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solitarymonkey
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30 Sep 2012, 6:40 pm

Every time I see happy photo's of people enjoying themselves on sites like Facebook, it makes me feel sad..
At the moment, I've not long got back from the pub and had an amazing social experience (for a change), and yet, seeing through some photo's of my girlfriends sister and her best friend, and their smiles and enjoyment, has almost brought me to tears.
Has anyone else felt this, or know what it is that I am feeling?
All I can think of right now is, "Why does other peoples happiness bring me pain?", though I'm sure that's not accurate?
I don't know..



VAGraduateStudent
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30 Sep 2012, 7:07 pm

You know I'm sure other people will tell you it's a depression thing or a being different thing, and that may be, but it could be a mirror neuron thing. Like a neurological thing. You probably already know about mirror neurons, but I'm going to pretend you don't just in case so that my response is clear.

Neurotypical people have something in their brains called mirror neurons (look up Simon Baron Cohen to read more about this). These things make NTs automatically feel emotions when they see the expressions of those same emotions in other people's faces. NTs don't know it's happening, it's just natural for them.

Most people on the autism spectrum have some kind of damage (maybe severe, maybe slight) to their mirror neurons. This means that when you look at someone else's face and they make a facial expression, it confuses you. You may feel nothing, or you may feel the wrong thing. I have a friend with AS who saw some people crying once and he started laughing. I asked him about it and he said he thought they were laughing and he thought they looked funny.

This is not the same as what you said, but it sounded similar enough where I made the connection.

So anyway, my point is that it perhaps it's a biological thing it means that nothing is wrong with you and that's just how you're made. You could theoretically lessen your exposure to people smiling or find a way to think of something pleasant whenever you have to see it.

But again, I'm probably way off base and just having a weird thought.



solitarymonkey
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30 Sep 2012, 7:17 pm

It's a suggestion to the question I asked, and I appreciate your time to answer :)
I'm not going to dismiss what you said until I know more.
You provided a direction to research, and I thank you greatly for it!
Thank you.
Anyone else have an idea?



justkillingtime
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30 Sep 2012, 9:51 pm

On the "Sopranos" HBO tv show, Tony Soprano told his psychiatrist that he hated the happy wanderer (I guess a person who is enjoying life). Maybe it is the contrast between happy and unhappy or (seemingly) successful and unsuccessful. Maybe it is a feeling of being left out.


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outofplace
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01 Oct 2012, 12:49 am

solitarymonkey wrote:
Every time I see happy photo's of people enjoying themselves on sites like Facebook, it makes me feel sad..
At the moment, I've not long got back from the pub and had an amazing social experience (for a change), and yet, seeing through some photo's of my girlfriends sister and her best friend, and their smiles and enjoyment, has almost brought me to tears.
Has anyone else felt this, or know what it is that I am feeling?
All I can think of right now is, "Why does other peoples happiness bring me pain?", though I'm sure that's not accurate?
I don't know..


I think it's just a common part of depression. Read the lyrics to the old Rolling Stones song "Paint it Black". It's basically about the same thing. I know that when I am depressed, I hate being around happy people. It just seems to punctuate my misery and my own failure at life.


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BMctav
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01 Oct 2012, 4:49 am

solitarymonkey wrote:
Every time I see happy photo's of people enjoying themselves on sites like Facebook, it makes me feel sad..
At the moment, I've not long got back from the pub and had an amazing social experience (for a change), and yet, seeing through some photo's of my girlfriends sister and her best friend, and their smiles and enjoyment, has almost brought me to tears.
Has anyone else felt this, or know what it is that I am feeling?
All I can think of right now is, "Why does other peoples happiness bring me pain?", though I'm sure that's not accurate?
I don't know..


I'm NT and feel this way sometimes. For me it's because I don't have many close friends and seeing people with lots of friends going out and hanging out and having fun underscores that I don't have that many friends and that in turn makes me feel lonely and a bit sad at times.