Suppressing emotions

[Sherlock77]

Yep. I'm Team 'Suppress and Restrain'. However, lately I haven't been able to keep the gates locked, and now my emotions have taken over. This is a cautionary tale of what happens when you constantly try to keep it together, eventually you'll fall apart. I'd advice checking in once in awhile with yourselves, and letting go for a bit, the alternative sucks.

Point taken, a real struggle of mine

 

[Streetwise]

That's interesting. Were your parents Brits by any chance? Mine always thought Americans were too openly emotional. But I think that's a cultural difference.
I was certainly not encouraged to show emotion and my father was very disparaging of his brother who got a bit teary when their mother returned to England after a visit.

But I think my own suppression as an adult comes more from feeling like I am much more myself when emotional and therefore not able to keep the mask in place.
As a consequence most people saw me as hard and strong, when in reality I was the opposite. I guess that's also part of it. Not wanting to be seen as weak.

I'm interested to see if others have similar experiences and whether this contributes to the perception of us being cold and aloof. I mean there are definitely times when I am expected to show sympathy etc. when I just don't really feel anything which seems to be part of being Aspie. But that is because it is happening to someone else and I can't connect to that.
However certain things trigger really strong emotions in me like anger, hurt, defensiveness and these are the ones I struggle to control. Does that make sense?

I think personally ,I've said it before, we stayed in the infant stage with emotions ,so we feel emotions but we don't have the empathy to show emotions, we have empathy just not the ability to show it .
Think of an infant, all it can really do is inform through pain what it needs, that is all it can do at that time.

 

[Fitzo]

My mother is ethnically British, my father not; but this is about a total environment, not just at home. Everyone punished me for having emotions. I don't really know anything else.

My father only had one emotion himself: anger. He's gotten milder since retirement, but it's still a bit of an issue.

I can relate. My father mostly only showed anger as well. Do you think it's possible he might be on the spectrum too?

 

[ksheehan88]

I try but I am terrible at concealing how I feel. I'm told its very obvious through my facial expressions and tone of voice what kind of mood I'm in.

 

[VioletHaze_03]

i really wish i knew how to mask my emotions, but a lot of the time they are just too extreme to supress. when i was little, i would bawl every time i was sent to the office, it didn't matter how bad whatever i did was. i'd also have incidents where i got uncontrollably angry, to the point that i would verbally lash out at teachers and other kids. last year i had an incident where i walked away from a teacher when they were still talking, because i was just too angry to do anything else. occasionally i can supress my emotions, but most of the time i have no control. usually i just try to stay monotone and trick myself into thinking i don't feel anything.

 

[Flinty]

I can relate. My father mostly only showed anger as well. Do you think it's possible he might be on the spectrum too?

It's a long shot, but possible. Maybe a 10% chance.

 

[DCA]

Ugh emotions! Yes, I'm an emotion suppressor. When my previous GF broke up with me my ability to suppress broke down completely & lost it for months. This was very embarrassing for me & I feel shame for it. I also feel that when I do have an emotional response, I just "feel" more powerfully than perhaps others.

My emotional "mask" was such that in High School my fellow students thought I was an drugs. Which I find amusing since I never touched the stuff...

 

[Reu]

I was posting on another thread earlier about how when I get emotional I can't hide it and essentially just react to those emotions.
Which made me reflect that I have spent most of my life deliberately suppressing my emotions because I feel like I'm out of control when my emotions come up. I remember someone once expressing amazement that I actually cried!

So then it occurred to me that maybe others do the same thing and that could be why people think we're aloof and lacking empathy/sympathy.

Since discovering AS I am more and more convinced my father also had it.
He was British and I always thought he was just doing the 'stiff upper lip' thing that a lot of men, especially Brits, of that generation did. I think there's an element of that, but the more I think about it, I believe he was constantly battling to suppress his emotions because he felt vulnerable and out of control if they got the better of him.

I always thought he was just a cold fish, but as he got older and I understood him better I realized he was actually far more emotional than my mother.

I would be interested to hear others' thoughts on this.

I’ve always felt like I had to suppress my emotions. I don’t really know why. Even the more positive emotions like being happy about something. It’s always hard on my birthday because I receive a gift and I feel like I can’t express my happiness in receiving it. I end up explaining why I like the gift instead of just being happy about it.

I feel like people look at me weird when I express emotion. Like I’m doing it wrong.

I also tend to over do it when I finally do express emotions. Especially sadness or anger. Sometimes it feels like I just can’t get it right.