I want to experience the 'emotion' of authenticness again. The void of soullessness has made my default emotion sadness. This world is so anti-telic and antithetical.
I have fought back tears my whole life. I will only cry in private. It is a difficult thing to suppress, and it has taken a toll on me. I now have a constant tension in my throat -- that lump one feels when tears are dammed up. In a world that does its best to trample on and stomp out innocence, being an extremely sensitive child was much more difficult than I was aware of. I look back and feel so bad for the child that I was. How we have all been forced to adapt to a rotten world.... Also, you are very insightful. That's a gift.
I was ridiculed and bullied by my mom and brothers anytime I would cry. So I learned to get angry instead. At least in my house anger wasn't mocked as being "weak". It took me my entire adult life trying to undo it.
I have done the same thing as you, mainly because in my secondary school years a teacher mentioned I was weak for crying. That and in my culture, showing emotion is a sign of weakness.
There's a line in Legally Blonde, where Luke Wilson says, "That teacher made me cry once. I held it in until I got back to my place, though. I didn't cry in class." In graduate school, the sheer meanness of people--their shittiness to each other--would make me cry, but I would wait to get back to my apartment. It felt terrible that no one seemed to even notice how awful all this behavior was. Where I finally realized that NO--they are crazy, not me--was when one of the horrible teachers was brutally beaten up, and ended up losing teeth and having his mouth wired shut. Everyone in the department was gloating over it. The level of hate at that institution was incredible. I transferred. As a child, I don't think I ever cried. It wasn't allowed.
At the start of October 2019 I'd lived in a room in Canada 9 years and a month. The landlord gave me one month's notice to leave, since they were leaving the house. By surprise. There was no place to go. Renters kept going "get into a retirement home, we only rent to youth and students" but those had a waiting list at least a year long. My clinical depression hit an all time bottoming-out. Surely I cried, that's normal, but it was past crying. It was inevitable homelessness. There was no way I could even pack, for where? I had no choice but to pray with my higher power with all I had and was. Somehow I spoke to my Disability worker explaining "on November first I will just leave the room, find a hiding place where no one will find me and just die there of hunger and thirst." You see, I can't handle society so no way can I handle the streets. Never had my depression crashed that low before. My Disability worker phoned me that I had an appointment in a goverment office for help, so I went to it. It was some important lady who I told all my truth to. Then I just looked out her window at the city. There was a silence then she said "we can't have that!" I was visited by a young worker from a deprtment called "Access." She heard me out. Her job was to find places for such as me to live. Then she simply said "I'm going to work my butt off for you Ed." And she left. Together we saw two bad places. Then she visited this subsidized apartment block, and the wonderful caretaker woman said she'd "squeeze me in" ahead of the waiting list. I pay less here for a bachelor studio than for my 10'x10' room. There's the odd bugs, but I don't have to die. The deposit was the month's little rent. Apparently Disability workers can be useful. I am praying for you and your co-renter like there's no tomorrow... 🧡
You're talking a lot about difficulties in processing emotions. I've often been told to let things go--that I am still hung up on things from childhood. I had a teacher once who really screwed me over, and I absolutely hated him for years. I finally got over it. When I think of him, nothing much comes up. This is healthy, because it means that I have finally gotten over it. It just took a really, really long time. Hatred and desire for revenge have been particularly difficult for me to let go of. I'm definitely better at that than I used to be, because I discipline myself not to indulge in it--not to stir it up.
I can’t think of a single scenario where saying to someone, “stop crying,” wouldn’t be rude. I’m sorry you’ve heard that so many times in your life. It’s definitely a them issue, not a you issue. I’ve definitely asked, “why are you crying,” if I don’t get what’s going on or why someone would be upset, but from a place of curiosity, not to belittle someone. Lots of people don’t know what to do with other people emotions, that doesn’t mean that you’re expressing your emotions wrong.
When I was a child and teenager, I had a similar experience to what you are describing. People didn't care about how terrible I felt and would say things like, "Well, we all have to do things we don't want to do," or, "You will do X and Y regardless of your all-consuming sadness and stress." These comments were really unhelpful when I perpetually had no emotional or physical energy to deal with my emotions or the tasks.
I feel like my struggle with sadness is in the moment, when something sad or upsetting happens, I've noticed I shut down, and almost seem apathetic about it, or depending on the situation, I just shove my true feelings down when I'm upset with someone and just get too agreeable and apologetic to "keep the peace," only to regret it later on, over and over. It's later at night when no one's around, a lot of things that upset me earlier in the day come back to haunt me and I can't stop crying. sometimes I feel upset with myself that I couldn't express those feelings in the moment, I simply can't process everything till later.
Sadness is a constant for me. I will start crying at work, cooking dinner, driving somewhere, out of the blue sometimes which is probably a delayed reaction. Someone saying something hurtful won't affect me straight away, but a day or two later it would hit me.
I feel like it would be interesting to talk about shame and/or embarrassment, because those emotions are heavily related to the experience of trying to mask (whether or not one is successful) and growing up autistic.
