ASD and your emotions?

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Needing some perspective here. Personal stories. We're stereotyped with having no emotions from those that do not understand ASD, because we don't express it the same way others tend to. My question is how do you guys experience your own emotions? For me, I have a general baseline that feels nuetral mostly. In this state it is hard for me to know how I am feeling because I am preoccupied with some thought or another, usually my special interest or whatever task I am doing (such as work). But other times I can have extreme emotional feelings that can last for hours or so, usually after someone criticizing me or someone becomes upset with me and I don't know why. I don't usually have the trouble labeling the stronger feelings... usually.

I can't find too much about personal stories relating to ASD emotions. Just clinical stuff which is too hard to really understand for me. But I'd like to know if what I experience is "typical" of ASD or if it may be something else entirely.

Thanks!

I too have trouble defining or even being aware of emotions. Much of it makes no sense to me. When my therapist asks me about them, I have great difficulty describing them. She says it's autism that causes this problem...

Yes difficulty labeling or understanding your own emotions can be a part of autism.. For me i can mostly label them but I can't tell why they're there or describe them beyond the one word label. Like "I'm angry, but I don't know why fully", and if I do know why it seems to be just a small issue over the larger picture

I certainly have emotions. Just have trouble recognising, naming and dealing with them in realtime. They can be very intense. I think my feelings are normal, but it's as if I live in a different space in my mind to most people, a space of reason not emotion. And when I'm expecting to feel a particular way when an event happens, I turn out to be wrong. I get a lot of negative feelings which I try to hide, with some success. I'm afraid of being too immediate with expressing my emotions, I don't think it would go down well if I were to spill my guts, so I carefully filter my reactions, but events don't always give me enough time.

I so relate. Can you give an example though?

I have not been diagnosed, but according to friends and family I show significant signs of ASD. However, emotions have always been a roller coaster for me. It's not often that I feel "nothing." Apathy doesn't exist in my life. Everything to me possesses an emotion tied to it, mainly because I do have Synesthesia, so I personify basically everything. The mug sitting on my desk here at work is kind of snooty and standoffish, but the computer in front of me is quite steady and understanding. Hard to explain it any other way, but when people say to me "You're too emotional to have any kind of autism," I see that as bogus and stereotypical. When I experience a meltdown, it's a hardcore meltdown. I throw things, I scream, I scratch at myself, I pull my own hair, etc. I'm overcome with all the emotions around me and I'm overstimulated by them. Any look my way drives me crazy with how much I can "feel" their stares internally and practically read what they are saying. But then on the other end when someone comes to me in a very emotional state, it's not common for me to exhibit the same kind of reaction to them. I feel awkward like I know I should be crying with them or showing I'm genuinely concerned, but it comes out seeming forced. Not because I'm not understanding of what they're going through, but simply because I don't know how to show that I know what they're going through.

Like I said, I haven't been diagnosed, so I can't know for sure whether I have ASD or not, but that's just my tidbit. When it comes to fully understanding my own emotions, though, I have frequent occurances where I cannot tell why I'm feeling the way I am. I can say "I feel [insert emotion]," but I normally can't tell where it's coming from.

Sounds pretty similar to me really, though I don't tend to have meltdowns too much. I usually just shut down.

Synesthesia is interesting, and I haven't read much up on the subject. Do you have any other examples?

Is it just the way you think in more associative ways?

My emotions are raw and childish, so when I feel something, I FEEL something.

Wish I could quote members. >.< For some reason WP won't let me quote without giving me error messages, so I'll just reply here.

I have mostly grapheme=>color Synesthesia, so I see a lot of words as particular colors. For example A is bright red, R is orange, P is green, U is grey-blue, L is yellow, and so on. I also hear a lot in color. Most songs I listen to will stream through my mind in various shapes, textures, and colors. I'm a particular fan of purple songs it seems... Occasionally I will taste words, but it's not as strong as the grapheme=>color. I actually used to think that everybody was like this until about high school when my mother asked me why I kept naming my composed piano songs by names of colors only.

I have trouble talking about emotions, but not with with identifying and understanding them.

Strange. What device and browser are you using?

That is interesting. Is it more like a feeling you get when you hear certain words or is it more of a physical appearance?

I have noticed that certain smells remind me of feelings of times that I was experiencing during a memorable time. not sure if that's related or not, but it's a weird thing to feel for me. Like, for example, at my old work we sold many essential oils, and there was one in particular I smelled a lot because I loved it. But I felt a lot anxiety there, so now everytime I smell it I am reminded of that specific anxious feeling instead of enjoying the smell.

I'm that way, too, with smells. But I think having impulse reaction to certain scents is pretty common. My whole family is like that, as is my wife. I have mycophobia (the fear of fungus and mold) so any time I smell something that smells even remotely close to mushrooms or musty mold, I get panic attacks.

The experience of Synesthesia is pretty mental. Like physically say I have the word Balloon in front of me. I know with my physical eyes that the word is in black font, but in my head when I reflect on the word, it appears looking like Balloon.

Also, I'm using IE right now as it's the only browser available at my work, which could possibly explain the issue. I'll have to look into that when I get home today.

I'll just preface this by saying that I am doubting my diagnosis and intend to look into it.

I can't recall a time my emotional reaction confused me or proved challenging to describe; for me it's intuitive. However, all my emotions are turned down significantly; some are turned down completely. There are feelings/emotions I have never experienced, and others that disappeared over the years.

Interestingly, I am told this is normal because people with autism often struggle to identify their emotions, and may even fail to recognize them. However, after several months of monitoring myself I can confidently say there was no failure to recognize them, or confusing them.

I'll try........
Trouble recognising feelings in realtime: I was working on a special interest, a complex practical electronics project that started to go wrong. As I worked, I noticed I was starting to sweat, and realised I must be getting stressed out. What really amazed me was that I'd been in that situation many times before, but had never before noticed it in realtime. Another time I was writing an email, and on checking it before sending, I saw it was rather full of negativity that might annoy the guy I was writing to, so I wrote at the end, "......but perhaps I'm just in a bad mood." To a neurotypical that would have been nothing, but to me it was a quantum leap in my personal development, to actually realise that I had moods that could colour my words. Imagine the damage I must have done before I discovered that.

Expecting a feeling and not having it: Before diagnosis, I had to do a restart interview at the job centre, and was terrified of losing my benefits, workplaces had always been very painful for me and to survive I was reduced to pretending I was actively seeking work when it was the last thing I wanted. I prepared as well as I could, but wasn't confident because I knew how keen they were to avoid paying benefits. Yet when I got there, I conducted myself calmly and passed with flying colours.

Hiding negative emotions: Most entertainment bores me silly, I see it as brainless and devoid of artistic content. So if everybody's loving a popular TV show I want to express my anger at them for trying to share their "rubbish" with me, for putting me in that situation.

Does that answer your request? You asked for "an example" but I'd said a few things, and wasn't sure which to expand on, so I pulled out what seemed to be my main points, which I didn't think I was going to be able to do, and even now I'm not sure I've nailed it, but I hope I have.

I also have trouble identifying emotions and to someone who doesn't know me I don't seem very expressive, but I actually am very expressive in my own way if you know what to look for. For example my voice gets monotone when I'm very stressed, I flap my hands around when I'm excited, and when I'm comfortable around someone my accent gets more erratic. Sometimes people who know me well can identify my emotions better then I can if they know how I naturally express myself.

I don't have the violent type of meltdowns. I'm more likely to cry instead.