4 ms·

Since she didn't seek out a diagnosis, her actual pathology is still up in the air and I personally don't think autism is a good fit. The fact of the matter is,

Since she didn't seek out a diagnosis, her actual pathology is still up in the air and I personally don't think autism is a good fit. The fact of the matter is, empathy can be a hard thing to develop, and I think many people's upbringings can cause it to not fully develop even into adulthood. I remember at one point sometime around the age of 20 I felt like there was something I was missing. I've always had a pretty good intuition and my intuition led me to explore a lot of really really sad anime. The exposure to so much tragedy seemed to kick-start my emotional processing system and I was able to interact with people a lot more authentically after that. 15 years later, I can now recognize the signs of an immature emotional processing center in others and I absolutely see them in her. It's a hard cross to bear, instead of just feeling things, you have to think your way into feeling them. Your 'range' is limited to a small spectrum. It doesn't affect the ability to function, there's nothing 'really' wrong with you, your emotional system does work. It's just that everything's, well, blunted. Once I got my emotional center processing again, I started to recognize feelings that I had had in the past, but didn't recognize. It's a strange thing thinking back to your childhood and realizing you were feeling things that you didn't understand that you were feeling. Not entirely sure how common it is, but I do run across immature emotional processing very often. Now that I've had this opportunity to think about it more, it's like the cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the emotional part. So much of your emotions never really reach conscious awareness. If you see a lot of really ugly, senseless, or violent crap as a kid, I think you're prone to this kind of disconnection. Then by the time you're an adult, it almost ossifies. You can work on it, but you have to be motivated to somehow.

