What Aspies Must Understand About Their Feelings

[Peace]

We experience a lot of feelings, many of them are bad. Bad feelings cause injury and we get mad or we get sad.
"There Is A Difference Between Feelings And Reality" Here is an example:
You are not having a good day. You feel depressed about nothing in particular and "Feel" like it is a bad day. Have you had a good day? And what is the difference between the two? Your feelings. The sun is still shining, you are still able to walk around and you still have a place to live, even if it is in your car it is a place. Others around you do not share your feelings, they are yours alone. The day is not really bad, we just Feel like it is bad.
Example 2: In a group of people someone tells a joke that makes fun of Irish people. You are Irish and take offense to this. You are now angry. There was no intentional harm, the person telling the joke was actually trying to help others laugh and enjoy. You found offense where there was none. The responsibility for you feeling bad is not the fault of the person telling the joke, but of the experiences that taught you to respond with those feelings.
Our feelings are real, but they are only real to us. Feeling like it is a bad day is not the same as it being a bad day. We can help ourselves to feel better by understanding the difference between what we feel and what really is.
I Want Peace

 

[Spiller]

Our feelings are real, but they are only real to us. Feeling like it is a bad day is not the same as it being a bad day. We can help ourselves to feel better by understanding the difference between what we feel and what really is.

I am completely in agreement with you here Peace, my own practice of CBT/NLP makes this completely apparent; I've learned to spot and eliminate negative thoughts/emotions before they take hold emotionally/cognitively and this helps immensely with anxiety and depression. I still have a long way to go, my improving life and the new situations I find myself in do tend to cause anxiety and that gives rise to new unhelpful thoughts/feelings.. but it's an ongoing process and the new friends I'm making, the social situations I'm participating in, contribute to my positive thoughts and I can journalise and peruse them later to keep me thinking happy thoughts
However, I also find something else inside me.. I can only liken it to a parasite buried in my chest. Sometimes it's pretty much inactive, at others it's so emotionally painful, it feels like I'm actually going to die! It then creates the overwhelming thought in my mind that my time is almost up!
I'm not after sympathy here, just trying to examine this from a.. clinical perspective, I suppose; no amount of CBT/NLP, meditation, excercise or socialising stops it, only medical cannabis (if you'll forgive the mention, anyone who disagrees with its use). Do we need to take into account chemical imbalances.. is my little parasitic buddy a periodic lack of serotonin?

 

[On the Inside]

However, I also find something else inside me.. I can only liken it to a parasite buried in my chest. Sometimes it's pretty much inactive, at others it's so emotionally painful, it feels like I'm actually going to die! It then creates the overwhelming thought in my mind that my time is almost up!

I agree. I can parse out the feelings and emotions OK. Through meditation and CBT I've been able to shorten the amount of time I spend ruminating around a feeling and the stimuli that spurred it on. But there are times when something really gets a grip on me and causes a physical, painful response, also buried in my chest, but vibrating out in an unpleasant frequency throughout my body. This has happened while I was at a meditation retreat once, and I almost got up and ran away, though I had nowhere to go and wasn't even wearing shoes.

 

[Spiller]

I agree. I can parse out the feelings and emotions OK. Through meditation and CBT I've been able to shorten the amount of time I spend ruminating around a feeling and the stimuli that spurred it on. But there are times when something really gets a grip on me and causes a physical, painful response, also buried in my chest, but vibrating out in an unpleasant frequency throughout my body. This has happened while I was at a meditation retreat once, and I almost got up and ran away, though I had nowhere to go.

Nowhere to run.. can't get away from it! It's so painful and different from the perception of unhelpful thoughts/feelings.
I can't say I'm glad I'm not the only one On the Inside, knowing what this feels like I'm so sorry for you having to live with that pain too, but thank you for validating it.. I have considered that I'm not practicing CBT sufficiently and have re-read my books several times, but it's always there, just the same!
Might I ask if you've tried cannabis in any form to combat it?

 

[On the Inside]

I have tried it only as a recreational/perception altering experiment several years ago. If I was with a group of people, it generally turned me into a stand up comic. If I was alone, or with one or two people. I would go deep into the environment I inhabited at the time. In essence, it was too much like walking through a door into another plane of existence. One that would slowly, almost imperceptibly disintegrate, like waking slowly from a dream, leaving me feeling disoriented.

I am rather scared to try it again.

