Unemotionals

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I am unemotional in the following ways:

Having few emotions:
I don't understand how others have many emotions on hourly basis

Having only basic emotions:
I don't understand how others have emotions other than basic ones, e.g. anger when interrupted from special interest, fear of snakes

Remembering few emotions from remembered events:
I don't understand how others remember emotions from events, particularly childhood events. Some autistic people like Temple Grandin wrote about having some emotions when they were five, but I don't understand how they can remember having these emotions or knowing what they were then or later to write them into books. I don't remember any emotions from childhood events.

Talking about emotions:
I am talking about emotions right now, but not in the way that others talk about feeling their emotions in reaction to occurrences or on hourly basis. I don't understand how others do this.

Emotional support:
I don't understand how others are interested in giving and receiving emotional support. To me, it seems useless, but others find it useful and do it often. I don't understand how having others say certain things at certain times makes others feel good without there being any practical steps taken to deal with problem.

Emotions in autism:
The things that I don't understand how or why other people do, I observe often on WP, and I don't understand highly emotional behaviors of other autistic people, so I wonder if there are other autistic people like me who are unemotional in the ways that I described? Did I forget to list any other unemotionals?

Maybe you're alexithymic as well as autistic (I haven't been diagnosed but I certainly have alexithymic tendencies).
I'm not even sure how to answer any of your questions, because the last time I felt a strong emotion was... 6 months ago. Maybe even longer. I might have felt lots of emotions in-between, but if I did I didn't identify them as such. The only thing that I can tell is that I often have extreme difficulty talking about emotions (though when I do it's usually very clear and concise, and easy).

didn't you have to have some kind of emotion to feel compelled to compose and publish this post?

This is true, in a sense, but by that logic computers have emotions (which I'm sure some would tell you is true).
Anyway, I mean that I haven't felt any strong, particularly noticeable emotions. That last time I was referring to I was extremely annoyed, and the time before that, almost a year prior, I can only describe as a mini existential crisis.

That logic does not lead to "computers have emotions" at all. We know how computers operate, and that is due to instructions sets known as software and interpreted by hardware, among other things. We also know how the human brain operates, and emotion provides motivation - and that people who are incapable of feeling any emotion are significantly impaired in their ability to make decisions, among other things. For the vast majority of people - including autistic people - emotion drives most decision making.

No, all you need to compose and publish this post is to wonder about this topic. I didn't feel anything during it, but I am wondering what other people would feel.

This describes me to some extent, although I think not to the same degree as you.



I can also remember emotions from events, including childhood events. In some cases, I recall the emotion along with the event. In other cases, I recall the event and that I was experiencing an emotion, but I do not remember the emotion. Meltdowns seem to fall into the latter example, but traumatic experiences seem to fall into the former.

One experience I remember was when my ex picked a fight with me just to get me to show emotion and when I finally snapped and yelled at her, she said "So you are human" and that made me quite angry and it is still something that I resent. She was trying to turn me into something I wasn't.



I have this frustration when talking to my therapist, where she keeps asking me which emotion I feel and I tell her "I don't know" or "I don't feel any." She knows what alexithymia is and believes that the emotions are there and I don't know how to access or perceive them. I agree with this, however, but it is difficult to do anything about it, and I do not really think I want to do anything about it.



The thing I had to learn with this one is that sometimes the problem is something that can be dealt with, but the emotions constitute a separate problem that also needs to be handled. Sometimes people need help soothing themselves when something has upset them, and the something is something they already know how to fix, but the emotions are in the way. Other times, the emotions continue even after the situation is corrected.

I find that often when I am looking for a solution that others will respond in ways that does not help with the solution that it is extremely frustrating, because when I reach the point of asking others for help I am often at the end of my own patience.



One thing I've noticed is that people tell me that I am being emotional when I disagree with something they have said or that I point out that a particular attitude tends to generate a hostile atmosphere toward certain groups of people (that is, discriminatory and prejudiced statements), that people characterize my response as being offended or being defensive or in some other way too emotional to take seriously. However, these statements are not typically emotional for me.

I don't know whether any emotion you have perceived falls into that category, but it's something I have been on the receiving end of several times here.

I don't understand what it means to have emotions that are not felt. That sounds the same as not having the emotions. I don't think that I have a bunch of emotions that I can't feel.

That's what alexithymia is - having emotions and not being able to identify, understand, or feel them. Often they only manifest as physical sensations.

I don't think I have emotions that I can't feel, because I don't get the physical sensations either.

Another thing that I don't understand is when autistic people say that they identify with the intense world hypothesis, the part about hyperemotionality and hypersensitivity to people's emotions causing social withdrawal. I don't have that, so I don't understand it.

From what I've read, people who literally have no emotion are extremely impaired and find making decisions to be very difficult because there's no way for them to establish a preference.

I experience this to some degree, although not to the point that I am completely unable to make decisions. I've had to set up hierarchies like "If I can't decide what to eat for lunch, then I'll make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich just to get it over with." Or buying a lot of the same kind of food so I don't have to spend effort trying to decide what I want to eat.

Anyway, I'm not trying to tell you that you have lots of emotions you can't feel, and if I came across that way I am sorry.

So many people do stupid things because of their emotions. Anger has people in prison or dead, sadness has people hiding, fear has people in stressed and anxious states causing chronic health problems. Dominant people become neurotic and act like dicks when they strut their stuff

A passing concern for an emotionless lifestyle? Welcome to the club.
Special interests no? Aspies need their special interests like an artist needs their art

Last edited by boywonder on 12 May 2013, 10:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There. That's an emotion.

I don't experience emotions as physical sensations. I don't get "butterflies in my stomach" or other such things. I do have emotions but they are more of a state of mind. I don't show much emotion and tend to offer practical solutions instead of comforting. I understand other people's emotions but I can't feel what they are feeling and I don't know how to react to their emotions.

That question from the earlier poster was irrelevant, and so is this post, since I didn't say that I feel no emotions, only that I am the way that I am in the ways that I listed, e.g. emotions being few, emotions being basic, not remembering emotions, etc etc etc.