Overwhelming emotions and Autism Spectrum

In the beginning, before I even got the diagnosis for Teen Queen, I could see her withdraw. Especially when emotions were running high. The Baby Queen was born with an insulating wall between her and the world. But even when doctors tried to explain their "lack of emotional connection and empathy", I KNEW they were wrong. Both girls would just sob at sad songs and sad parts of movies. We'd be sitting in a row on the couch, huddled under a quilt, watching The Lion King and sobbing when Simba's dad died. Both of them laugh inappropriately in awkward and uncomfortable situations, just like their mom. You can't tell me they don't get emotions.

But dealing with human emotions in real time differs greatly from dealing with cartoon emotions that never change no matter how many times you watch it. I coordinated with their therapist to use cartoon scenes to help them identify emotions and formulate a socially acceptable plan of action to deal with them in real life. Both girls handle it so differently, TQ will ask "Are you mad/sad/upset? Knock it off." Baby Queen will sidle up to me, hold my hand, and try to give me her woobie (yep, 16 and she still has a security blanket, it calms her, deal with it.) But both are clearly affected by other's emotions.

“I can walk into a room and feel what everyone is feeling,” Kamila Markram says. “The problem is that it all comes in faster than I can process it. There are those who say autistic people don’t feel enough. We’re saying exactly the opposite: They feel too much.”

Virtually all people with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, report various types of over-sensitivity and intense fear. The Markrams argue that social difficulties of those with autism spectrum disorders stem from trying to cope with a world where someone has turned the volume on all the senses and feelings up past 10.

If hearing your parents’ voices while sitting in your crib felt like listening to Lou Reed‘s Metal Machine Music on acid, you, too, might prefer to curl in a corner and rock.

But, of course, this sort of withdrawal and self-soothing behaviour – repetitive movements; echoing words or actions; failing to make eye contact – interferes with social development. Without the experience other kids get through ordinary social interactions, children on the spectrum never learn to understand subtle signals.

http://seventhvoice.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/new-study-finds-that-individuals-with-aspergers-syndrome-dont-lack-empathy-in-fact-if-anything-they-empathize-too-much/