ASD and not being able to read people but being able to 'feel' them

Hi

I am new to this.  I am nearly 43 and I am awaiting formal diagnosis.  I know whatever they say that I am HFA - ASD.  I know it like I know night and day.  Under the old way of diagnosis I suspect they would call me Aspergers.

So I'm working myself out.  This forum is helping me to articulate and explain things that I couldn't before.

So there is this thing and I can't articulate or name it but I'll describe it and please tell me if anyone else identifies or if it has a name?

When I meet new people or indeed find myself in the room with anyone.  I can 'feel' them.  I'm rubbish at working out people by what they are saying or doing or the way that they look but when I meet someone I can describe who they emotionally in relation to me almost straight away.

Some people make me feel "undiluted good".  I like to be around these people.

Some people make me feel "neutral" I am not decided - they are not bad or good, the signal is blank.

Some people i get a bad feeling from and I want to remove myself from those people.

Occasionally some people make every hair stand on end on my back and I sense that there is something very wrong with them.

I often see that people are not very nice but it isn't because they 'feel bad' to me, it's something else.  Then it's that they are not 'bad' but maybe just don't like me.

Anyway so it's not about reading facial expressions, not about reading body language, or decipering what people are saying because I am not good at that.

It's more like a 'sense' I get, a feeling or energy and I could describe it with every person I meet after a short time.  They don't need to say or do very much.

I suppose it's a bit like being an empath, I don't know as yet.  I am struggling to properly explain it.  Empath doesn't sound quite right either.

Can anyone else identify with this?

Thanks.

  • Can anyone else identify with this?

    Yes. ("Energy" and "Auras".)

  • 100% ~ this is my language. Welcome to my world Blush ~ of course it’s you’re world too. No, you’re not an empath. Like me, you simply vibrate at a different frequency to most people. With practice, you get better and better at reading both yourself and others, with greater confidence and accute accuracy. 

    I attend regular silent meditation retreats which puts me in my element as I communicate much clearer when there is no verbal or physical communication involved, you don’t even look at people at the retreats (they’re not retreats, I just can’t think of another word), but they’re like heaven to me :-) 

  • I'll look out for it, add it to my growing list of books on Asperger's (Once I started talking to people on here I realised there IS a lot of information out there - why don't the diagnostic services direct us to these?).

    To be honest, the way I've heard NT social interactions described sounds more psychic or supernatural than anything mentioned on this thread - which all sounds fairly evident to me! 

  • Yes, yes, yes and Yes!

    So now you’ve articulated another phenomenon!

    None of that processing is done in the higher conscious level of the brain.  It’s not psychic though lol

    i did an official IQ test recently but I explained to the EP that some of the hardest questions I answered I just “felt” were correct (and they were correct) but I couldn’t have told him why. I just “knew”.

    just like I “know” when ppl are bad.

    This is kind of the same thing. The processing depth is different, lower, deeper in the brain.

    Im reading this fantastic book called “Am I Autistic” A guide to Autism & Aspergers.  This book tells you the stuff that isn’t widely defined as being a “disorder” by NT doctors.

    highly recommend Slight smile

  • I heard a 'sort of' , 'almost' explanation of it from the person who assessed me for my Asperger's diagnosis. She said that 'we' (Asperger's) not only tend to have higher (or at least above average) intelligence but that this intelligence is predominantly logic-based.

    Where we (may) fail on social cues and 'inate' NT responses, we apparently 'logic' our way around it.

    We logically analyse and deduce every single aspect of any interaction (often instinctively but not effortlessly) so we may not exactly be aware of the minutiae of ourselves doing it all but we are most definitely aware that it IS exhausting. 

    These things, for NT's, are apparently like (or are) the type of brain-use that we use to make a cup of tea. We don't 'think' about it, we instinctively know where the kettle switch is, where the teaspoons are kept, where the bin is to ping the teabag into and we can carry on a conversation about our teenagers Maths homework while we're doing it because we're using something like autopilot to make the tea - no brain-work required.That's how NT's navigate social situations apparently.

    For us, she said (and I think I agree), navigating social situations are like Maths homework EVERY time (although I think perhaps not with very close family members????). We have no 'autopilot' for social interactions and we've always used our logic to do it, piece by piece and gathering evidence to find proof like we do for a Maths equation. No wonder it's bloody exhausting!! I hate Maths!!! 

