Emotional Constipation

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This post I read got me thinking about me and us, and how we might not be very good at dealing with our emotions.

http://www.theemotionmachine.com/emotions-are-like-poop

Are you emotionally constipated? What do you use as your emotional prune juice?

Haha. No it's more like diarrhea for me.
Well I do hold them in but you're right, they have to come out.

I suppose writing is my prune juice or black liquorice.

Hmmmm.......I wonder if this is related to anal retentiveness?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_retentive
That description is worryingly like the classic Aspie. Not that I buy into the Freudian explanation. But the phrase, being so ugly, helps me to avoid getting too nerdy with people - it gives a good sense of how the Aspie default mode of communication comes over to others.

I suppose Emotional Constipation is just as good a term. A partner once told me I needed a laxative...she didn't mean there was anything wrong with my bum either. But her advice didn't really work, as it was so vague and (I felt) rather offensive. It's not the kind of label most people would want to own.

I have a lot of trouble identifying my emotions, I can work them out better after the fact. So I guess I fit the bill. As for the "laxative," a counsellor once kept saying that she couldn't understand where my feelings had gone, until I gave her a tape of my music, and when she heard it, she realised where my feelings were. That set me thinking - I guess every time I choose (or write) a song to perform, it's because I've felt something in that song and want to express it myself.

But I'm not usually aware of that process at the time, unless I catch and analyse (no pun intended) the impulse behind the sudden urge to play this or that song. I guess I could discover a lot about my emotions if I were to just look at all the songs I've played and track down exactly what it is that moved me to want to play them. A non-musician could probably do the same thing with records that they particularly like. Songs that I go for always usually seem to have "hot-spots" or small sections of a few words that get me going. I think the answers are mainly in those sections, tucked away in the lyrics. But even if it's not possible to identify the feelings like that, I think that just playing/singing the song will help to express the relevent emotions, and to give relief.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that identification and expression are different things. Failing to identify them is bad, but as long as you can express them somehow, you'll feel a lot better, even if you don't really know what you're doing.

I'm still undecided about the Freudian concept of "repression." That concept would tie in very nicely with the constipation analogy - holding everything back until the pressure nearly kills you - and I'm sure people do sometimes hide their feelings even from themselves because they're uncomfortable, embarrassing, or at odds with the way we think we "should" feel, but I'm not sure that's the main Aspie problem. Aspies often fail to internalise social taboos etc., and I think they'd be more likely to admit, at least to themselves, that they have ideas that fly in the face of what society views as too naughty to even talk about.

Thanks for sharing my post Moog. As someone who shares symptoms of those on the Autistic spectrum, I think learning to balance emotions is crucial to good mental health.

I didn't have psychoanalysis in mind when writing the post, but I did notice it's influence before I published it. ToughDiamond is the first one to notice this - very cool. I come from more of a Jungian perspective though - I believe in psychological homeostasis, and I think emotions are a way of regulating this. When I say "release emotions" - I am referring to a variety of productive activities we can do: exercise, writing, art, music, talking with others, etc.

I'm skeptical of Freud's repression theory. Of course there are some memories we forget, or perhaps push towards the back of our consciousness, but I think the emotional charge of our past (not the content) is what is most important. As long as we have an avenue to express those emotions, we will be able to live in the present with more fulfillment and clarity.

Hope some of that makes sense. I'll be checking in if anyone wants to discuss some of these ideas further. Never heard of this forum until now - looks like a very intelligent bunch.

Cheers.

Seems to be part of a family trait for me. My sister in law once said my family didn't actually have emotions, we just discussed them rationally. The only exception was my father's rages.

Hey, you're quite welcome, Lightfiend, I thought it was really useful. Thanks for writing it!

I don't let my emotions out at all. I actually have horrible blow ups. But when I was a kid and through out life in general no one has ever wanted to listen to what I had to say on matters of emotion so I figured I shouldn'ttalk about it. My parents tell me it is complaining and my girlfriend now says the same thing. So I have just always thought you hold them in. Something is going to have to change now because the last blow up I had caused me to break my own hand. I lost control of my emotions it was like I wasn't even in my own body. Scary stuff.

I need emotional Imodium a lot more.

I think I'm more the opposite of that. I feel emotions, show emotions (if people know how to read me despite having atypical expression of emotions at times), etc., but I rarely sit around discussing them in a detached-sounding way. That can be a cultural difference as well (or a class difference at times) and my family is definitely from a "show, don't tell" culture it seems when it comes to emotionality.

When I discovered that this was a potential cultural difference, it explained so much about how people reacted to me. People who were more "tell, don't show" about emotions sometimes have a tendency to regard me as much more angry or dangerous than I actually am. (Actually I'm not really dangerous at all.) The article I read about it was about class differences and someone said something about how many people "act like we're all about to pull knives or something". And that's so true in how people respond to me sometimes. Even when it's fear I'm showing... I once (after jumping up and hiding behind a television in response to someone saying something to me that really was potentially dangerous to me) had to listen to an entire group of people go around the room describing in detail how "unsafe" I made them feel. For... being afraid of something that genuinely threatened my safety. I've also had people just sort of... get on edge, before, not because I was doing anything wrong, but just because my emotions happened in a way

Of course not all people who are into discussing emotions rather than just having them, is like that. I'm just describing what can happen when serious misunderstandings happen because of differences in how a person showing rather than telling their emotions is perceived by some of the people who tell more than they show. Especially if the people are at extremes of each.