fabricated emotions

Hey,

Something I've noticed more recently is how fabricated my emotions feel. Although I'm coming out of a burnout, I feel as if for the longest time, I've not had the emotional response to the things that should have an emotional response. Something I've noticed is that I feel I have to be feel more of an emotion than I actually do.

I've had things that I've done that people would say 'wow'!, but I feel as if I have to create an emotional response that corresponds to being happy, because I don't feel that way. Or people have strong opinions about things in politics or socially, and I want to be able to feel as passionate about that, but I don't feel that unless I fabricate an emotion to feel that way, and that's not real.

However, only after coming out of this burnout, I'm hoping I can allow myself to feel emotions more and take my time with them than force how I feel on something. Anyone relate?

Parents
  • Depression stops you having emotions, as does trauma and burnout. I had all three in Jan and I could feel little. I was numb.

    It is also possible in autism to not be closely in touch with emotions generally. So normal level emotions don't register. It is only strong ones that do.

    I read negative emotions are stronger than positive ones, I am not sure if this is true but it makes some sense. E.g. if you are enjoying some honey and a tiger comes up, fear and running away have to be above the desire to eat more honey and get killed.

    You tend to have stronger views about things you understand, are interested in,  or know lots about. If you don't take an interest in politics or understand it you will not have any passion for it.

Reply
  • Depression stops you having emotions, as does trauma and burnout. I had all three in Jan and I could feel little. I was numb.

    It is also possible in autism to not be closely in touch with emotions generally. So normal level emotions don't register. It is only strong ones that do.

    I read negative emotions are stronger than positive ones, I am not sure if this is true but it makes some sense. E.g. if you are enjoying some honey and a tiger comes up, fear and running away have to be above the desire to eat more honey and get killed.

    You tend to have stronger views about things you understand, are interested in,  or know lots about. If you don't take an interest in politics or understand it you will not have any passion for it.

Children
  • thank you for this reply, sorry I've replied so late. It's mainly the strong negative emotions that I feel. Any of the strong positive emotions I feel I somewhat suppress more heavily. I can come across as chill and non-chalant, but this is definitely not the case. I think I have a conversation with someone and it is my objective to find out what they like and try to relate in their area as much as possible. I do more listening, and then I often feel afterwards that 'I need to know more about that thing so I can relate to them more in the next convo'. It's exhausting. Did you get out of your depression, and/or do you feel your emotions now, or feel them more or less than in Jan?