Do you have delayed emotional responses that 'appear' suddenly once 'switched on'?

[FlowerChild]

I've been wondering if this is an Autistic thing (I'm also alexithymic so it could be that too).
I find that often times, my emotions seem to be 'switched off' or put into 'maintenance mode'. For months, I will feel content, normal, average, and even when very emotionally charged things are happening around me, life seems good overall. It seems like I don't feel the emotional consequences of these significant events / occurrences at the appropriate time.

This is particularly so when the emotions are complex or not 'obvious' (i.e. I feel happy, content, irritated, etc. on a daily basis; but more complex emotions like 'nostalgia' 'homesickness' or 'heartbreak' seem to evade me on a daily basis, and then come in massive bursts later on). It seems like often, something overtly upsetting will happen, which provokes an intense emotional response to, say, 'obvious stimuli A', and then once my emotions 'switch on' I'll feel all the delayed reactions to 'complex Stimuli' B, C, D, E, and so on, all at the same time.

For example, in the last few months, I've reconnected with a former love interest after many years of distance--and while I was happy to catch up, I didn't have an overly intense emotional response at the time. I've also been struggling with watching my mother go through health challenges, and I've been very stressed at work. Despite all this, I've just plugged along feeling content overall, and really enjoying my life.

Then this morning, I had a bit of a let down after finding out that an event that I was going to attend was sold out. When I found out I burst into tears--just absolutely sobbing and hyperventilating. Suddenly I felt very sad about my (years old) heartbreak, worried about my mom, and sad that work has been so awful lately. All of these emotions just hit me at the same time, and I kept crying for hours. I even felt deep grief over the death of my grandmother, who passed 6 years ago now.

I didn't even know I'd been feeling some of these emotions, but they all fell one after another like dominoes. Now I just feel down and cried-out. But just like always, I'm sure that tomorrow I'll wake up and go back to normal. Does this happen to any of you too? Is this an Autistic thing; do neurotypicals sort of 'space out' their complex emotions and feel them on a daily basis?

 

[Nauti]

In a word - yes. It happens to me. Consistently. Always has.
I customarily, dissociate, and things build up and then, the dam breaks and sometimes, there's no fixing it and things don't go back to the way they were.

 

[Fino]

I can't answer the questions about other people, but this describes me exactly! I believe I'm alexithymic, as well, only having learned about it in the past few months, so maybe it is part of that, I don't know.

 

[Progster]

Yes, I tend to bottle emotions up, then something will happen that will trigger an outburst of emotion and I become overwhelmed. It's like I'm putting emotions on hold, saving them till later, except that I'm often not aware or the emotion at the time and exactly how things are affecting me. It's delayed processing - I don't process the emotion at the time it's happening, but later.

 

[Suzanne]

Yep, and comes pouring out when I am watching Korean Dramas or if I was not into those ( for I rarely go in for dramas), it will be something really insignificant and whoa, all the emotions come up.

But, I honestly do not think this is an aspie thing, because nts do exactly the same thing. Especially ones who put on hold their emotions, to live and then a trigger comes and they burst.

I also, like Progster, have delayed processing. It is like someone has pressed the pause button!

 

[Nervous Rex]

Absolutely. Say, for example, something happens that will make my wife and me angry. My wife is instantly angry, but cools down quickly. Then either she or I will mention that it will hit me later.

It seems like the stronger the emotional reaction, the longer it takes to come through.

There are sometimes when everyone else has reacted and is done and I'll think, "I wish I could be over it, too" - but I know I haven't even started.

 

[Monachopia]

I'm not sure if this is an autism thing? I don't have alexithymia as far as I'm aware or maybe only slightly?

But, what you describe has been happening to be for years. Periods of relative emotionlessness or desensitised encounters, no strong feelings either way to anything no matter how severe or complicated... then BOOM it all comes crashing down - nostalgia, homesickness, heartbreak, grief - everything that was suppressed comes to the surface and everything affects me badly. I always thought of it as a period of severe depression, as I have dysthymia (persistent/chronic mild depression) which can dip into more intense forms. I just attribute it to that.