    She went on to explain that it's that overworked brain 'program' that eventually begins to burn itself out and that this is a contributing factor as to why so many of us are hitting a wall in later life - our logic-program is overworked and begins to glitch. It's just too tiring to keep it up all the time. We (almost literally) need to re-boot or power-down or whatever it is called when your computer overheats and just dies temporarily. That's what I've been doing for three years now and I'm just coming out of it now, slowly but surely. 

    It made sense to me anyway as it resonated with how I'd actually been feeling.   

        

  • Yes !!! It is like overload!!  Too many people give me too many signals!! Gosh yes I agree totally.  You have totally hit it on the head.  People lie or at least NT people do, with the things they say, with facial expressions and it confuses me but if I ignore all of that 'noise' I can 'feel' them.  Now I just use the 'feeling' and each feeling I can describe.  So earlier I was describing a group of people I met using this ability and this is what I said:

    "Another part of my ASD is my emotional perception of people which is not about body language.  I 'sense' people straight away without them speaking.  For example when I met with person A, person B, person C and the maths tutor.  I got a good vibe off of the maths tutor.  I get neutral (undecided) from person A and I got a not so nice a feeling from person B.  I also don't get good feelings from person C.  They don't make my hair stand on end and scream "psycho' like for example one of the professionals I came into contact with recently but there is negative energy.  Anyway my feeling with person C is not a completely nice feeling, there is something.  I get a very good feeling from you and I always have, it's clear undiluted good.  My empathic ability is very finely tuned, people don't even need to speak to me"

    I have to kind of 'listen' but emotionally and it's not conscious.  It just comes.

  • I think I know what you mean, I get something like it. In my younger years I even wondered if it was a sort of sixth-sense thing but I don't believe in things like that. I don't know what to call it really, Vibes? Auras? (I don't see colours or anything like that!)

    Over the years I just wonder if it's just me 'reading' people. All of the little things that apparently NT's do subconsciously and effortlessly, I am perfectly aware of myself 'reading' these things. Body posture, gestures, tone and inflection in their voice, small ticks and 'tells', these are all obvious to me but whenever I've mentioned them over the years nobody else seems to have noticed them. 

    I think maybe it's what I do because I don't (or can't?) read eyes. Contrary to popular Aspie lore, I wonder if I can in fact read facial expressions but the problem is that they lie!! 

    People's 'tells', 'ticks', and body language etc that I mentioned above, they all say A.

    People's facial expressions say B.

    Usually their words agree with B but in my experience their words hardly ever agree with A.

    It's only later, when I hear what actions the person has taken as a result of our social interaction, that I often find it relates more to A than what they wanted me to think with their words and facial expressions. Not ALWAYS, but enough to know that it's a pretty good idea to trust what I 'read' from people more than what they say or express facially. 

    I think that's why I find people exhausting tbh. Reading people is something I 'do', it's active and self-directed and it's hard-work (especially in groups) because there's SO MUCH going on all at once. When you add in the confusing mismatch between all of that and their actual words and facial expressions - it's just too much effort sometimes. 

  • Yes, I know what you mean.  I don't know it's like I can feel an aura if that makes sense.  Like, I've got cats, none of them can speak but yet each one has a different personality and a different feeling about their character.

    Well it's like I get this exact same thing but with 'people'.

    I think that 's the best way I can describe it but it might not mean much to anyone if they don't have animals or know animals.

  • I sometimes get this around people, at least the bad feeling part, and it's usually accurate. But I'm not sure if that's because they've detected that I feel uncomfortable near them, because that could be the reason we don't get along, if they respond to it.

    I more often get good or bad feelings in a particular location, and it isn't always to do with what the place looks like. There's a perfectly ordinary and pleasant looking street just a short distance from where I live, and it feels like fingernails scraping down a blackboard to stand there. No way could I live in one of those houses, but I don't know why.

  • hi, probably I'll not answer your question, but this what's me on questioning makes confusing most, when they asked me > Can  your read peoples faces and emotions. Reading for me is reading a book, or text on the screen, and I wasn't sure how to answer at that moment, probably I said hardly, because I have to imagined someones frozen and confused  face at that moment without clear emotion on it, later I've realized damn I can feel peoples and how they feeling, from how they walking, from what tone is the voice, especial when someone not honest with you and trying to manipulate, an than realized that's what's mostly causing my anxiety. That question should be changed in to > can you recognize which people are sad, happy, anxious .. and to add several pictures with emotional people images.