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Intense Emotions: Better With or Without?


Wild Emotion

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Being autistic, I find my emotions get away from me way too often, so I envied the villains in anime that had no emotions... but, for me personally anyway, I think having intense emotions one can't turn off is better than having none and being a psychopath. I've been thinking about it for a while now... and I've changed my mentality about it. I gladly accept the high emotions of autism rather than the potential opposite that can happen.

So, my question to you all is this: do you think it's better to have extreme emotions or to have none? I mean, it'd be great to be normal, but really, what's normal? I think normal is overrated. lol

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My answer is the same as whether pain is good or bad. Pain, or in this case an emotional sense of profound loss would be good if it did not have to hurt so much. I have had traumatic experiences that I never did fully recover from. Grasping at straws, I decided to use these experiences for writing fiction, transposing the events onto a fictitious setting where the names and places would all be changed in the hopes of eventually finding some form of closure. Is it working for me? It is still a work in progress...or maybe I should say the plural form of works? It isn't just one stand alone story that I am working on.

It should be noted that there is a significant amount of difference between a sociopath and a neurotypical. I would also like to point out that quite often the neurotypicals actually place themselves directly into danger inadvertently due to their apparent lack of situational awareness...what the 'aspies' might lack in their ability to read the cues given by body language and facial expressions they more than make up for with their vigilance. People wrestling with the stigma often are perceived as the 'chicken little' of the group and are sometimes berated for being "too alarmist"; on the contrary, the 'aspies' take their self-preservation very seriously and feel very upset when they see others acting all casually during times of impending danger. It's almost reminiscent of the fable of the Ants and the Grasshopper.

 

 

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I'm not familiar with the Ant and the Grasshopper, but that is a big reason I was bullied in school. Sometimes dad knows just what to do to hurt my feelings. I don't know why he does it... I love him, but really I wish he'd stop. I don't think he's even aware of what autism is though... As smart as he is, he can be incredibly stupid sometimes. I mean, like, doing stupid things... a lot of the time. Anyway, I've been wrestling with the nerve of emotion I am and tend to be for a very long time, but finally I'm starting to come to terms with it. I was curious what y'all thought about the subject though, so that's what drove me making this thread.

Thanks for the meaningful and details response, it makes me feel like I'm heard when I read responses like that. ^^

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19 hours ago, Android Rebel said:

I'm not familiar with the Ant and the Grasshopper, but that is a big reason I was bullied in school. Sometimes dad knows just what to do to hurt my feelings. I don't know why he does it... I love him, but really I wish he'd stop. I don't think he's even aware of what autism is though... As smart as he is, he can be incredibly stupid sometimes. I mean, like, doing stupid things... a lot of the time. Anyway, I've been wrestling with the nerve of emotion I am and tend to be for a very long time, but finally I'm starting to come to terms with it. I was curious what y'all thought about the subject though, so that's what drove me making this thread.

Thanks for the meaningful and details response, it makes me feel like I'm heard when I read responses like that. ^^

To tell you the honest truth, I don't really know very much about autism myself, I'm mainly interpreting it as being a more severe subset of what has been termed as "Aspbergers". To explain this according to conventional wisdom, "Aspberger's Syndrome" would be on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum. There is generally believed to be some overlap with what is called "OCD" ; so-called "obsessive compulsive disorder" , in which the subject spends an unusually copious amount of energy or time dedicated to a specific task...this can take the form of long hours of research, cleaning and disinfecting, or other such repetitive activities. Generally speaking, 'aspies' tend to be very industrious workers but will often encounter problems in social situations that involve spending prolonged periods of time around neurotypicals who don't get them. Neurotypicals will often perceive the 'autists/aspies' as being cold, impersonal or inconsiderate - the truth is that they are usually so busy thinking about what they are doing personally that they simply aren't thinking about what other people are thinking about...this gives the neurotypicals the wrong idea about them and this often leads to misunderstandings and bad feelings between them. This interpretation is entirely based on the stipulation that "Aspberger's" is an actual real condition and not just something that was simply made up to psychopathologize or gaslight anybody who doesn't tow the party line - I am inclined to believe the latter. To be clear, I am not denying that those are legit behavior patterns which can be observed in certain individuals, my only thing is that I don't see it as necessarily being a disadvantage. I see it as a much bigger problem when most of the population exhibits a complete lack of maturity or any apparent regard for their own well-being or the well-being of others. You say that you have never heard the story of the Ants ( plural ) and the Grasshopper? Allow me to help put this all into perspective...this is the Disney-ized retelling of the tale. The original Greek version is much darker...and try getting your average neurotypical to admit that they were ever wrong about anything. Neurotypicals cannot stand anything which threatens their ego or their inflated sense of self-importance. Solipsism in varying degrees is very common among the so-called 'normals'.

