Emotion

I get this too, at the I feel the emotional response, it’s really intense. I call it my “Near Miss” feeling, it feels like it does when you very nearly reverse the car into a pillar or n the multi-storey car park. 
my usual response is to leave the situation that I am in, and run straight home. 
the next few hours are spent trying to work out what is going on, I’ve tried emotion charts and the like, but my response always feels exactly the same.

I then spend quite a bit of time lining stuff up to ease the racing thoughts. 

I can imagine - negative emotions cause stress. They should. It helps us recognise something is wrong and needs fixing. Stress in micro-amounts is meant to help keep us safe and help us grow. But when we lack tools, resources, education or help to overcome the problem, it essentially makes the stress worse. 

Stress which isn't paid attention or isn't resolved will eventually tax the body, just like stress can tax anything - a bridge, for example. Over time this produces further problems. 

Take on one thing at a time. I found that once I started changing my immediate environment and undergo actions of self-care (vitamins, minding health, a walk a day) this then began to give me space to focus on larger issues taxing my emotions. 

The more we invest in our soul, the better we expect from others and the better we also treat others. Afford yourself time to become more in tune with your own needs and desires. "What do you want?" This is a fantastic question that really helped me make some grounding change. I now want us all to be good to ourselves. Autistics have MUCH to offer society :) 

I like the word. Perhaps you can get it certified for general use?

Thank you 

This article on research in. The area is interesting:

www.autistica.org.uk/.../uncertainty-anxiety-sensory-sensitivities

Thanks for this response, this has given me plenty to look into further.

For me I have a bodily response to emotion. Often, negative emotions cause my Crohn's to flare up, which is a very real response (I won't go into detail), so it's involuntary which is why it causes me so many problems

This just reminded me of something from about 25 years ago before I thought I was autistic. I remember talking to friend about how sometimes I experience big changes in emotion for no apparent reason. I didn't know what it was so I invented a word for it - megametapathy.

Yes.

The inability to identify emotions is called Alexithymia. 

Due to our different Salience Network, we sense-perceive things with intensity as we don't dull out / filter the same as non-autistic or non-ADHD peers. So the world feels 'too real'.

But Autists have this added *bonus* of a difficulty with vocabulary -and so expanding one's internal dictionary can help. 

Emotions are the response to a logic formula which might add a belief or bias/perception or understanding of a thing to an action or impact. If I'm in the kitchen and it begins to rain, and I've had multiple instances where I've been unprepared for the rain and also grown up with parents who continue to tell me it's bad luck, I might subconsciously assign an unsatisfying judgement to the day which will trigger the response of an appropriate emotion. I might not recognise it, but the expression might come out in various ways such as suddenly making tea and deciding to binge watch gardening shows, suddenly having an 'urge' to avoid work related matters. 

Logic is simply the study of how humans Reason, how an argument or judgement or evaluation is created in the mind. If you can begin to ask yourself, what is happening around me, how am I impacted (a change in weather/barometer  might genuinely affect our heart rate or blood pressure for instance) and what I believe to be true or false about the situation, this will help.

Now, someone hitting us is another matter as it is a more simplistic impact. But everything requires context. A child hitting us doesn't tend to have a larger consequence and might actually create a sense of responsibly if they're in distress. A random stranger is a different matter. 

Hopefully this will help. I started thinking about this when young and taking a little symbolic logic at Uni greatly helped. But eventually learning that we can Create our Feelings with actions (deliberately investing time into someone or doing a thing for someone can ignite a deep concern for instance). I don't always notice mine, but I've learned to value self-care in practical ways, as much of my younger years were so muddled with frustration that compounded everything else. Learning to value being kind to the self helped me identify others who value kindness to their selves and others, which meant I could choose better friends and so on. We may not be able to ID our emotions, but putting rules and boundaries in place can mean we have far less complex ones overwhelming us.

Look into alexithymia.

I'm like Scarlett O'Hara in a wind tunnel.

I struggle with this as well and can't understand how to better cope with such intense feelings. I feel a wave of pressure, like it hits me like a thick wall. 

Hi JT,

For the identification, I know this sounds silly but I use my brain.. I analyse it.

My information comes from observing others and certain types of drama in films/shows and I use common sense to fill in the blanks.

Abit of trial and error and it works.

However I admit that it is not flawless and complicated emotions are way trickier to untangle, but I am hopeful that with time, added experience etc. I will be able to perfect my identification techniques to almost automatic!

As for this side...

JT said:

I feel emotion really intensely. I also absorb others' emotions intensely.

I used to be like that when I was younger, I HATED it and struggled with it for years until I managed to somehow stop it all together!

Hope you manage it ok!

Hi JT, I'd like to know this also. I get jumbled emotions too, and then have no idea what I'm feeling, let alone why. I've requested a GP appointment to discuss it. If there's anything useful from the appointment I will share it.