"The Ma'am, The Myth, The Legend" Always the best topics covered accurately. Thank you much; Dana. Keep it going full steam. ✌🏼 😢 👋🏼. Remember everyone; sadness can be quite a healthy and healing emotion. That power ballad "Fix You" by Coldplay gets me every time it plays.
Relatable (and timely - this video popped into my feed as I was listening to a dark ambient track called, "The Slow Agony of Solitude", which I think is how I process a lot of my emotions as an autistic person i.e. immersively and in isolation.) After decades of on-again/off-again pharmaceutical and talk therapy for depression (all of which came before my late diagnosis for autism), I finally quit antidepressants altogether a few years ago because I was tired of the disconnect between my sense of my life and my sense of my thoughts; it felt like I was looking at my feelings without ever really processing them. Now I really have to question if autistic emotion ought to be categorized in the same way as neurotypical emotion, because while we may be easily overwhelmed and inundated by our emotions when they occur, as you noted they are very immediate and context-dependent, therefore once they pass they tend to stay past (presuming that they've been fully processed; I think unresolved issues may maintain their related emotional elements until they're dealt with), which is to say that I don't think "depression" as a neurotypical disorder applies to autistic experience. We can't switch them back on once we're done with whatever caused them, and so we don't ruminate the same way. (Incidentally, I'm impressed by the sensitivity of whatever microphone you're using, it captures a lot more spatial depth and resonance than I'd have expected!)
I definitely relate to this I think it's like a combination of alexithymia and lack of imagination I'm in one situation right now but I can't imagine feeling better about it but then once it's over I just have neutral feelings about it
Oh this comment hit, you are so on the money!! I’ve always been told I have such a big imagination, which is true when it comes to writing fiction, but when it comes to social imagination, I really can’t imagine much but whatever I’m living through.
I been sad and miserable for so long that I don't actually know what happiness feels like. I feel so lonely at times. I wish there was someone special in my life. The trouble is I am so lonely that when someone comes into my life I end up driving them away because I am so clingy and needy because I don't want to be alone. It is at the point that I don't even bother looking for someone because I know I will end up being disappointed and back at square one. I feel like no one wants me. I lost my dad last year and I am still grieving.
Firstly, thank you for letting us share in your journey through life. Your honest, articulate and intelligent words will strike a chord with anyone who has lived with undiagnosed ASD. Depression, anxiety, mood swings, are merely symptoms of the core condition. To diagnose one set of symptoms without acknowledging the root cause is sheer sloppiness on the part of the system. It simply leads to a series of blind alleys and time-wasting. Some people may ask: is it worth all the suffering just to obtain a medical "label?" I would say Yes! Only when you know your true self, autistic or not, can you start working towards your potential and become your own true friend.
I'm not sure if it's an emotion per-se but nostalgia has always been.. a struggle?? for me. Something like that. I feel like I'm never living in the moment lol
Ello 😀 its good to cry and i wish that I could but the only time I do is when I burn out and crash. Instead of crying my sadness manifests as a crippling physical state lasting for weeks. When i look back at the past its with almost a cold manner, 'yeah that happened but that's the past, lets get back on with today'. I've spent so much of my life masking I've lost touch with myself along the way. Thanks for opening up a new train of thought for me. 👍
I identify with a lot of what you're saying. I've been accused of being emotionally manipulative because I can't stop myself from crying. I think the fact that I have emotions has been very inconvenient for a lot of people.
It does seem like people can ignore sadness to a pretty high extent. And not just pretending not to be sad, but turning some causes of sadness off, kinda. I don't really get it. I mean, I can't recall emotions themselves, I can recall what happened and feel the emotion again, but it's caused _by_ the memory, I can't just make it appear on it's own.
If you had any thoughts or stories to share regarding CONFUSION then I'd be interested to hear you speak about it. I know it's not technically an emotion, and I don't know if there is anything to really elaborate on regarding the autistic experience with it, but it's a state of being I think many of us share and could maybe talk about.
could it be, that you very much live in the present? So you feel the emotions of the present but then are focused on the new present after time has passed and you processed the emotion?
Hi! I've just discovered your content and wanted to ask you and your community this: do you also get stuck in emotions longer than other people? For example, if I'm sad, nervous or angry, it doesn't matter if the problem is fixed or if I had a conversation over my emotions or proposed solutions to the conflict: I still need extra time to stop feeling that way. When me and my partner fall out, we talk through things and he's allright almost immediately after that, but I will still need 30 minutes or an hour to leave that emotion and be ok.
Same here! I usually physically separate myself and go do housework while listening to a comedy podcast to try to bring myself out of it ASAP, but it always takes a little while.
We need to realize that we process emotions differently and that is ok. Your not just a broken NT and shouldn't use the NT emotional tropes as a guide.
Not saying that the rest isn't true, but (1) they seem to want to hide the symptom of the sadness without addressing the sadness, (2) are implying that they don't trust you to be authentic when you're probably the most authentic person in the room. Or they might be just regurgitating a cliche without thinking about it much, which they can hopefully avoid the next time.
ABA or Applied Behavioral Analysis is a "therapy" which essentially teaches autistic people how to camouflage and pose at being as similar to neurotypical as possible, regardless of the harm it is known to cause. There's much more to it than just that but this is the gist.