The grasshopper embodies traits commonly seen in the neurotypical population. Most of them like to think of themselves as 'productive' and 'responsible' members of society and they take great pride in being part of the workforce...however, simply working a 9:00-5:00 job is not the same thing as planning ahead. Although the high functioning 'autists/aspies' comprise a very small part of the population, they would tend to think more the way that the ants did in this story. It is unfortunate that ants have also become a symbol for collectivist societies which do not honour the individual - most countries in the Western Hemisphere are no exception to this same type of toxic collectivism.

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15 hours ago, Kōyamaki said:

To tell you the honest truth, I don't really know very much about autism myself, I'm mainly interpreting it as being a more severe subset of what has been termed as "Aspbergers". To explain this according to conventional wisdom, "Aspberger's Syndrome" would be on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum. There is generally believed to be some overlap with what is called "OCD" ; so-called "obsessive compulsive disorder" , in which the subject spends an unusually copious amount of energy or time dedicated to a specific task...this can take the form of long hours of research, cleaning and disinfecting, or other such repetitive activities. Generally speaking, 'aspies' tend to be very industrious workers but will often encounter problems in social situations that involve spending prolonged periods of time around neurotypicals who don't get them. Neurotypicals will often perceive the 'autists/aspies' as being cold, impersonal or inconsiderate - the truth is that they are usually so busy thinking about what they are doing personally that they simply aren't thinking about what other people are thinking about...this gives the neurotypicals the wrong idea about them and this often leads to misunderstandings and bad feelings between them. This interpretation is entirely based on the stipulation that "Aspberger's" is an actual real condition and not just something that was simply made up to psychopathologize or gaslight anybody who doesn't tow the party line - I am inclined to believe the latter. To be clear, I am not denying that those are legit behavior patterns which can be observed in certain individuals, my only thing is that I don't see it as necessarily being a disadvantage. I see it as a much bigger problem when most of the population exhibits a complete lack of maturity or any apparent regard for their own well-being or the well-being of others. You say that you have never heard the story of the Ants ( plural ) and the Grasshopper? Allow me to help put this all into perspective...this is the Disney-ized retelling of the tale. The original Greek version is much darker...and try getting your average neurotypical to admit that they were ever wrong about anything. Neurotypicals cannot stand anything which threatens their ego or their inflated sense of self-importance. Solipsism in varying degrees is very common among the so-called 'normals'.

The grasshopper embodies traits commonly seen in the neurotypical population. Most of them like to think of themselves as 'productive' and 'responsible' members of society and they take great pride in being part of the workforce...however, simply working a 9:00-5:00 job is not the same thing as planning ahead. Although the high functioning 'autists/aspies' comprise a very small part of the population, they would tend to think more the way that the ants did in this story. It is unfortunate that ants have also become a symbol for collectivist societies which do not honour the individual - most countries in the Western Hemisphere are no exception to this same type of toxic collectivism.

I don't think too many people really know the ins and outs of autism, so you're ok. You're more open-minded than most of the people I've talked to about this. It explains why dad doesn't really get it though. Albeit disappointing as it is. I wish he'd understand, but it's not like I can shake him back and forth to make him understand. He's very confrontational. For years my psychiatrists have been trying to crack the code of what's wrong with me, until one suggested I might be autistic. It suddenly made sense to mom about my whole life. The intense emotions, how easily upset I am, and how anything outside of routing is a scary prospect to say the least. Literally nothing else has fit, but the diagnosis comes in my early 30s, so probably too late to actually do anything about it... 

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