Is it true that people with autism dont feel social emotions

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XSara
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06 Jan 2020, 3:34 pm

nca14 wrote:
I had most of them, but some of them were present in atypical situations and were not present in situations in which they occur in people without autism.


i think i do too. do you remember any practical example of this?



nca14
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23 Apr 2020, 3:56 pm

The most atypical emotion in my case is shame IMO. In childhood I had "shame" because of having head or face. Having head was considered something "ugly" by my bizarre nature, so I might think that I in fact do not have head. It was probably associated with the fact that when I was about 7 years old I heard about spaceship "Happy Face" in certain cartoon. When I was about 13 - 15 years old, I said something that I do not have head or buttocks to peers (because I considered it "shameful"). Having need of essential trace elements like molybdenum or manganese was also "ugly", "ashaming" for me when I was a teenager (and I was markedly interested in chemistry that time, I still like read about properties of chemical substances). And I had not shame associated with sexual activities since childhood and still do not feel shame when think about it. I may appear to not have "sense of modesty". I was never ashamed beacuse of actions of my close family members, but other people like my mother were quite many times, also because of me.

I feel sad, unpleasant "carefulness", "sentiment", something "love-like" or "friendship-like" towards some items or things, like nice digits or numbers. I had it in childhood too, when I was about 6 years old.

When I was a child, I was often jealous and did not liked when someone (like a girl with the name of a girl in which I "fell in love" (but she never was my partner and did not want me as her partner)) won in TV game. Now I know well that being voluntarily jealous is a sin.

When I was about 16 years old, I might think that I have never felt sadness, which is somewhat strange because it is common emotion. I read that people with Asperger's have narrow range of emotions: happiness, strong fear, anger and sadness (but it is not true). I experience sadness quite rarely (if at all :) ).

I had fear of being abducted by aliens when I was a child (so I could fear darkness in night and being alone in such a time). When I was about 7 years old, I had also fear of falling of an asteroid (which would destroy human civilization?) and of spontaneous human combustion. When I was about 10 years old, I had fear of eggplant from Adventure Island video game.



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23 Apr 2020, 4:17 pm

XSara wrote:
I'm asking because I told my therapist that I cried when somebody made fun of me, and so she said that I couldn't be autistic because autistic people don't feel social emotions.

Don't return to that therapist. Professional ignorance is dangerous to you. Knowingly or unknowingly, she perpetrated harm on you psychologically by saying what she did. She will always consider her opinions more valid than your feelings and your capacity to be you.


Definitely find a new therapist. The one who told you that is an incompetent idiot.



nca14
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23 Apr 2020, 4:30 pm

I quite often did not cry when someone made fun of me. But some words were insulting for me, like ones associated with excrement. Naming me as "sh**" was obviously offensive because literal "sh**" is something unpleasant, ugly and stinky. It is humilitating.

I have never felt need of socialization (need of adapting myself to society), I always lived "in my own word", "in own social bubble". I named it "pathological nonconformism".



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23 Apr 2020, 5:45 pm

I don't think it's about feeling I think it is more so people with asd don't perceive these emotions from others therefore they dont respond in the expected way. It's more about perception than feeling or intelligence. But the former can lead to the latter.


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lliam420
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23 Apr 2020, 6:28 pm

my autistic cousin doesn't show much emotions socially but i know he feels them.



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28 Apr 2020, 4:12 pm

I'd say a lot of autistic people have some of those things at least, and that in some cases the effect can be very strong.

I can be very sensitive to the emotions of people I'm close to, at least to the emotions I think they have (as I'm not always sure what they really feel). I also remember feeling some degree of embarrassment and shame on rare occasions when some of my co-workers were angry with me, and when I've been outnumbered by groups of rather macho males, I've noticed that their feelings about me (I sense they see me as not coarse enough for their liking) have rubbed off onto me so that I've felt rather effeminate. It's also strongly affected me when another person becomes very upset, often so strongly that I've wanted to distance myself from the source. And to some extent I think I identify with characters in books and drama, if it's well done, so I'll feel good when the protagonist wins and bad when they lose. I hate watching people getting the s**t kicked out of them.

