Emotion

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.

This article on research in. The area is interesting:

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

This article on research in. The area is interesting:

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