Sensitive to others Moods/Emotions?

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Just wondering how common it is to be affected by other peoples moods and emotions..

For example today I got into work in a pretty good mood, then when my co-worker turned up in a grump I just started feeling terrible. I don't know why other peoples moods effect me so much?

This isn't a one off event for me as it seems to happen all the time. It isn't because I feel like they're in a mood with me it's just that I can't handle being around others when they are like this.

I think this is one of the reasons why I don't have a lot of empathy. When others around me are moody, ill or upset I just tend to get annoyed. I think I'm too sensitive? Is this an AS thing?

I work with young ASD children and I have noticed they ALL respond to my mood. Fortunately this usually works in my favor....I'm a very laid back person. Often I can go into a session with a child in full meltdown and bring them out just by my quiet nature. One mother who's son has severe echolalia has noticed if she responds to him in anger, he mirrors her anger. I've called them little emotional barometers more than once. Not sure what the scientfic reason is....but I know it to be true.

I'm very sensitive to the moods of others, and sometimes I do mimic others moods, as well.

Totally, i find this all the time, to the point where i still feel down or on edge after the other person has moved on.

I work hard to almost artificially raise my mood, which has the effect of genuinely raising it also, but it doesn't take much for it to come down based on some other stimulus.

Some times i get home from work fgull of energy and want to go do something or organise something or whatever, then my wife is there and tells me a few things that have happened or that she's not feeling well and tell me about it and i'm then drained and feeling low and don't want to do anything.

Very interesting to me that this is true for adults with ASD. I've noticed it for years with my younger students and often wondered if they would outgrow it. I've tried to 'fake' a good mood around them and it never works...almost like they can read my soul

One student in particular becomes very affectionate when he senses a bad mood in me. When I was going through my divorce I truly believe he helped me waaay more than I helped him.

This happens to me all the time. I guess other people's emotions rub off on me. If somebody around me is crying it makes me feel upset, and I have to stop myself from crying with them.

I experience that too. Can be very bad. I am very sensitive to facial expressions and voice tone, I do usually understand them, but have been known to misinterpret them. They also change my mood. More often than not my mood is decreased by others rather than improved.

It's not strictly a question of emotion.

If you're fixating on a piece of the scenery around you, any discontinuity creates a sense of cognitive dissonance.

It's like internalizing an irregularity in your surroundings. This one piece of the picture is throbbing, pulsating, flourescent, and loud. You try to express your sense of conern tactfully, but cannot hold the attention of your peers.

At times, someone's body language is inconsistent with their words, or their words are inconsistent with their intonation.

This conflicted person, who you're passively watching, might be trying to engage you, manipulatively, for your moral support.

You thought that your calm presense, during emotional turbulence, might have lent some sense of stability, but you are being dragged into an effort to participate.

Then, your participation only creates more trouble.

I think, when you try to settle an emotional person, against their will, they feel contradicted.

Maybe, they are the only ones trying to make an emotional connection, and the mental energy seems overwhelming.

I mostly experience these feelings with my mom. Most commonly is that when she feels negative emotions like anger or sadness, I feel those things too. It sometimes helps elevate my mood if she's happy, but not always.

However, I am somewhat indifferent to the emotions of just about anyone else.

I pick up peoples moods and emotions very strongly all the time. I can tell how someone is feeling before they even tell me. I can feel vibes in the air..sounds weird but it's true.

It's not like I feel whatever they are feeling but if someone is overly emotional in a happy or sad way then it makes me really uncomfortable, like I just want to get away from them. I just get so tense because there's so much emotion around me at once that I don't know what to do or think.

When my mum gets in a pissy mood I get in a pissy mood.

I get that too, it's apparantly called echoemotica. It's similar to empathy, except I don't think empathy means being invaded by other people's emotional states, but rather being able to see them and recognise the perspective they bring.

Sometimes I pick up vibes and feel strange and I can't tell if it's me feeling that way or the other person. But if I take a step back, breathe a little bit and think about it I can usually work it out.

Emotions are terribly difficult to interpret. I hardly know what I'm feeling myself a lot of the time and sometimes it's not even me feeling it!