On the other hand I don't absorb the emotional displays of politicians and ad-men at all, for example when Boris Johnson punches the air and says that we're going to send the virus packing, or when a preacher works himself up into a lather about some idea he's trying to put into the audience's hearts, it simply doesn't work. Whether that's because I don't have the full complement of this social emotion thing or whether I just sense BS when I see it, I don't know, but those ploys are so often used that I figure there must be something different about me that stops it working, and I'm very glad there is.



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28 Apr 2020, 4:48 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:

On the other hand I don't absorb the emotional displays of politicians and ad-men at all, for example when Boris Johnson punches the air and says that we're going to send the virus packing, or when a preacher works himself up into a lather about some idea he's trying to put into the audience's hearts, it simply doesn't work. Whether that's because I don't have the full complement of this social emotion thing or whether I just sense BS when I see it, I don't know, but those ploys are so often used that I figure there must be something different about me that stops it working, and I'm very glad there is.


I'm the same way and I studied body language and got used to carefully observe it. I think it's both the fakeness and the fact that I observe and analyse it in a "clinical", detached way as opposed to reacting to it instinctively - if that makes sense?


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ToughDiamond
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28 Apr 2020, 5:52 pm

BenderRodriguez wrote:
I'm the same way and I studied body language and got used to carefully observe it. I think it's both the fakeness and the fact that I observe and analyse it in a "clinical", detached way as opposed to reacting to it instinctively - if that makes sense?

Yes it makes sense. I made a study of human psychology when I was much younger, in the hope of finding out what made people tick, learning how to get along with them better and so not be so much at risk of becoming socially isolated. I also specialised in science, which taught me not to jump to conclusions but to think carefully, to question everything and to believe nothing without hard evidence. And I studied propaganda and bias. So usually I'm only interested in facts and watertight reasoning when I'm deciding what to do, and emotive appeals just don't impress me or persuade me of anything, they just insult my intelligence by assuming they could ever get through to me in such a way. I'm not saying I've blinded myself to emotion - a person who genuinely feels something is an important fact too, and the way we feel is the most important thing of all.



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28 Apr 2020, 6:10 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
BenderRodriguez wrote:
I'm the same way and I studied body language and got used to carefully observe it. I think it's both the fakeness and the fact that I observe and analyse it in a "clinical", detached way as opposed to reacting to it instinctively - if that makes sense?

Yes it makes sense. I made a study of human psychology when I was much younger, in the hope of finding out what made people tick, learning how to get along with them better and so not be so much at risk of becoming socially isolated. I also specialised in science, which taught me not to jump to conclusions but to think carefully, to question everything and to believe nothing without hard evidence. And I studied propaganda and bias. So usually I'm only interested in facts and watertight reasoning when I'm deciding what to do, and emotive appeals just don't impress me or persuade me of anything, they just insult my intelligence by assuming they could ever get through to me in such a way. I'm not saying I've blinded myself to emotion - a person who genuinely feels something is an important fact too, and the way we feel is the most important thing of all.


I see some similarities in our background and interests :)

Which brings me to your last sentence: ad-men and politicians don't feel the emotions they try to portray and that might be easier for us to spot. As I understand, an NT will instinctively have an inner emotional reaction to non-verbal communication, regardless of whether they believe the verbal message or not. When the two don't align people always react in some form or another, depending on which one they feel more compelled to trust.


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30 Apr 2020, 2:02 pm

The more I read and watch videos about convicted people who are psychopaths the more convinced I am that sociopathy is against the very nature of autism. NTs are closer in their motives than people with ASD.

Nothing can show the contrast better than with my son with severe ASD who epitomizes love, sweetness, graciousness to the best of his abilities, forgiveness. His eyes beam out pure love. While with diagnosed psychopaths or criminals of that degree (remorseless etc) it's observing with a 'how do i get the upper hand' sort of motive in evrry interaction.

However there seems to be an agenda to make out that the two are one and the same.


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30 Apr 2020, 2:34 pm

^^ I don't see any particular reason for AS and psychopathy to be mutually exclusive, although the combination would not be very functional. However, we can be sure that the Psychos will always be busy pointing fingers at everyone else who might share blame in the public imagination.