 

[Spiller]

I have tried it only as a recreational/perception altering experiment several years ago. If I was with a group of people, it generally turned me into a stand up comic. If I was alone, or with one or two people. I would go deep into the environment I inhabited at the time. In essence, it was too much like walking through a door into another plane of existence. One that would slowly, almost imperceptibly disintegrate, like waking slowly from a dream, leaving me feeling disoriented.

I am rather scared to try it again.

Those were my early experiences too, the problem with 'street grade' high THC cannabis. I found, given calming company or solitude and, similar to alcohol - sipping rather than downing pints to be social, it worked rather better for me as a mood alterer, rather than 'getting off your face'.
It's not a drug to be feared.. I'm rather more afraid of the effects of alcohol.. just, as with anything, treated with respect

 

[Suzanne]

I do agree with you with the first point and try to work with this by saying: I am having a bad day, because of how I feel.

Sorry, but totally disagree with your second point. If the person telling the joke, knew the other person is Irish, then the Irish one, has the right to be angry ie justified anger. The one making the joke, would be showing prejudice and bad taste.

 

[Guendolen]

Example 2: In a group of people someone tells a joke that makes fun of Irish people. You are Irish and take offense to this. You are now angry. There was no intentional harm, the person telling the joke was actually trying to help others laugh and enjoy

I disagree. The person is a racist. Making fun of another's ethnicity is neither funny nor polite. It makes me really angry when NT's act as jerks and try to brush it off as ''joke''. Own your junk. If i insult someone even without intention i apologise.

 

[Spiller]

I do agree with you with the first point and try to work with this by saying: I am having a bad day, because of how I feel.

Sorry, but totally disagree with your second point. If the person telling the joke, knew the other person is Irish, then the Irish one, has the right to be angry ie justified anger. The one making the joke, would be showing prejudice and bad taste.

I heard a famous comedian say once, in an interview, that if they had to eliminate racist, fattist, blonde-ist, etc jokes, there'd be very little to joke about at all. Similarly, if I refer to my friends black skin (it's actually a beautifully dark chestnut I'm envious of) she knows I'm not being racist, yet I always had to be careful in my business to project a neutral demeanour when talking about skin 'color' with non-caucasians.. I have to wonder, if we all take offence all the time, wars start!
I think I'd rather attempt communication and then apologise, than be afraid to say anything at all for fear of political incorrectness.
Sorry Suzanne, Guendolen, no argument intended, that's just my thoughts.. your point can be a very real problem for some!

 

[Guendolen]

I have to wonder, if we all take offence all the time, wars start!

I find this very disturbing. I will take offence as many times as i feel offended. Your post has a lecturing tone.
The idea that jokes will be emilinated is a fallacy and you know it. And noone said to be afraid. But after many years trying to tolerate behaviors i find wrong i no longer do that. Many NT's react the way you write on your post which is a passive aggressive way to make me ''chill out'' or ''lighten up''.
Nope. Not happening.

 

[Guendolen]

your point can be a very real problem for some!

There are 7 billion people in this planet. If ''some'' have a problem with me they can choose other people to interact with.

 

[Spiller]

I find this very disturbing. I will take offence as many times as i feel offended. Your post has a lecturing tone.
The idea that jokes will be emilinated is a fallacy and you know it. And noone said to be afraid. But after many years trying to tolerate behaviors i find wrong i no longer do that. Many NT's react the way you write on your post which is a passive aggressive way to make me ''chill out'' or ''lighten up''.
Nope. Not happening.

I'm sorry Guendolen, I didn't mean to come across as lecturing or aggressive in any way, I've just learned to let people be whoever they've decided they're going to be.. I can't change them, I can only accept the way the world is.

"your point can be a very real problem for some!"

I could have phrased this better, I'm sorry, I meant some people do get offended and take such comments/jokes personally and some do comment/joke inappropriately, so in that we agree

Peace to you

 

[Guendolen]

I've just learned to let people be whoever they've decided they're going to be..

I am mixed race. At school i was called ''undead'' and ''to go back to my country''. The teachers said things to my parents like 'they are kids, its a joke'' and other generic crap like ''ignore them''. If the people harm or make someone else sad at my presence i don't just let it be. This behavior has caused me trouble countless of times, but if you stay indifferent when viewing an injustice you have taken the side of the oppressor.

