Confused about Aspergers

[designer mom]

Hi there, my husband is going to be tested for Aspergers soon because we're both fairly certain that he has it. He's a highly intelligent engineer who cannot read non-verbal language and takes things very literally. Anyway...I'm having trouble understanding his emotions and his empathy for my emotions. He's having trouble understanding and explaining this to me as well. I'm not sure if he feels the same kinds of things that I feel, or feels empathy for others like I feel it (I don't have AS) and just has trouble translating it into words/expressions...or if he doesn't even really have the emotions that he's not expressing. In other words, he comes off as being really insensitive, and I'm trying to understand if he actually is insensitive or not. If someone could help me to understand this better, I would greatly appreciate it...thank you.

 

[C-Man]

He loves you very much, don't worry about that. He's got all the same feelings he would have if he were neurotypical, but he just has trouble getting them out, that's all. Think of it this way: when you're using your computer, and open a ton of programs all at once. The computer slows down, and the programs don't want to come up easily.

For an aspie, it takes a huge amount of processing power to express those emotions in a way neurotypicals would understand easily. But they're most certainly there, and we do feel them in pretty much the same way you do.

What has been a great help to me is really delving into my own study of emotions and expression. I've trained my conscious mind to run with an emotional interpreter, if you will, to help me understand and empathize with neurotypicals. It's also been helpful in expressing my own emotions more easily. It's rather like listening to someone speaking a foreign language, but you have a highly skilled interpreter there to help you out.

It's gotten to the point where nobody at my job had a clue I was an aspie until I told them. Just as with anything else, it's a lot of hard work, and you get out of it what you put into it. Help him train himself to recognize the difference between the literal and figurative, and not to get too worked up when it doesn't quite work out. Understand it won't work overnight, but there's a huge cumulative effect over a long period of time. He'll look back after a while and think, "Whoa, I was like that?"

 

[designer mom]

He loves you very much, don't worry about that. He's got all the same feelings he would have if he were neurotypical, but he just has trouble getting them out, that's all. Think of it this way: when you're using your computer, and open a ton of programs all at once. The computer slows down, and the programs don't want to come up easily.

For an aspie, it takes a huge amount of processing power to express those emotions in a way neurotypicals would understand easily. But they're most certainly there, and we do feel them in pretty much the same way you do.

What has been a great help to me is really delving into my own study of emotions and expression. I've trained my conscious mind to run with an emotional interpreter, if you will, to help me understand and empathize with neurotypicals. It's also been helpful in expressing my own emotions more easily. It's rather like listening to someone speaking a foreign language, but you have a highly skilled interpreter there to help you out.

It's gotten to the point where nobody at my job had a clue I was an aspie until I told them. Just as with anything else, it's a lot of hard work, and you get out of it what you put into it. Help him train himself to recognize the difference between the literal and figurative, and not to get too worked up when it doesn't quite work out. Understand it won't work overnight, but there's a huge cumulative effect over a long period of time. He'll look back after a while and think, "Whoa, I was like that?"

Thank you so much for replying, this is really helpful and comforting. My husband is very interested in learning about this and doing what he can to "adapt" I guess. Interestingly enough, I took that Aspergers quiz that was posted on the forum here, mostly just for fun, and it told me that I have Aspergers and NT traits. I immediately had a flashback to my childhood and remembered that one of my teachers called my parents in for a conference to inform them that she believes I should go into engineering because I was taking apart electronics and rebuilding new things with them (my parents were abusive so they blew that off). So uh...maybe I'm not that different from my hubby after all.

 

[dayhiker]

I agree pretty much with what C-man said.

Personally, I find I don't feel negative feelings as much as positive feelings. So I view the world in an optimistic way. This is good as I see the best in people, I don't have resentments and forgiveness issues, etc.

This is how I few expressing emotions. It seems that NT people go right from emotions to expressing them without much thought. I find I usually have to think I'm feeling this emotion, think about it, then choose to express it. This is better than not expressing it, but an NT can think I'm acting and so not sincere.

The other thing I do with emotions, is I understand emotions as telling me how I'm judging a situation. So I often thing do I want to judge this situation this way? I might change my judgement of the situation to feel a different emotion. I've been doing this for so long that I do it very quickly now.

AS people have a difficult time dealing with crowds. The dynamic of the crowd interaction is much more complex and fast compared to one on one. I had to study this a lot and I still have issues keeping up. But the basic is to learn that the dynamic changes as the crowd gets bigger. There is one dynamic up to about 6 people, it changes again at over 12 and then over 50 and then over 120. All round number. People take on roles in a crowd: leaders, comic relief, listener/follower, doer, organizer.

All these things are a lot to learn, I've studied then for ages!

The literal interpretation of words, actions and events is a fun one. 1st is to figure there are different ways of viewing a situation. Quickly figure out when a literal word/actions isn't what is going on, then what is the symbolic meaning of the situation. One on one I often see this happening and then chose to reply to the literal view just for comedy. The NTs often don't see the funny part tho, they miss it.

Being NT can be flustrating when we are lover loaded. But one we mentally understand what is going on, we can have a lot of fun with is. At least I do.