I don't know if NTs have this type of thing... maybe in certain societies men are predisposed to develop these sorts of emotion suppression mechanisms that eventually erupt into anger as they are unable to process things properly. Everyone is different in how they cope with this, but I don't think what you've described is exclusive to ASD individuals, but maybe it's just more prevalent as quite a few of us don't know how to express emotion appropriately or haven't learned to in formative years, and therefore have learned not to display/process it at all until it becomes too much.

 

[the_tortoise]

It seems like often, something overtly upsetting will happen, which provokes an intense emotional response to, say, 'obvious stimuli A', and then once my emotions 'switch on' I'll feel all the delayed reactions to 'complex Stimuli' B, C, D, E, and so on, all at the same time.

I think this is fairly common, as once a person is an emotionally more vulnerable or unstable state, all other things (even things that one might have been able to cope with before, or could cope with otherwise) become more difficult......also, you can have emotional associations, where one thing that causes bad feelings reminds you of all the other things you've experienced that cause bad feelings.

Unless I'm not understanding at all?

 

[Jojo_LB]

I find that my emotions can go to only either of two extremes. I look and feel apathetic, or am an emotional wreck. With my stimulants, I am a little more balanced out now and am able to actually feel enthusiasm for stuff, but I still have to process them a lot longer than what most people would deem "typical" or "normal."

I think that's why I have those extremes. I don't "feel" anything at first, because I'm trying to sort myself out and it's really confusing and I think my brain is trying to avoid the sudden, intense emotional response. I withdraw, become almost non-verbal, I exhibit limited responses to things. Over some time, as I process them more and more, my emotions start shifting to the other extreme. I get melt downs, severely burnt out or I get very depressed for a couple of months.

This obviously happens with negative emotions. I almost never feel pure joy and happiness, so I don't even know how I'd process those.

 

[BraidedPony]

im alexithymic and just now learning how to deal with it and learning how it affects me and others.
i will get this vague sense that something isnt quite right which i am learning to stop and pay attention to. if i dont process this vague feeling, it ramps up into physical symptoms like nausea, pain or even hunger. if i dont address my feelings at this point....i am likely to "suddenly" panic over the tiniest thing and still not know why.
of course, this is not only distressing to me but very confusing to others im interracting with.
Alexithymia is very hard to describe and a challenge to deal with but im making improvements. the absense of emotions is painful, ironically.

 

[Aspychata]

Thank you for starting this thread. l am living in the "now", because then you have to process the emotions as they come up, it's like being at a sushi restaurant, and the sushi floats by on those boats around the tables. You have to feel that emotion as it floats by and acknowledge it, instead of a collection of emotional IOU's that claim you at the most inopportune moment.

 

[Jojo_LB]

Thank you for starting this thread. l am living in the "now", because then you have to process the emotions as they come up, it's like being at a sushi restaurant, and the sushi floats by on those boats around the tables. You have to feel that emotion as it floats by and acknowledge it, instead of a collection of emotional IOU's that claim you at the most inopportune moment.

You know what I found helpful to me when I started trying to practice this? Actually talking it out. I don't have to even talk to someone else about it, because, well, I'm usually alone. My husband isn't my therapist, and I only see my therapist every 1-2 weeks. I can just talk about it out loud. It's as if the action of talking about it out loud immediately releases it from within, and for some reason, it slightly eases the emotions, instead of it all coming at once in an unexpected, torturous blow. Kind of like playing my own therapist.

 

[Sab]

I can relate to this a lot. I tend to bottle up feelings and feel numb until I feel ALL THE FEELINGS at once and freak out about everything. I get anxious when things are happening and I’m not feeling anything about them because I know there are feelings somewhere but I can’t access them.

Often, watching movies can trigger the feelings and make them come out. Or writing about the things that are happening in my life, even if I’m not feeling anything in the moment, can sort of trigger the emotions and make me feel connected to them.

I try to intentionally connect with my body and emotions (by paying attention to my body or writing about what I’m going through) to sort of check in with myself so that things don’t bottle up as much. I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m sort of on auto-pilot and disconnected from myself to sort of catch me before I get overloaded with emotions that I’m not processing.

 

[Fino]

It seems that perhaps the case is that this problem is not directly related to alexithymia but that alexithymia exacerbates it or increases the likelihood of it happening. Just something I'm throwing out there based on the comments I've read.