 

[Spiller]

I am mixed race. At school i was called ''undead'' and ''to go back to my country''. The teachers said things to my parents like 'they are kids, its a joke'' and other generic crap like ''ignore them''. If the people harm or make someone else sad at my presence i don't just let it be. This behavior has caused me trouble countless of times, but if you stay indifferent when viewing an injustice you have taken the side of the oppressor.

I've never understood racism, or hatred of anyone, in any form, for any reason and I'm so sorry for the pain you've suffered because of others' bigotry. The excuses "They're just kids", "It's just a joke", etc have been used to justify the suffering of countless people, including myself and my kids, for being so called 'different'.
I was having coffee with my (hopefully future girl)friend (she hails from Zimbabwe) recently and a woman stared at me in disgust!.. I stared right back at her till she looked away. I won't stand for that!
I've learned to let people be, just so their attitude doesn't hurt me anymore.. I'm a pacifist, not a fighter, but I will stand up for what is right!

 

[Kari Suttle]

Feeling like it is a bad day is not the same as it being a bad day.

OMG YES. Just because i feel like **** today (allergies, girl stuff, headache, PLUS its superbowl day so work will be busy as hell) doesn't mean work can't go well today. It took me years to learn this, sadly. That feelings ARE real but they don't DEFINE you, your situation, or your day. So while to someone struggling to put food on the table my problems might mean nothing, they're real to me and that's what matters. This also took me ages to accept - just cause someone else has it worse doesn't automatically mean your problems don't matter or are illigitimate or make your feeling badly selfish. I was taught growing up that it was.

I have the worst headache ever so i probably just put a new meaning into thread that had another meaning but this is what i thought of when i read the first few sentences of the original post. Reading the rest of i would have hurt my head so i didn't.

 

[AsheSkyler]

I disagree. The person is a racist. Making fun of another's ethnicity is neither funny nor polite. It makes me really angry when NT's act as jerks and try to brush it off as ''joke''. Own your junk. If i insult someone even without intention i apologise.

Agreed. Racial can be funny. Racist is not. I love living in the South, I love to crack jokes about my culture, but I hate it when somebody pops up and honestly believes we're all inbred idiots and is very hateful or violent to me about being Southern. Same with gender and other stuff, it's fun to joke about, but not fun when somebody takes a serious stance on the wrong thing. When somebody is truly hateful and mean, it is not "just you taking offense", the other person is the one who needs to make an adjustment. When that kind of hate goes unchecked, some dweeb ends up putting bounties on random peoples' heads because they can't deal with their hatred in a healthy manner.

 

[Peace]

I say to those who feel that making a joke that includes ethnicity that doing so is racist or bigotry, Look up the definition. I am Italian and Irish. I do not mind jokes about that and even tell a few of my own. They are funny, mostly because they are true. The Act Is Not The Criteria For Judgement, But The Motive. If you do not have a bias against a certain race, then a joke that mentions race is not "Racist". If you make the same joke because you do not like that race, or feel they are different because of their race, THEN it is racist. Again, Definition (motive).
Spiller did not come across to me as having a lecturing tone, nor is making a joke that includes the mention of a certain race, racist. It is your feelings, Not The Situation that you are troubled by.
Do the ladies that commented on here believe that women should be subject to covering their entire body when out in public? And that violating this is grounds for punishment by their husbands? I bet not. Do you believe that you must confess your sins to a priest to acquire forgiveness in Heaven? Probably not, but it does not make the people who do, bad people. Most (not all) do so out of a belief that it is the right thing to do as they were taught. Their action seems wrong until you examine their motive.
Example: If I walk up and shove you, is that bad? It may be, unless I was pushing you out of the way to save you from a falling object. Again....MOTIVE!
And again, your feelings do not determine what is right or wrong, good or bad. Just how you feel about something.

 

[Guendolen]

Well everyone is entitled to their own opinion even if it is a wrong one.

 

[Peace]

Well everyone is entitled to their own opinion even if it is a wrong one.

Yes Ma'am and I respect yours. Although I am certain I come off as sounding like I own the truth, I speak only of my opinion as well. I am glad to meet you and to exchange ideas.

 

[AsheSkyler]

Look up the definition. I am Italian and Irish.

And I'm Irish, Scottish, and Cherokee among others, what's your point? That the moment anybody suggests making a joke about the Irish I'm supposed to get fighting mad and start threatening to push down women? Doesn't seem like a good way to handle it to me. Men pushing down people isn't a good idea, that puts the pushed person on level with body parts that are then easily accessible for nefarious purposes.