Extreme emotion theory of Autism?

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Has anyone considered an overstimulation of emotions as a possible cause? It would certainly explain a lot of things. Increase in guilty feelings after lying. Anger problems. Blah blah blah.

Then if you ever try to supress them (I can supress fear, but supressing the others feels wrong), your left side of the brain will take over and go for logic. I'm left handed apparantly, which is... odd, given that it means I'm more right brained.

Just an idea I had.

Hi, I am also new and an "Emu Egg" which I really don't understand that bit. Anyways I am a very logical thinking person and have been accused of being to analitical. I always take that as a compliment but I don't think the people that have told me that ment it as a compliment.

So here is my thought on your comment coming from the other direction- I am not a very emotional person and I usually feel uncomfortable around emotional people. Maybe I am not very emotional because I am a logical and analitical thinker.

What do you think?

Very interesting, I think you're on to something here.
I can suppress most of them if I need to, but don't seem to have a "middle". Either I feel way too much, or hardly at all.
And I've always had a tendency to get really upset over the weirdest things, stuff that doesn't seem to bother other people.

^ I agree... I feel way too much or nothing. The smallest thing will upset me to a breaking point. On the other hand something that upsets everyone a lot, will not even phase me.

It was those sorts of experiences that led me to the idea.

If people are overwhelmed with emotion, they either break down (can't communicate, get labeled as a Low functioning autistic) or, if the torrent is slower, they suppress it (and get labeled as high functioning). Certain emotions don't need to be blocked, because their either not stimulated often (guilt?) or aren't particularly negative (i.e. happiness).

I used to have extreme emotions, but I hit a point where I became "immune" to them, now I'm just empty. I have odd emotional responses, like the other people here, to ordinary things, yesterday I had my first shutdown. Wooh!!

This, along with not being able to pick up social cues (hence appearing to lack empathy) seems to be pretty accurate. Emotion is way too subjective to say for sure though, so we'll have to wait 20 or so years til' a wearable sMRI becomes available.

Does anybody actually find some contradiction with this that can't be explained by modern psychology?

The theory seems to apply to me. I don't handle multiple things coming at me all at once. When I'm emotional my ability to communicate effectively is extremely diminished. Often times it feels like there's too much going on at once inside my head.

As far as empathy goes, the theory that we don't pick up on emotional undercurrents doesn't apply to me. I notice emotions in others. In fact people with emotional tension overwhelm me to the point where I'm unable to formulate how I should respond.

I have very intense emotions, usually the negative ones are the most intense, it's what causes my meltdowns actually.
Other times I'm completely indifferent, I seem to be two extremes.
I do pick up emotions in people and feel empathy but I don't have a bloody clue how to respond to it, so seeing a friend get upset makes me feel so uneasy because I don't know or want to comfort them. 1. I'm a bit awkward with physical contact like hugging people, 2. I don't know what to say to then. So I seem cold but the emotions are all there.

Very, very, VERY much so!

On the handedness issue:
I'm also left handed, and have wondered the same thing about the handedness.. Also because usually people who are lefty or ambi have a larger corpus collosum (sp? the cluster of nerves that connects that two sides of the brain) than right handed people, but from what I've read about autism it's the opposite?
Or maybe it has something to do with how it functions? Larger, but different structure? Or underactive? Larger BECAUSE it's underactive? It would make sense that most autism studies would have been on children, perhaps it's something that develops to compensate somehow?

I actually read an article about this about a month ago: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- ... eory/full/

No.

We call conditions like that mood disorders; they are common and can be differentiated from ASDs.

Yes, this makes more sense to me than the other thing.

I'm pretty mellow in practice, (don't really get mad or freak out) but I cry really easy. Like, not REAL crying, but talking to people or watching TV or even just thinking about a concept, I often can't hold back a few tears. XD;;; But I'm not sure if it's because I imagine things more intensely or if I just have a lower crying threshold.

I have managed to suppress my emotions for a very long time, though now it's becoming harder and harder.

I like what the OP said about feeling guilty about lying - I feel guilty before I lie.
I can become over emotional about the smallest things. Today my mum was in a bad mood (probably because of work) and she threatened to take my dog to the pound. After she went on about me not being social I took the dog for a walk. I couldn't bare to be anywhere near her. If I stayed I'd probably start yelling or hitting a wall.
But if someone died who was a friend of the family I didn't know I wouldn't know how to react.

Interesting responses. When I first made the post, I didn't realise exactly how true it was. It seems, very true.

It would certainly explain the apparant lack of empathy: we do have empathy, in fact more so than NTs; it's just we get overwhelmed by it. Then if we try to suppress it, we get criticised again?

I think many people on the autism spectrum are capable of empathy.
I sometimes feel extreme empathy with dogs, cats or other animals, possibly because animal emotions are much simpler to read, interpret and attend to. Also animals don't have ulterior motives, bless them.

People's emotions are usually too intense and gross (almost in a sexual way, like my brain is getting raped) for me to tolerate and I get overwhelmed by them. I think aspies feel other's emotions, it's just that they're so "hi-def/hi-res" when they come into our brains that they are debilitating and therefore useless. When my mom is angry at me, I literally have to go take a nap after I fight with her because that's the only way I can recover from the protective catatonic emotional shutdown I inevitably have during our arguments.

Curiously, I feel most NT/empathetic when I am watching movies by myself. It's like all the nonverbal cues are spelled out for me without distractions and I feel like I have magical mindreading powers that are useless in real life because of the the other stimuli that competes for my attention. I absolutely hate watching emotionally charged movies with other people because I hate crying in front of other people. I can't stand unrequested physical contact from people when I'm crying and I prefer to be by myself. I am not wired to seek comfort from other people so I go without it rather than go through the stress of trying to get it. Also other people tend to invariably say things that make it worse despite their good intentions which makes me feel even more disgusted.