Very little emotion.

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I see a lot of Aspies lost saying that they feel emotion just as much as, or more intensely than, NTs.

I feel very little emotion.

I see everything as science. Death is a statistic. Cost-benefit analyses. What I want to do during the day is not what I" feel" I should do, but what tasks need to be completed to maximise productivity.

I often go through the day with only a couple of blips of emotion and everything else is robotic and systematised.

Am I am atypical Aspie in that sense? Or is that more common than I thought?

That's an interesting question. Too bad you didn't make a poll, it would be very interesting to see what is more common for us.

As for me, I am pretty much your opposite. I am emotional and can have very strong feelings, and I also feel the nuances of feelings. I have to feel like doing stuff, even fun stuff like reading and playing video games, and doing things I don't feel like is something I def have to force myself to do no matter how much they need be done, and I am unable to get into subjects I'm not into (that was a big problem in school).

I feel as if the 'primary' type of Aspie on this forum does not represent the most 'typical' Aspie.

Every person with an ASD I have known in real life has being most similar to you in terms of emotion, and they have even told me so.

I don't really understand how someone can feel an emotion 'more intensely' than another based on the small difference in neurology. I'd say it's probably that they feel the emotion as intense as an NT would though for something apparently more trivial, due to lack of coping because of executive dysfunction etc.

I don't agree so strongly with the Intense World theory. The sensory aspect makes some sense, though a tremendous amount of research has found high prevalence of Alexithymia in individuals with ASD, in fact I read somewhere it was up to 80%. Research, facts and theories centered around ASD barely support each other, if not contradict one another.

I'm almost the same as you SteelMaiden.. except that I do feel. Just not 'in the moment'.

Basically I'd have to think about it to feel something. Otherwise the rest of my day is basically everything I see and hear is merely data to be digested and acted upon.

Interesting responses.

The only time I am briefly emotional is when my OCD gets very strong, which is a brief occurrence a couple of times a day. Most of the time, my OCD is automatic and robotic with no feeling. As in "I'm going to wash my hands on the basis that they are potentially infected". The counting is very automatic, it's ingrained into me.

It's strange. I used to have severe anxiety. But I've been at home, most of the time in my bedroom, for a week. It seems that isolation and a controlled, less noisy (not always though - I live in supported housing next to a dual carriageway and a green area, and two minutes away from an A&E department) environment has somehow "switched off" my anxiety and emotions.

I think it works to my advantage, having next to no emotion, as when I had emotions, they were mostly mood swings and negative emotions.

I still hear voices, but I'm so used to them, and I've had them since I was 14, so in a way I know no different.

Paranoia I suppose has decreased, but the fact that I've been isolating myself in my bedroom for a week could mean I feel paranoid but I don't know it?

I live with other residents in this supported housing and they are very emotional people with barely any logic. I keep saying "use your logic, not emotion", but they don't get it.

I have emotions at times - sometimes they can be quite strong.

At other times I don't feel any emotion at all - and sometimes I think that's a good thing.

I wonder if the abscence of emotion is an emotion?

Pity love, salute lack of emotion.

I said someone on here earlier that as I am me I don't get jealous of people. Well maybe I am a bit jealous of those who barley feel emotion. It just hurts too much at times, even when life presents me with joy and euphoria I am always aware of the dreaded come down, it is as if I am a drug.

I too am similar. I do not know how common it is for aspergers but I don't believe that's it's a 'rare' trait there are many who are similar to you. For me it is quite distressing because other people are so irrational, unpredictable it makes interaction hard. I wish everybody used their logic rather than emotions but I don't think it'll change as a result I refer to people as 'emotionally insane'. There are many advantages to lack of emotion. Rational analyse and life stability are the ones that immediately come to mind. I watch people make absolutely insane choices that are negative for their lives and they struggle or suffer as a result. When did you note the change from emotional mood swings and negative emotions to the logical standpoint?

I think it just depends, whether neurotypical or autistic, everyone is different. Some people just feel few emotions, others feel many, or not in the moment, or differently than others, or sometimes simply have difficulty expressing those emotions or feelings (kind of like Spock from Star Trek).

Apart from AS itself there is also the events in our life that may influence our feelings and behavior.

Also other conditions and medications.

Last edited by Shadi2 on 21 May 2014, 5:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

It might be caused by your schizophrenia. I've heard that schizophrenic people have trouble feeling their emotions.

Oh I just noticed this mentioned in his post, I missed it earlier. Yes it is very possible, and there is also some medication that maybe can cause that (having less emotions).

That's true about my schizophrenia. I didn't think about that to begin with but it makes sense.