Sensitive to others Moods/Emotions?

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You do not have to read others emotions to have your mood affected. As I was explaining in my posts earlier, I am influenced by what people are saying i.e negative things and also perhaps tonality a little.

But how can you be aware that you're absorbing somebody's, say, happiness and not read the fact that they're happy? Surely you must realize it in order to feel it.

Ursula K. LeGuin wrote a short story once about a team of scientists exploring a conscious planet. One of the team is a man who has been cured of severe autism. His purpose on the team is as an empath, so the team can better understand the minds of alien life they encounter. He claims that his autism was caused by feeling other's emotions too strongly, and as a member of the team he is about as acerbic as House because he finds his teammates' emotions extremely bothersome.

Good question. Have you ever been around a small child, ages 2-4, when their parents are going through a divorce and fighting a lot? When the parents are stressed, angry, and anxious, even if they're not currently expressing it or fighting, the child feels it, and acts out all the time. The child does not know what is going on with the parents or why he feels so awful all the time. He just knows that he feels awful and everything makes him throw a tantrum. I think feeling other people's emotions as if they were your own when you can't read other people's emotions--is kind of like that situation.

It's a skill to recognize one's own emotions and label them appropriately. I remember having to learn how to do this, with a lot of effort, as a small child. But I experienced incredibly intense emotions long before I ever knew what they were called or what triggered them. I was probably experiencing other people's emotions as well, before I ever even knew what I was feeling.

It takes even longer to figure out that an emotion that came on suddenly for no apparent reason (like depression when one was feeling happy all day, and nothing bad occurred), is not necessarily one's own emotion. It takes even longer to connect it to the feelings of the person around you. In fact, I would bet not reading other people's emotions well makes it harder to connect the dots.

When one finally does notice it, one does not necessarily believe it, because a lot of aspies are highly logical and empathy is very "woo". (If you've ever looked at an empath group online, you know what I mean. A lot of people who experience other people's emotions/echoemotica also claim to be clairvoyants, etc.). For instance, I first realized I was experiencing others' emotions in high school, when I was 14. I felt bombarded by the emotions of the other people in the hallway. It felt as if other people's eyes were hitting me. I was picking up not just emotions but whole attitudes which I could verbalize. It's hard to explain, but I could tell that the depression, anger, and cynicism I felt every time I walked through the hallways were not coming from me. I kept telling myself I was crazy, though, and that I couldn't be empathic because empathy isn't "real." It took several years to accept.

Another level of empathy without good emotional intelligence is what I currently experience. I can tell if someone is depressed or annoyed or overjoyed about something, but I usually can't tell why. I assume it has something to do with me, but it usually doesn't. I also have no idea what to say or do about it. I would imagine this situation would be fairly typical for people here.

Basically, empathy and what is called "theory of mind" are different types of information, coming from different channels. For NTs, "theory of mind" may be an automatic process, but it's still cognitive. Empathy is not cognitive; instead, it seems to directly invade our emotional systems. Many NTs do not have empathy, but they have good "theory of mind" and can respond appropriately to others. Many people with AS do seem to have empathy, but not "theory of mind" or appropriate responses. Does this make sense?

Now I understand why at times I'm in more of a sad or pissed off mood at work and at home. It alls explans way when I'm talking with someone at different points they say I'm getting madder and madder. What I'm really doing is picking up on what they are feeling and not know how to give a good respons.

I don't think I realized that other people's emotions were affect (ha) ing me until I was 23 and realized that all the arguing and depression among my friends made me feel really bad. I remember one time my friend was upset at her boyfriend for being high, and I had a meltdown the likes of which I've only experienced before or since when I've gotten beaten up. I was shaking and could barely speak. Recently I had to move out because she was so depressed and angry all the time, and it was making me feel horrible...my appetite was dead, I was spacing out all the time, and even though my life was going ok, I wanted to die. I tried to explain to her, but she screamed and cursed at me like I was saying she was bad for being upset.But I just wanted to explain that I wasn't leaving because I didn't like her, or because I thought she had kicked me out...it was because I felt awful and I was making her feel awful, too.

