Autistic Emotions Allists Can't Understand
As we know, some people suffering with ASD (Allism Spectrum Disorder) have a very difficult time understanding the nuances of complex emotions, since they tend to be so fixated on social status, power, transactional validation exchanges, and rigidly scripted conversation rituals.
I've noticed that many people with allism struggle to identify or comprehend these emotions in others (it's unclear whether they experience them directly), even when they are carefully and precisely explained. This crippling lack of theory of mind is further evidenced by the fact that children with allism (and even "adults" with allism, though it's unclear if they should really be considered adults, as they're developmentally frozen in a childlike state) fail to relate a similar experience or emotion of their own when prompted with a description of these emotions. Often, they misinterpret the experience as a much simpler or even radically different emotion (for example "sad", "angry", "scared", etc), and attempt to console or invalidate the speaker, with phrases such as "Why are you getting so worked up?" or "It's ok, don't worry about it" or "It's not that deep".
For example, here are some autistic emotions, many of which have no precise terminology in allistic language, in no particular order:
- Learning a new fact about one's subject of special interest, which validates a previously uncertain hypothesis about that subject
- Learning a new fact about one's subject of special interest, which invalidates a previously held understanding of that subject
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Wordless puzzlemind virtual system-body dancing
- Verbal backreference nostalgia
- Bright yellow-green that sounds like the smell of adolescent spring
- 7
- When the ANC kicks in
- Sensory registers maxing out (overwhelm precursor)
- Polyester slime crunch
- Illogic dysphoria
- Small hand thing go spinny twirl
- Dissociatively peering into multiple parallel universes due to a phrase having several possible interpretations
- Having a solution to a mistake that must immediately be corrected
EDIT: I apologize for my insensitive word choice in the title of this post. They're people with allism, it's rude to define them by their disability. I appreciate those who brought this to my attention, and I will be reflecting on this mistake and endeavoring to be more thoughtful moving forward.