mockingbirdy 8y ago
> it's like the cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the emotional part I have this problem. Most of the time I call it autism for convenience although I know it isn't accurate. Deficient/Immature emotional processing is a better phrase that is more accurate. I think that development issues in the psyche can lead to delays in areas like emotional processing and theory of mind. Oftentimes I have to simulate emotions because I don't feel them in myself and others. The good thing is that I've become very good at analyzing people and their motivations using knowledge of psychology - it's all conscious. I can understand people better on a rational level because my explanations incorporate negative thoughts people may have about themselves without realizing them (negative unconscious thoughts - mostly fear and anxiety). But I have to allow myself explicitly to feel something because my emotional regulation is very high - I think this stems from fear. There's a wish to control social situations to feel safe. Maybe individuals who have this problem had negative social experiences because their perceptions were off in such situations and they realized that their assessments were wrong which lead to a deficit in self-esteem. To an untrained eye, this may look like autistic behavior, but it's mostly based on anxiety and a deficit in emotional processing. It's possible to overcome that, but I have to admit that it has positive effects: I don't get emotional easily, I can control social situations and I don't feel fear or embarrassment. Feeling is a choice and having empathy feels like a tool. Sounds sociopathic to me (autistic people also have sociopathic symptoms), so I don't really wish this to anybody.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  Seems like textbook example from Pieter Hintjens' The Psychopath Code. [1] [1] http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths
  - mockingbirdy 8y ago
    I've read that book and disagree. I don't have a limited set of emotions, I just have a better emotional regulation system because emotions are blunted. Emotions exist in me (I'm not a robot or a predator) and I can extract the information they contain to inform my decisions, but I'm mostly unaffected by them. I don't use this trait to destroy people - I think this is what only weak sociopaths do that are not content with themselves - I use it to be more successful and manage people properly (I'm an empathetic leader) and to be more assertive in negotiations. I read the word psychopath with a negative connotation i.e. a ruthless person who doesn't feel remorse. I agree, I mostly don't feel remorse, but I'm not doing the things many people think sociopaths/psychopaths do (like attacking people on a psychological basis, destroy lives, ...). I'm a good person and I think many sociopaths are - it depends on the values and on the motivation to hold those values up (although I agree that they feel optional. I'm not bound to societal expectations). If you read about Hannah Arendt you can see that "normal" people are capable of evil things. I think circumstances are in most cases more important than defining brain-damaged psychopaths as the root of all evil. People kill and feel joy in the right circumstances. Sociopaths are more open about the dark nature of human beings.
    - mockingbirdy 8y ago
      And there are these people: > I have killed animals (as a child). Whenever there was a stray animal in my alleyway (cats or dogs usually) I would pick it up and leave it in my trashcan by the side of the house until it got dark. Whenever my parents were asleep, I'd sneak out and take the animal out of the can to torture it. Sometimes I kicked it to death and other times I would suffocate it. This was my main source of entertainment since I didn't have many other things to do. from [1]. Run if you see people like this, their moral compass is not aligned. Sociopathy is very likely a spectrum disorder like autism. - - - > Sociopaths have the neural map of a neurotypical person in an fMRI machine, they are not lacking in, nor do they have differences in the brain that are apparent as psychopaths do, they have the grey matter necessary to experience what empathy is. Here is the massive difference from neurotypical responses, from sociopathic ones. > When the sociopathy is formed, the person experiencing whatever the causative agent is tends to shut off their access to the emotions like affection, desire for attention, empathy, anything that would make them outwardly dependent and turn insularly. While the pathways are still there, they are no longer used. > In that regard they probably had a heavier pruning to the bonding section of the brain. That guy here [2] theorizes about the causes and neurological aspects of sociopathy. And I would like to clarify that my own self-diagnosis and your reference to "The Psychopath Code" is not a reliable source of information for a diagnosis. There is however a standardized test for psychopathy (do it at [3]) for self-reports. Some of my business friends score very high on this test. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/casualiama/comments/2bk2ra/i_was_recently_diagnosed_as_a_sociopath_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/casualiama/comments/2bk2ra/i_was_re... [2]: https://www.quora.com/Is-sociopathy-a-spectrum-disorder https://www.quora.com/Is-sociopathy-a-spectrum-disorder [3]: https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/LSRP.php https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/LSRP.php
stevenjohns 8y ago
I had a very similar experience to yours within the last 18 months - in my late 20s. Tragedy, for me, opened up an emotional view that was blunted for so long. Immediately my relationship with everyone around me, especially my family, changed -- for the better, that is. I consider it to be a very beneficial and important part of my personal development over the last few years.
- mockingbirdy 8y ago
  I anticipate that I won't be able to cry when my parents die. I really hope I'm wrong. Reason is that I think they have great lives and are fulfilled so in my eyes it doesn't matter if they are 60 or 80y/o when they die. They have a good time on earth. It's helpful that I know about their childhoods and don't have any open questions because I've talked with them a lot about who they are. I don't think I'll be regretful when they die and have the wish to ask them something. It sounds like tragedy is the cause for this rapid improvement in emotional processing. Maybe it's the only emotional state that can break down this wall of emotionlessness. Sounds painful, but I can understand how it could help.
  - navane 8y ago
    What about when one of your parents die, and the other has to live alone for the rest of his/her live? Could you cry over the sadness of the one left behind?
    - mockingbirdy 8y ago