This is interesting, because since I am diagnosed with Asperger I really doubt my skills to understand other people and feel what they feel. Like someone else said, isn't one of the criteria for asp that we're not good at reading other people's emotions?

I don't know how it works either because I am like a sponge myself too. I'm very sensitive to atmospheres and it can change my mood drastically. But when someone shows me a picture of a face expression then I usually don't know what it means (I scored very low on a test about non-verbal skills). I would like to understand how this works too. How can I pick up on someone's mood without being able to consciously understand their body language?

But it seems that I just know when someone is tense or sad. Usually I have reacted to it before I realise it myself. I have experienced lots of mood swings by being with other people. A lof of times I don't realise my mood has changed because I take over someone else's emotions and the realisation comes afterward. Other people have also told me I have sensed things about them that others didn't.

How is it possible? I will think about it some more

When someone I like is in an anxious state it's enough to talk to them on the phone for me to feel anxiety, but I can't connect the dots. Instead I typically try to figure out what has happened in my life to make me miserable lately. Resentful people, or people who are annoyed can just walk past me (literally no interaction at all) and I pick it up and feel like punching the next person who crosses my path.

It's better now that I know about it though, I can tell myself that it's not real, it's just my mind going off on me again, and sometimes let it go.

It's interesting how aspies seem to be very emotionally sensitive, but completely unaware of it.
I'm acutely aware of reasons for feeling down. And I'm pretty good at understanding other people's reasons, too. More so than the average person. Although I can be confused by some more basic things, social intercourse moving too fast for me. Does this mean I can't be an aspie?

I realize this ability to pick up on the emotions of others, has been with me all my life. It's only lately that I realized it. I have recently ended a friendship of 2 years, with a woman who was highly negative. I didn't realize that she was stressing me out so much. I would blame myself for feeling tired, irritable, depressed, or bitter after hanging out with her, or even just speaking with her on the phone. She was always going on about the state of affairs in our government, or being afraid that something negative would happen to her teen-aged daughter while out with friends, or she would find depressing web sites and want to talk about them. She was also deeply envious of me, and that made me extremely uncomfortable. I finally realized that I didn't want anymore of her company.

I often pick up on others emotions and can't get them off of me for hours. It seems that everytime I am with someone, I become a different person and different personalities come together in me.

Further reading for those still not convinced.

echoemotica - General Autism Discussion

"I'm acutely aware of reasons for feeling down. And I'm pretty good at understanding other people's reasons, too. More so than the average person. Although I can be confused by some more basic things, social intercourse moving too fast for me. Does this mean I can't be an aspie?"
I don't believe Simon Baron-Cohen et al.'s theory that there is one ability, Theory of Mind, that underpins all social skills. One can have a social disability (the unique symptom of autism) through visual or auditory problems making it literally hard to perceive social cues, sensory overload from too many people in a conversation, finding it painful to make eye contact, selective problems with ACTING rather than perceiving in a social situation; having poor timing; alexithymia; slow processing speed; lack of emotional intelligence, not sharing the same motivations as the people around you, being over or under empathetic, attentional problems making it hard to take in too much information at once, prosopagnosia, low energy (I became way more social when I started taking a stimulant), social anxiety, not building basic scripts and templates everyone else does because of the above problems... I'm sure there are more I'm not thinking of. People here have described most of these at one time or another.

It sounds like you have a great intellectual and maybe emotional understanding of other people's emotions, but something more basic (sensory processing? attention? timing? processing speed?) isn't letting you pick up all the information you need. Sounds like some of the self-described "higher-functioning" members of WP, to me. So yeah, you're probably still an aspie.

I also get annoyed when other people are being negative. I especially cant tolerate when people complain. It sets off my anger. I dont think its being over sensitive really. Its more insensitive in a way yet I can see it being a sensitivity towards picking up bad vibes. I dont mind people being angry though. Really I just get really mad when people complain. I guess Im complaining about complaining though. Kind of hypocritical I guess.

I don't get it..... when other people are moody, I feel happier (not for them!), but when they are cheerful and excitable, I feel moody. The hell?

I've always been really overly sensitive to others' moods as well... I hadn't realised it was at all an Asperger's trait though (or even very common among those on the spectrum)! Interesting.