Has anyone experienced this?

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My daughter (6 years old) will sometimes be sitting in quiet comtemplation or listening to a song and suddenly start crying. There is nothing particular going on and she is not able to explain what has made her cry. Often she will give a physiological reason for her crying... "My neck/throat/legs (or whatever) hurts."
I feel so helpless and heartbroken, because I simply don't know how to help her when this happens. Sometimes it's okay to hold her, other times she rejects physical contact. I want to help her give words to her feelings, so she can understand better what is going on, because I really believe that she truly doesn't know what has caused her to cry.

My NT daughter does that. With her, I have concerns about mood disorders. I am monitoring it myself; not pursuing anything official yet; but I do think she has "something" in that realm and she is aware of my thoughts (we have an on-going conversation on what to do, when to seek treatment, that started a few years ago, maybe when she was 8 or so, and she knows what the family history is).

With my daughter there really doesn't seem to be words for the feeling beyond, "I need to cry." Sometimes she also needs to be angry, and will literally set up situations to give herself an excuse to erupt - I am teaching her to see that pattern and just skip straight to the eruption, for this creating an excuse is an abusive pattern. Hopefully your daughter does not have that component.

I guess I can't offer much else because, as I noted, we have chosen not to get professional intervention at this point, I don't have a proper label or process to share. For now I just want her to see the patterns in herself and make notes, and experiment with natural mitigations. Which does help. And we talk. A LOT.

Thanks for sharing. I hate to see her hurting like that. She seems far to young to feel such sorrow...

I will say that for years I thought I had and have sought treatment for a mood disorder, and now that I'm in this world, applying the frame of Aspergers seems to serve me better.

Let me explain: I'll get triggered by something, and will go into an extremely agitated state, where I become extremely rigid and don't think things through carefully. If things don't go my way even slightly, I will get very angry and not really understand why. Eventually I will crash into a deep depression for several days.

It took me forever to figure out the agitated state (referred to in my head as "getting stuff done") and to look for the trigger for the whole system BEFORE that (I was always looking for a trigger for the depression, which never made any sense, often it would be a minor thing, like a left-handed compliment - uncomfortable, but not something that should send me to bed for days.) As I started to recognize and address triggers earlier, things started to get better.

Nowadays, I am realizing that the triggers that set this whole thing into motion are very Aspie sorts of triggers: parties, crowds, speeches, social occasions, sensory overload, etc., etc. What used to flummox me is that I'd have this whole mood-change system EVEN WHEN things went well. Now I understand that I had been exhausting myself cognitively parsing out social situations and screening out sensory overload, and that my brain just couldn't handle it. Does this make sense or help?

I think that my daughter has figured out how to hold things together very well at school (she has only had 2 melt-downs at school - kindergarten and grade one, combined). I am hoping that the crying is the result of her holding things together all day and finally having a safe place to let it out. I would like to be able to help her verbalize the feelings, so that I can help her to make sense of them, but perhaps that is asking a lot of a 6 year-old.

People can make very emotional connections to music, sometimes for no apparent reason. Although IDK if the extent you are describing w/ your daughter is typical or not for her age.

One strategy we use is when we are reading together or watching movies/tv, I often stop and ask DS how he thinks the characters are feeling in different situations. This gives him practice in labeling emotions. Once they learn how to label emotions, then you can take it a little further and ask if your child sometimes feels the same way as that character feels right now. Sometimes this has led us to some good discussions, very enlightening for me, about what causes DS to be angry or worried as well as what makes him happy. The more we do it the more articulate he gets about how he feels.

Thank you Bombaloo. This is helpful.

I think the "some kids" strategy is a useful one at times like this, e.g. "Some kids have a really hard time understanding what the directions are, and that can really stress them out. Do you think maybe you're upset because you've had to work hard understanding what you're supposed to do all day?"

Though, with DS sometimes he just wants not to verbalize or understand as much as he needs to find a way to let it out. Sitting in a corner and crying is actually a really good skill, and maybe your daughter would benefit from knowing that - beats the heck out of exploding and screaming and getting violent, which is what we get sometimes.

Maybe offer her something comforting like a stuffed animal or blanket or something, and then talk later about how sometimes feelings about things that happen earlier in the day or even the week can come out when you're feeling safe and relaxed, and that it's a good thing to let those feelings out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatoform_disorder

I wonder if she has a somatoform disorder. (See above). Or maybe she is clinically depressed and has trouble expressing herself or has trouble identifying her feelings. Maybe something is disturbing her but she doesn't feel like she can talk to you about it.

Just throwing some ideas out there. I think that a professional (child psychiatrist or psychologist) might be able to help sort things out.

I have Aspergers and not many things make me feel strong emotion more than music does. Sometimes my feelings that I have pent up come out when I listen to music. Also if she is saying she has a pain in her throat it may be the lump that forms before crying also her legs, she could be contracting her muscles also to try to stop her emotional pain. I have always tried to hold back crying as it draws attention to me that I never wanted, there are certain times that crying and sobbing you are simply unable to stop like a death of a loved one but other types of sadness sometimes build up and the erupt at, sometimes, inappropriate or "odd" times.
Its very difficult for us (people with autism and aspergers) to express our emotions. Sometimes we laugh or smile instead of crying or "frowning". Also verbalizing our feelings may be next to impossible. I am fortunate that I found in 5th grade that I had the ability to write and that was my outlet and my way to "talk".
Im sure Ive said this before but sometimes I still write to my husband because I can not verbalize how I feel. Because of my disease (Ankylosing Spondylitis) we have also been writing down how I feel so my doctors can better understand my pain. Also I have been using a childs pain scale when I am in the hospital to show the nurses my pain level....numbers make no sense to me but little drawings of faces do. A very funny female cartoonist drew a pain scale for her boyfriend. I love it, Im going to download it and show it to my doctors. Sorry had to remove the link as there are some "bad" words on her blog. If you want to read her blog I posted some links to it in the adult section...sorry if I offended anyone. I did not think about it. I just really like her blog it makes me laugh, its my type of humor and right now anything that makes me laugh is a really GOOD thing!
The regular pain scale is there and then if you scroll down you will see the one she invented. Maybe it would even help our older kids and they can get a laugh out of it when they feel better. Emotional pain can be rated just as physical pain is.

My son was unable to express his feelings and emotion, when he was in primary school I felt something was wrong. He couldn't communicate to me what was upsetting him and at school they told me all was good. He had no behavioural issues etc.

He would explode when I would pick him up from school. I decided to send him to a play therapist and his communication skills improved dramatically. Him playing with toys and been encourage to talk at his own pace really helped. He can now explain why and what upsets him and what he is unhappy with. He is 13yrs, he attended the play therapy when he was 11 I would have send him younger if I had realised the benefits.

He still goes, not every week once a month and still finds it very helpful. I know how difficult it is and how helpless you feel when you can't help.

Thank you, all for your valuable input!