Chart emotions

[Podg]

Hi. I am diagnosed as of Monday at age 38. My main obstacle is expressing emotions without realizing I even have them, not even feeling them. Essentially I have chocolate all over my face, but I'm telling everyone I didn't eat chocolate. HAS ANYONE TRIED CHARTING THEIR EMOTIONS? What's a good way to do this? Any workbooks on this? Any suggested resources are great. I have managed decent jobs in publishing, and off and on relationships. As much as I love uphill battles, I'd like to start living a more steady/stable life. I've read a lot of your posts. thanks so much for every letter entered at this site.

 

[King_Oni]

I did for a while try to map out how I felt throughout the day for months on a spreadsheet in excel. But instead of naming emotions, I just graded from 1 to 10 how I felt at periods during the day

But really, if you have to force yourself to attribute values every 6 hours of a day and perhaps even write a note if there's anything noteworthy going on at that time. It felt way too much like work and it made me a bit compulsive at the end. I did manage to do so for about 3 to 4 months (september till december a few years back; actually because it came up on this forum sometime).

I did get a fair amount of interesting data from it though. For me it became clear my mood increases as winter approaches (yeah, cue the GoT jokes) and in general I felt a lot happier in the evening and night. I felt a lot worse when I actually slept "a lot" and so on. While it might not be the most workable thing in terms of adult responsibilities and employment, it did give me some insight what makes me tick.

 

[zurb]

Hi and welcome to AC.
Are there any emotions in particular that catch you out? For example, Aspies are commonly accused of frowning or being angry when its not what they feel.

 

[AsheSkyler]

This stuff maybe?
http://www.freeprintablebehaviorcharts.com/feeling_charts.htm
http://findingauthentichappiness.com/list-of-emotions.html
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/adhd/2010/04/learning-how-to-identify-emotions-at-all-ages/

I wish the second one had a place for "dang tired". A psychiatrist would probably try to make me express it as Victim, Anger, Pain, or something in the Unhappiness Domain. But when I'm dang tired, those emotions cost too much energy to have. And I'm sure as heck not Dying! There is a hole in that scale regardless of what they say.

My daily chart would read "tired, tired, tired, dang tired, worn out, annoyed, tired, really annoyed, tired, hurting, headache, mad, kick the kid out of the room until headache goes away, tired, headache, why does husband always watch TV at 25+ volume?, really crabby".

 

[Podg]

My expressions run the gamut from laughing at inappropriate times, to having an upset looking face, to fear, to excitement. I used to always say "that's not how I feel" when called on it. Because it is never how I feel. Now I know it is how I feel and all of those people for the last 38 years were not crazy. Now I have chocolate and egg on my face.

 

[Podg]

Thank you for relating and thanks for the websites.

Would be friends start to keep me at arms length in about four months. I have either shown odd behavior over four months and it compounded or I I get comfortable with the person my true self shines through.

My face and tone slip when I'm talking about an exciting topic in a comfortable environment, or I'm caught off guard with something.