      I will cry as a response to their crying. This is natural. I just don't need it. I would mostly cry to be empathetic. I don't think this is wrong. Many people do it to help out e.g. that friend who cried on the funeral of your mother? He is crying to communicate his compassion, not because he feels grief. If you would know how many people do this, you would be astonished by the emotional coldness that many have inside their heads (involuntarily). related SMBC: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/do-humans-have-feelings https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/do-humans-have-feelings
throwaway77384 8y ago
This is very interesting. I only just posted the following in another thread. I empathise with your experience greatly. I feel you articulated it very well: "Feelings are such a tricky thing. I was raised to suppress them. Or, well, not even that. Feelings were so thoroughly suppressed in my family, that they never even featured. I must have learned that any expression of emotion gets me nowhere by the age of 0.5 In my 20s, throughout various failed relationships I began to re-examine what feelings are. Why did people (and, anecdotally, women) have so many feelings, of such strength and seemingly of such unpredictability? It wasn't long until I decided to get therapy. To see what's lurking beneath. Lo and behold, there were some feelings there. Lots of them surprisingly strong, yet hesitant to surface. It was a bizarre dichotomy to have to deal with. One that affects me to this day. It's like the stronger a feeling within me, the further it is hidden away, leading to this cat and mouse game of 'who am I?'. Feelings offer a surprisingly absolute way to perceive the world. They are always there and they are always exactly what they are. So long as you allow yourself to feel them. For the last decade I have been doing nothing but trying to feel more and more. This is still a lot less than most people. At the same time it makes me feel much more 'at home' in the world, it has made me able to connect with people better, it has reduced my stress and anxiety. It has also lead to some other curious changes within me. I am feeling myself become more and more incompatible with the 'business world'. I know that's a very vague term, but I have found corporate culture and the striving for endless profits, no matter what the human cost, to be incredibly despiccable. Nauseating, icky. Misguided. I wonder whether feelings and emotions provide a certain common ground for what a human being 'should be' or 'wants to be', which runs counter to capitalist incentive. After all, you want a herd of obedient workers, not uppity individuals causing trouble with their free spirited antics. I should add that I am of German heritage and I feel there is an entire generation of people who have lived through historical events enabled almost entirely by the suppression and eradication of all feelings (apart from, ironically, hate and fear)."
- slfnflctd 8y ago
  > feeling myself become more and more incompatible with the 'business world' This one hit me like a well thrown punch. I know it's a somewhat common sentiment, but in conjunction with being more "emotionally aware" I found it striking. Since I became more in touch with my own feelings, the quality of my daily experience with work (and the people there) matters far more to me than mere compensation. This is something I think a lot of workers go through, and I think managers who are aware of it will be more effective than those who aren't. Knowing what motivates others and what they value can be extremely useful.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
Same, and I've still to develop them - or keep them under wraps as they are now, seems to work fine for my career and such. It's I think a level of emotional maturity, or maybe even a fear of feeling - like, keeping them suppressed is doable, I can live with that, but what would happen if I stop suppressing them? I don't want to break down bawling at work for example, or get angry and start throwing shit. The emotional maturity there is to feel the feelings but be able to deal with them in a mature way. Like, you can be angry at your significant other, raise your voice if need be, but there has to be a lid on it, a reasoning. There's an area between suppressing / ignoring feelings and letting them control you.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  Letting them control you is the amygdala overriding conscious forebrain processing. In healthy functioning people, their amygdala contributes an integral part of their conscious experience. Your limbic (emotional) center is constantly running in the background, coming up with reactions and those reactions sometimes trigger the amygdala to start the process of overriding consciousness. The first few times it happens, it can be rather scary, but this mostly happens in children as a normal part of development. The forebrain receives the override and the flood of energy and has to make a decision about what to do. If the events are traumatic enough, they'll cause the mind to develop certain emotional blocks, keeping the limbic system from being able to trigger amygdala overrides. But the amygdala overrides are a crucial part of social experience, they 'alert' you when something's 'wrong'. Developing emotional maturity involves being able to sensitively process the overrides in a way that contributes to social harmony instead of, say, getting really mad and huffy and demanding.
timwaagh 8y ago
that (left/right brain disconnect) is one of many ways some people used to describe autism.
darkerside 8y ago
I think of this phenomenon as an incomplete, next-level theory of mind. Theory of mind typically refers to the idea that, for young children (and people with developmental disabilities), some cannot conceive of another person not knowing what they know. Here's a classic example: Child 1 watches Child 2 put a toy in Box A; Child 2 leaves the room; another person moves the toy from Box A to Box B; Child 2 returns; when Child 1 is asked where Child 2 will look for the toy, Child 1 will often say Box B (where the toy actually is) because Child 1 doesn't process that Child 2 didn't see what Child 1 saw. Essentially, we are born acting as if everyone shares a singular mind, and it takes training and learning to understand that we don't and that there are consequences to this. Part of getting older, for me and I'm sure many others, is learning that the boundaries of my perception and experience seem to form the totality of the universe for everybody's perception and experience. I think my feelings after the saddest event of my life is the saddest anybody could ever feel. But really, compare tragic experiences: losing a beloved pet, losing both parents in a single day (e.g. car accident), losing your child on a wilderness hike. It's a slow process of growing up and understanding the depths of emotion that so many others of the human race have already experienced, and that you have not. And until that's complete (hint, it never is, you just grow more and more aware of its vastness), you'll always struggle to fully connect with other people. As a very different example, drawing on the parent post, if you've grown up in a violent world, it's just as difficult to imagine life from the point of view of someone who has not. Beyond ASD, think of kids who grow up in gang life, or on either side of an abusive relationship.