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30 Apr 2020, 3:28 pm

XSara wrote:
Social emotions are emotions that depend upon the thoughts, feelings or actions of other people, "as experienced, recalled, anticipated or imagined at first hand". Examples are embarrassment, guilt, shame, jealousy, envy, elevation, empathy, and pride. In contrast, basic emotions such as happiness and sadness only require the awareness of one's own physical state.


Autism is basically one or many missing connections in the brain where the brain can then compensate by growing extra connections elsewhere (Hence why some on the spectrum may be lacking in some areas but be excellent in others. It also explains hypersensitivity where the extra brain connections may have been made etc).
Now considering the missing brain connections. Think of a computer. Cut one of its internal connections. You may know nothing about how the computer works so you will switch on the computer. Now you do not know how the missing connection is going to effect the computer, as it may seem to function correctly until it goes to carry out a specific task and either shuts down completely or it could spew out info out its printer or its screen could go crazy etc. It may not even work at all when it is first switched on.
Now think of the person who has autism. A missing connection in one autistic person may give them difficulties in one or more of the areas you list above where the individual may be lacking, but the next autistic person may be hypersensitive in those areas due to the brain growth compensating for another area in which it may lack. Still others maybe have no issues in those areas at all, but then have other areas entirely in which they may struggle in or lack.

The problem is, like with many other conditions, that society tries to fit everyone into a box to give a simplified understanding of their condition or character, and while that may work for some conditions (For example, a person who has no legs is not going to be able to walk without some extra mechanized equipment to help them... So that one is easy to see and define), but because autism can effect people in a great many ways which can vary greatly from person to person, it can't be defined in this way.
It is why they call autism a spectrum, because a spectrum emcoumpasses many different traits and difficulties associated with the condition, but does not specifically define the condition as having a specific result.

You can understand why it is not easy for the untrained to determine who has the condition. It is actually easier for an autistic person to pick up on a few traits that others also have which they personally may experience then it is for someone who is not on the spectrum to pick up on them...
Pyscologists normally specialize in this line of work.


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nca14
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30 Apr 2020, 3:36 pm

I remember that I was probably never malicious as a pre-adolescent child. I might behave purely maliciously only once in my life when I was about 16 years old (when I behaved in stupid way, used vulgar words about rear end, practiced "absurdal" humour, made fun of some words). I read that children with "NVLD" may present with "little or no malice". I think that it is other sort of emotionality which makes them not malicious and it is not a learning disorder, but something that I named "aucorigia" (ASD and similar conditions, "autism in broader sense" - symptoms and traits of it not always are medical symptoms, some are positive).

My mentality is indignated when reads about torture after death (especially eternal) because of divine punishment, it thinks that belief in scary sentence from God comes from evil ones (contrary to the Bible and Quran). It "hates" Quran because considers it very dangerous due to hidden miracles discovered in last decades. I forgive easily, although I can be really angry, which rather lasts short. I was very angry when someone probably stole my rucksack (it happened two times). I had feelings to kill the thief or cut his hand because it was so problematic for me (due to it people from my family were very angry, at least after second theft, when very strong argument was present against me, mother behaved very badly, I irritated father also who for some time expelled me from home). My parents are rather explosive, impulsive, quite often used vulgarisms or offensive words, shouted at other people (especially children). They were misbehaving many times. They gave their children corporal punishments which sometimes were quite severe and associated with little "guilts". It was somewhat pathological. My family is dysfunctional in some way.

When I did MMPI-2 test first time (in IV 2016), it suggested that I have antisocial personality disorder and some other PDs (histrionic, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive, passive-aggressive). Or schizophrenia so severe that I should be in psychiatric belts. It was not useful diagnostically. When I did MMPI-2 second time (in XI 2019), it suggested "personality similar to obsessive-compulsive and schizoid-schizotypal-avoidant one" and in the results there were the least arguments for antisocial PD (which was suggested as my main diagnosis after first MMPI-2 test).



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30 Apr 2020, 6:30 pm

Dear_one wrote:
^^ I don't see any particular reason for AS and psychopathy to be mutually exclusive, although the combination would not be very functional. However, we can be sure that the Psychos will always be busy pointing fingers at everyone else who might share blame in the public imagination.


I think the likelihood is less. I already shared the brain scan study


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02 May 2020, 6:13 pm

On the contrary, I feel those emotions intensely enough that it creates a kind of numbness. It's not pleasant, but it's better than panic.


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