction in such a way that is appropriate since it can is a behavioral thing that can be learned. On the otherhand, experiencing the emotion itself such as empathy is quite different since it is not something you can respond or react without having it in the first place.

In other words, I believe that some of my emotional responses came out in the wrong places because they didn't manifest at the appropriate given times. I've out outbursts that came out of nowhere yet had trouble feeling that outburst at the time it would have been appropriate. More and more though, I notice myself experiencing emotions at the right time when it makes sense. I think one of the reasons is I've learned to control some of my inappropriate emotions through anger management and cognitive therapy such as writing the exact time my feelings take over. Then I will usually write down many of the factors that might've caused the feelings. I'm not saying that my experience would define or happen to all aspies. In fact, aspie or not, some emotions just come out of nowhere.

I think another problem that may be common in autism is not experiencing pure emotions very often. My emotions tend to be rather layered. Usually it's a generalized tension that's closest to the surface, often masking other emotions underneath. I also think I experience a lot of threshold emotions that don’t quite fit into the neat categories that the language defines.

I agree with the layered emotions.

Also, I only recently realized, that when my tummy acts up, and I become confused, that is anxiety. Just relax and sit down and figure out if you want to really do what is making you feel that.

Hmm, there are many other new feelings, that I didn't know about until recently also, I just can't remember them.

It is like that layering thing. I go to talk about something with someone, and low on the neural pathway, something else has to be expressed first. So we talk about that. Then I leave the conversation, without even talking about what I truly went to say to that person. Silly silly, mind and body.

The centered feeling is the best of all. Your tail bone feels pulled down, then your mind is bright and seems to be attracted to your heart, and your tummy feels warm and seems to be attracted to your heart as well. Like a sand clock, or figure 8, that sits on a pedestal. Symbols can be intriguing.

If I am all over, or simply trapped inside a feeling, I consciously feel the centered feeling, and then when I act or react from that feeling, I am pretty much myself.

Goodluck and have fun, later.

I immediately recognize my emotions and feel them in a pure form albeit exaggerated. My problem is that my emotions are often so potent that it's hard to keep composure.

I've been having similar experiences lately. I know know what nostalgia feels like, and I've copied the emotions of characters in books and on TV for the first time in my life. I think I'm starting to develop some of the odd emotional mirroring that NTs do so easily.

My solution to emotion has always been to analyze them intellectually, to understand them and observe as though from a distance. They are always obvious, though; I have never been able to keep from expressing emotion.

This is the story of the past year or so of my life. At 38, I experienced true empathy for the first time in my life. Other emotions have been coming out with it. It has been very difficult to deal with, but seems to be getting a little easier, as, like most things, I have analyzed the feelings enough to begin to understand what they are and begin figuring out how to deal with these new, and yes very painful, things to experience.
It's very interesting to me that others have this sort of "coming out" into the NT world, or at least an introduction to it, much later in life than most. I definitely am not a NT, but I assume these are the kind of emotions they have been experiencing much of their lives.

It can almost be said, that what some take advantage of, we aspire to.

I personally am grateful of all I have had to work for. I am also grateful for all I will work for.