For example, the idea of "checking in" to make sure you're not ignoring your emotions. Does anyone do something like that and find that they have no clue what the feeling being experience is called? Like there are no words to describe it, that it's just what you're feeling and how would it make sense to describe that, it's something you feel, and I don't what words would indicate whatever this is.

Or something like that?

CONFUSED DUCK

 

[Loren]

It seems that perhaps the case is that this problem is not directly related to alexithymia but that alexithymia exacerbates it or increases the likelihood of it happening. Just something I'm throwing out there based on the comments I've read.

For example, the idea of "checking in" to make sure you're not ignoring your emotions. Does anyone do something like that and find that they have no clue what the feeling being experience is called? Like there are no words to describe it, that it's just what you're feeling and how would it make sense to describe that, it's something you feel, and I don't what words would indicate whatever this is.

Or something like that?

CONFUSED DUCK

Yes, this happens to me, whereby, I feel deeply and intensely, however, I am, often, unable to put my feelings into words with ease, or, at all, for that matter.

This may be unrelated, but, when I experience positive emotions, they can become far, too intense, at times. Particularly, as the result of others expressions of kindness, compassion, generosity, love, and, this happens, particularly, when I witness these sentiments/gestures being directed towards others. It can touch my heart to an extreme, as if, only a fine line exists between profound goodness and pain.

 

[Fino]

Yes, this happens to me, whereby, I feel deeply and intensely, however, I am, often, unable to put my feelings into words with ease, or, at all, for that matter.

This may be unrelated, but, when I experience positive emotions, they can become far, too intense, at times. Particularly, as the result of others expressions of kindness, compassion, generosity, love, and, this happens, particularly, when I witness these sentiments/gestures being directed towards others. It can touch my heart to an extreme, as if, only a fine line exists between profound goodness and pain.

Such a wonderful description of what I've experienced, as well! Thank you!

There have been many times when someone has been so kind to me that I spend hours a day for days or weeks thinking, "They're so nice ARGHAHHGEeFKA" over and over.

 

[JDShredds]

There's only one way to put it: Yes.

 

[Nervous Rex]

Yes, I tend to bottle emotions up, then something will happen that will trigger an outburst of emotion and I become overwhelmed. It's like I'm putting emotions on hold, saving them till later, except that I'm often not aware or the emotion at the time and exactly how things are affecting me. It's delayed processing - I don't process the emotion at the time it's happening, but later.

I think bottling emotions up is different from delayed emotions.

There have been times when I deliberately suppressed emotions that I didn't want to feel - and they come back even stronger later. It's like emotions accrue interest until they're dealt with.

There have been many other times when everyone around me is reacting emotionally to some event and I'm left thinking, "What's wrong with me? Am I a psychopath because I'm not feeling the way they do?" I think that's the delayed emotions.

But I think autism makes both more frequent. One of the working theories behind autism is that the nerve connections between the amygdala (the center of our emotions) and the prefrontal cortex is weaker in autistic people. That could explain why emotions have a harder time getting through, and why they're easier to deliberately suppress.

 

[Fino]

I think bottling emotions up is different from delayed emotions.

There have been times when I deliberately suppressed emotions that I didn't want to feel - and they come back even stronger later. It's like emotions accrue interest until they're dealt with.

There have been many other times when everyone around me is reacting emotionally to some event and I'm left thinking, "What's wrong with me? Am I a psychopath because I'm not feeling the way they do?" I think that's the delayed emotions.

But I think autism makes both more frequent. One of the working theories behind autism is that the nerve connections between the amygdala (the center of our emotions) and the prefrontal cortex is weaker in autistic people. That could explain why emotions have a harder time getting through, and why they're easier to deliberately suppress.

Yes! I did have a feeling that people were describing two different things, but I wasn't sure of anything beyond that.

 

[Nervous Rex]

Whoa. I just found this article, which shows that, as NTs age, the number of neurons in the amygdala increase. But in ASD people, the number of neurons decreases.

Anxiety, the Amygdala, and Autism | Interactive Autism Network

From that link:

To me, this looks like an explanation for why some of my symptoms seem to change with age.