mockingbirdy 8y ago

> it's like the cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the emotional part I have this problem. Most of the time I call it autism for convenience although I know it isn't accurate. Deficient/Immature emotional processing is a better phrase that is more accurate. I think that development issues in the psyche can lead to delays in areas like emotional processing and theory of mind. Oftentimes I have to simulate emotions because I don't feel them in myself and others. The good thing is that I've become very good at analyzing people and their motivations using knowledge of psychology - it's all conscious. I can understand people better on a rational level because my explanations incorporate negative thoughts people may have about themselves without realizing them (negative unconscious thoughts - mostly fear and anxiety). But I have to allow myself explicitly to feel something because my emotional regulation is very high - I think this stems from fear. There's a wish to control social situations to feel safe. Maybe individuals who have this problem had negative social experiences because their perceptions were off in such situations and they realized that their assessments were wrong which lead to a deficit in self-esteem. To an untrained eye, this may look like autistic behavior, but it's mostly based on anxiety and a deficit in emotional processing. It's possible to overcome that, but I have to admit that it has positive effects: I don't get emotional easily, I can control social situations and I don't feel fear or embarrassment. Feeling is a choice and having empathy feels like a tool. Sounds sociopathic to me (autistic people also have sociopathic symptoms), so I don't really wish this to anybody.

Fnoord 8y ago
Seems like textbook example from Pieter Hintjens' The Psychopath Code. [1] [1] http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths
- mockingbirdy 8y ago
  I've read that book and disagree. I don't have a limited set of emotions, I just have a better emotional regulation system because emotions are blunted. Emotions exist in me (I'm not a robot or a predator) and I can extract the information they contain to inform my decisions, but I'm mostly unaffected by them. I don't use this trait to destroy people - I think this is what only weak sociopaths do that are not content with themselves - I use it to be more successful and manage people properly (I'm an empathetic leader) and to be more assertive in negotiations. I read the word psychopath with a negative connotation i.e. a ruthless person who doesn't feel remorse. I agree, I mostly don't feel remorse, but I'm not doing the things many people think sociopaths/psychopaths do (like attacking people on a psychological basis, destroy lives, ...). I'm a good person and I think many sociopaths are - it depends on the values and on the motivation to hold those values up (although I agree that they feel optional. I'm not bound to societal expectations). If you read about Hannah Arendt you can see that "normal" people are capable of evil things. I think circumstances are in most cases more important than defining brain-damaged psychopaths as the root of all evil. People kill and feel joy in the right circumstances. Sociopaths are more open about the dark nature of human beings.
  - mockingbirdy 8y ago
    And there are these people: > I have killed animals (as a child). Whenever there was a stray animal in my alleyway (cats or dogs usually) I would pick it up and leave it in my trashcan by the side of the house until it got dark. Whenever my parents were asleep, I'd sneak out and take the animal out of the can to torture it. Sometimes I kicked it to death and other times I would suffocate it. This was my main source of entertainment since I didn't have many other things to do. from [1]. Run if you see people like this, their moral compass is not aligned. Sociopathy is very likely a spectrum disorder like autism. - - - > Sociopaths have the neural map of a neurotypical person in an fMRI machine, they are not lacking in, nor do they have differences in the brain that are apparent as psychopaths do, they have the grey matter necessary to experience what empathy is. Here is the massive difference from neurotypical responses, from sociopathic ones. > When the sociopathy is formed, the person experiencing whatever the causative agent is tends to shut off their access to the emotions like affection, desire for attention, empathy, anything that would make them outwardly dependent and turn insularly. While the pathways are still there, they are no longer used. > In that regard they probably had a heavier pruning to the bonding section of the brain. That guy here [2] theorizes about the causes and neurological aspects of sociopathy. And I would like to clarify that my own self-diagnosis and your reference to "The Psychopath Code" is not a reliable source of information for a diagnosis. There is however a standardized test for psychopathy (do it at [3]) for self-reports. Some of my business friends score very high on this test. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/casualiama/comments/2bk2ra/i_was_recently_diagnosed_as_a_sociopath_ama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/casualiama/comments/2bk2ra/i_was_re... [2]: https://www.quora.com/Is-sociopathy-a-spectrum-disorder https://www.quora.com/Is-sociopathy-a-spectrum-disorder [3]: https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/LSRP.php https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/LSRP.php

