Emotions - delayed processing!

Has anyone else noticed that they process emotions differently than neurotypicals seem to? I find that emotions take longer to sink in, my reactions are slow and delayed. This applies for good and bad things - I just don't feel things for a while, then it might hit me out of the blue - or not at all.

One of the things that I really dislike is being asked how I feel - cringe! I don't always know, so when someone asks I'm scrambling to figure it out quickly, or I just make something up that sounds plausible. ;)

Anyone else have similar experiences?

Dawn over 2 years ago

Alexithymia - our lesser or absence of ability to detect our emotions, arsing from problems with our interoception; we can't read the body's signals well which would alert us to emotions. Many, many autistic people experience this.

I do know what I am feeling, or perhaps was feeling, because I compensate intellectually. I work out the context, events, reasonable responses, other's reactions. I get there, but there is a lag because I am not getting all of the information from my anatomy that others would.

In fact, not long after I realised I could be autistic I really noticed something in my conversations with my best friend. She hadn't noticed over our two decades of friendship, but recognised it as soon as I mentioned it and realised it was true. She is NT.

If she is upset or I ask her how she feels, she will start with a description of her feelings, then tells me what she thinks. At that point I scratch my head a bit and ask 'what happened?'. As she gives me that detail, I start to understand why she is feeling that way.

If I am upset or she asks me how I am feeling, I automatically start by telling her what happened, I then moved to what I think as a consequence. At that point, she will say: 'so, do you feel x?' Often she is right, but it has taken me those few minutes to catch up with her and define the feeling.

So, you are no way alone in this.