Crying = not on the Spectrum???

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Nonsense. People on the Autistic Spectrum cry, just like Neurotypicals do. There's an unfortunate stereotype around people suffering with ASD that they don't have any emotions and are completely incapable of showing empathy.

Nothing but pure ignorance.

Last edited by DIEHARDER163 on 29 Apr 2015, 8:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My friend has classic autism and she cried when people told her to get out of the pool.

i think maybe she ment expressing emotions based on memories? i dont know.

She probably cried because she didn't want to get out of the pool.

I once knew a very severely autistic person; he cried, and quite a bit.

Oh my god. Are they seriously convinced that people on the spectrum are emotionless robots? FFS, I've been diagnosed twice, and I know I'm prone to emotional outbursts.

My emotions are odd.

I didn't cry when my mum died. I love/d her and we had a great relationship, She had cancer and her passing was not a surprise or shock to my system and I was glad she was no longer in pain.

On the other hand I shed a few tears when my dog of 14 years dropped dead.

If I could choose to being one back, it would be my mum and I do miss her but I don't cry when I think or look back.

I cried alot when I was depressed.

+1

This is correct.
It seems that the psych just said that you (the op) were able to show your emotions during the assessment and not all the other things you thought.

One thing about asking psychs right after assessment is that they may just say the first thing that comes to their mind to answer you, but it doesn't mean that they think that is the most full, accurate analysis of your behaviors in the context of autism. Later, the psych will have to score the ADOS, usually from a video of the session, and also take into account other information from the assessment, and that is when they will make their best judgement of your autism diagnosis or not.

Well, one proposed theory of autism, Intense World Theory, suggests that autistics are more emotional.

Personally I have always been very sensitive. My melt downs as a child were caused by a hyper-sensitivity to stressful situations. As an adult I have learned to insulate myself emotionally in order to avoid these situations. For this reason people have said that I sometimes seem emotionless or that it is difficult to tell what I am feeling. (Even though their emotions are often painfully invasive to me.) This is merely a coping mechanism, however. Around people who I trust I am more emotionally open. There are a lot of stereotypes about autism and sometimes even professionals fall prey to them. We are all different but if you read the DSM criteria for ASD, you will notice that no where does it say that the individual must be unable to cry.

I can definitely identify with what you're saying, and being that I'm a big believer in the Intense World Theory, I can see how it would apply to emotions as well, and not just sensory perception. I was prone to emotional outbursts as a child, and due to the negative reactions I got from this, I started bottling up my emotions instead, but I eventually found that this just led to me having worse meltdowns. I still do it somewhat, and it's hard not to since it's not socially acceptable for me to express my emotions in their most primal form (i.e. by breaking things, shouting at the top of my lungs, etc.), but at least I am more open about expressing how I feel verbally, even if it's in a manner that's hard for other people to understand, as I often have trouble articulating my emotions into words.

But yeah, I have been told that I seem "cold", and much of the time it's not because I feel emotionless, but because I don't want to bother other people with what or how I'm feeling. Either that, or I'm absorbed in something and I don't want to be bothered. Either way, I wish people would interpret it to mean "go away", but people like to pry, and when they do, it just makes the situation worse because I'll get annoyed with them.