stevenjohns 8y ago

I had a very similar experience to yours within the last 18 months - in my late 20s. Tragedy, for me, opened up an emotional view that was blunted for so long. Immediately my relationship with everyone around me, especially my family, changed -- for the better, that is. I consider it to be a very beneficial and important part of my personal development over the last few years.

mockingbirdy 8y ago
I anticipate that I won't be able to cry when my parents die. I really hope I'm wrong. Reason is that I think they have great lives and are fulfilled so in my eyes it doesn't matter if they are 60 or 80y/o when they die. They have a good time on earth. It's helpful that I know about their childhoods and don't have any open questions because I've talked with them a lot about who they are. I don't think I'll be regretful when they die and have the wish to ask them something. It sounds like tragedy is the cause for this rapid improvement in emotional processing. Maybe it's the only emotional state that can break down this wall of emotionlessness. Sounds painful, but I can understand how it could help.
- navane 8y ago
  What about when one of your parents die, and the other has to live alone for the rest of his/her live? Could you cry over the sadness of the one left behind?
  - mockingbirdy 8y ago
    I will cry as a response to their crying. This is natural. I just don't need it. I would mostly cry to be empathetic. I don't think this is wrong. Many people do it to help out e.g. that friend who cried on the funeral of your mother? He is crying to communicate his compassion, not because he feels grief. If you would know how many people do this, you would be astonished by the emotional coldness that many have inside their heads (involuntarily). related SMBC: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/do-humans-have-feelings https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/do-humans-have-feelings

throwaway77384 8y ago

This is very interesting. I only just posted the following in another thread. I empathise with your experience greatly. I feel you articulated it very well: "Feelings are such a tricky thing. I was raised to suppress them. Or, well, not even that. Feelings were so thoroughly suppressed in my family, that they never even featured. I must have learned that any expression of emotion gets me nowhere by the age of 0.5 In my 20s, throughout various failed relationships I began to re-examine what feelings are. Why did people (and, anecdotally, women) have so many feelings, of such strength and seemingly of such unpredictability? It wasn't long until I decided to get therapy. To see what's lurking beneath. Lo and behold, there were some feelings there. Lots of them surprisingly strong, yet hesitant to surface. It was a bizarre dichotomy to have to deal with. One that affects me to this day. It's like the stronger a feeling within me, the further it is hidden away, leading to this cat and mouse game of 'who am I?'. Feelings offer a surprisingly absolute way to perceive the world. They are always there and they are always exactly what they are. So long as you allow yourself to feel them. For the last decade I have been doing nothing but trying to feel more and more. This is still a lot less than most people. At the same time it makes me feel much more 'at home' in the world, it has made me able to connect with people better, it has reduced my stress and anxiety. It has also lead to some other curious changes within me. I am feeling myself become more and more incompatible with the 'business world'. I know that's a very vague term, but I have found corporate culture and the striving for endless profits, no matter what the human cost, to be incredibly despiccable. Nauseating, icky. Misguided. I wonder whether feelings and emotions provide a certain common ground for what a human being 'should be' or 'wants to be', which runs counter to capitalist incentive. After all, you want a herd of obedient workers, not uppity individuals causing trouble with their free spirited antics. I should add that I am of German heritage and I feel there is an entire generation of people who have lived through historical events enabled almost entirely by the suppression and eradication of all feelings (apart from, ironically, hate and fear)."

