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Do you have to make effort to connect to your emotions?

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happymusic
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15 Jun 2010, 9:20 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
Feelings are often still quite woolly things for me, and I often have a hard time knowing what I'm feeling until some time after the event.

I remember trying to do some clever stuff with a computer and some electronic parts, a few years ago. It started going wrong, and I happened to notice that I was feeling hot.....only then did it dawn on me that I was stressed out because of the frustration, and that was causing the overheating. I felt like I'd really discovered something. :?


Wow, that's me, too. A lot of times I feel the physiological effects of an emotion before I realize it's arisen. A couple of times, a strong feeling has come up and just because of its strength my attention has been drawn to it because it's so strange.



Amber-Miasma
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15 Jun 2010, 10:50 pm

It depends on the situation really, I get very upset over people dumping their cr*p beside rivers and destroying/scarring trees. However I really don't feel the same intensity of emotions for human beings; or not feeling sympathy/horror for something that apparently I'm supposed to be (won't post examples here or I'll probably get flamed out but I don't feel its that hard to imagine).

I have a real problem with externalizing emotions though, even if I try I often cannot successfully emote what I'm feeling inside which seems to lead people to think I'm pretty cold hearted or inverted which people have brought to my attention countless times.

This is a little off subject but I did have a thought recently where perhaps vocalizing emotions might solve the issue, what does everyone think?


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CockneyRebel
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15 Jun 2010, 11:01 pm

I'm the opposite. I have very strong emotions, for a 35 year old. They're much more like the emotions of a 10 year old, going through puberty. I feel that I have to try to stop my emotions.


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marshall
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15 Jun 2010, 11:06 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:
I'm the opposite. I have very strong emotions, for a 35 year old. They're much more like the emotions of a 10 year old, going through puberty. I feel that I have to try to stop my emotions.

Same here. I have more understanding and experience than a 10 year old but my emotions are similar. I don't relate as well to "adult" emotions. A lot of adults just seem emotionally flat to me. They no longer have the genuine excitement and curiosity of a child.



Asp-Z
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16 Jun 2010, 3:53 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
Feelings are often still quite woolly things for me, and I often have a hard time knowing what I'm feeling until some time after the event.

I remember trying to do some clever stuff with a computer and some electronic parts, a few years ago. It started going wrong, and I happened to notice that I was feeling hot.....only then did it dawn on me that I was stressed out because of the frustration, and that was causing the overheating. I felt like I'd really discovered something. :?

Another time I was emailing a friend and I noticed I'd typed some pretty negative stuff.....I thought for a minute and added "but maybe I'm just pissed off right now." Just as well - that was exactly what I was feeling.

Counsellors often used to tell me that I needed to get in touch with my feeling better. But they didn't know I had AS, so I thought I must be full of Freudian repression :x For years all I could do was to guess what my feelings might be, but I'm sure a lot of the time I really was guessing - all I'd really figured out was the feelings the average guy might reasonably have been expected to have had. But little by little I got a bit more accurate.

Anyway, I'm a great believer in tracking feelings. I think they're a much stronger motivating force than logic is. If you know how you're feeling, you can do a lot more to make yourself happier. If you know how your friends are feeling, you can be a great comfort to them. I really should pay more attention to feelings, but somehow I keep drifting back into logic, which cannot do the same job at all.


Sounds like you're similar to me, then, in fact that's pretty much exactly what I'm like.