slfnflctd 8y ago
> feeling myself become more and more incompatible with the 'business world' This one hit me like a well thrown punch. I know it's a somewhat common sentiment, but in conjunction with being more "emotionally aware" I found it striking. Since I became more in touch with my own feelings, the quality of my daily experience with work (and the people there) matters far more to me than mere compensation. This is something I think a lot of workers go through, and I think managers who are aware of it will be more effective than those who aren't. Knowing what motivates others and what they value can be extremely useful.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

Same, and I've still to develop them - or keep them under wraps as they are now, seems to work fine for my career and such. It's I think a level of emotional maturity, or maybe even a fear of feeling - like, keeping them suppressed is doable, I can live with that, but what would happen if I stop suppressing them? I don't want to break down bawling at work for example, or get angry and start throwing shit. The emotional maturity there is to feel the feelings but be able to deal with them in a mature way. Like, you can be angry at your significant other, raise your voice if need be, but there has to be a lid on it, a reasoning. There's an area between suppressing / ignoring feelings and letting them control you.

vinceguidry 8y ago
Letting them control you is the amygdala overriding conscious forebrain processing. In healthy functioning people, their amygdala contributes an integral part of their conscious experience. Your limbic (emotional) center is constantly running in the background, coming up with reactions and those reactions sometimes trigger the amygdala to start the process of overriding consciousness. The first few times it happens, it can be rather scary, but this mostly happens in children as a normal part of development. The forebrain receives the override and the flood of energy and has to make a decision about what to do. If the events are traumatic enough, they'll cause the mind to develop certain emotional blocks, keeping the limbic system from being able to trigger amygdala overrides. But the amygdala overrides are a crucial part of social experience, they 'alert' you when something's 'wrong'. Developing emotional maturity involves being able to sensitively process the overrides in a way that contributes to social harmony instead of, say, getting really mad and huffy and demanding.

timwaagh 8y ago

that (left/right brain disconnect) is one of many ways some people used to describe autism.

darkerside 8y ago

I think of this phenomenon as an incomplete, next-level theory of mind. Theory of mind typically refers to the idea that, for young children (and people with developmental disabilities), some cannot conceive of another person not knowing what they know. Here's a classic example: Child 1 watches Child 2 put a toy in Box A; Child 2 leaves the room; another person moves the toy from Box A to Box B; Child 2 returns; when Child 1 is asked where Child 2 will look for the toy, Child 1 will often say Box B (where the toy actually is) because Child 1 doesn't process that Child 2 didn't see what Child 1 saw. Essentially, we are born acting as if everyone shares a singular mind, and it takes training and learning to understand that we don't and that there are consequences to this. Part of getting older, for me and I'm sure many others, is learning that the boundaries of my perception and experience seem to form the totality of the universe for everybody's perception and experience. I think my feelings after the saddest event of my life is the saddest anybody could ever feel. But really, compare tragic experiences: losing a beloved pet, losing both parents in a single day (e.g. car accident), losing your child on a wilderness hike. It's a slow process of growing up and understanding the depths of emotion that so many others of the human race have already experienced, and that you have not. And until that's complete (hint, it never is, you just grow more and more aware of its vastness), you'll always struggle to fully connect with other people. As a very different example, drawing on the parent post, if you've grown up in a violent world, it's just as difficult to imagine life from the point of view of someone who has not. Beyond ASD, think of kids who grow up in gang life, or on either side of an abusive relationship.