Positive emotions

[Mannify]

This goes in off-topic, because I'm not sure that it's necessarily an ASD thing - maybe everyone experiences this, or maybe I'm the only one on the planet. But anyway, here's the question: does anyone else find that positive emotions, strongly enough felt, can be almost as uncomfortable as negative emotions in certain circumstances? I have several examples, but one is when I received a particularly significant module result for my degree back in August, and I know people experience tears of joy, but when I got that result anyone observing would have thought I was really crying with grief. On other occasions positive emotions have sort of immobilised me. Does anyone else find positive emotions kind of uncomfortable to manage sometimes?

[Mike_GX101]

Perhaps one example I can think of is when an incredibly beautiful woman has walked past me in the street and suddenly I can't breathe and I'm frozen where I'm standing and cars all around are suddenly skidding to a halt narrowly missing collisions as men spring from every which way with bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates in their hands!

[LancsLad]

I think all individuals whoever they are have to understand what an emotion is before we can fully relate to it, be it positive or negative. Some people are better at learning through their own life experiences than others. To take this a stage further our emotional maturity will be consequently related to the nature of our experiences. If we experience a life with a lot of negative elements then we have more experience upon which to develop a negative emotional vocabluary, in contrast a lot of positve expereinces might lead to an opposite developmental response.

 

What we all really need as human beings is to create a mixed and mature vocabluary and one which is adaptable to a range of potential scenarios we might experience. We do this by engaging in a mixed and varied lifestyle.

 

If we decide to limit levels of engagement and constantly work within an emotional range we are comfortable with then where will we go in life. I can easily choose to sit in my bedroom all day feeling sorry for myself and think negative thoughts about the world outside. By doing so all I will do is strengthen that emotionl response and make it a large factor in my life. At the end of the day we all have a choice in this we can see things for what we want to.

 

In a recent post someone said memebers of the public were looking at them and their child in a certain way in a cafe environment. I didn't respond because how the hell would I know what actually happened. Interestingly large numbers of the forum 'hooked' into that way of thinking, why is that? Is it the fact that people are simply going into their favorite way of thinking and feeling and are lacking in a more expansive emotional vocabluary to see things in different ways. It might be the fact that the couple looking on were not being positive but as they didn't say anything we can translate that how we wish. be neutral about it or say they were pointing because they thought my child was very beautifull and happy and that remined them of their happy childhood experiences in a high chair. We can look at things as we wish and people are free to think how they choose personally that doesn't affect me.

 

There are simply a range of emotions whether or not they are positive in our lives depends on if they are in context and we learn from them. If a friend of mine dies I feel a range of emotions they are positive if i see them for what they are, learn from the experience even though I might not have wanted it to happen and grow in maturity for it. There is not much in the world I can have a direct influence on but it does have an influence on me it is how I deal with that which is at the heart of this question in my opinion.

[Mannify]

I see your point, Lancslad about viewing things positively or negatively depending to some extent on choice. But I do feel that I personally experience some emotions which I would identify as positive in a kind of painful way. I mean, I do also experience positive emotions positively, too. It's just that sometimes, occasionally, I feel sort of flattened or overwhelmed by what I'm fairly sure to be a positive emotion, and I wondered if anyone else ever felt this. Being overwhlmed by the beauty of something has very occasionally had this effect. Usually it doesn't, but occasionally it does. Pleased-ness over a module result has had this effect, too. Like I say, it's an occasional thing, but a bit confusing.

[LancsLad]

I think what is happening here Mannify is a strong positive emotion comes in say 'beauty' as in your example and because it is a strange sensation another part of us throws in 'anxiety' as a reflex response. In a way we have then opened up an emotional door with anxiety being the key and we might look at the situation and ad in 'embarassment' followed by 'foolishsness' followed after a bit of self questioning with 'guilt' and then 'resentfulness'. So something which is a surprise but beautiful event can act like a trigger and we are left thinking why am I so stupid why do I always feel this way.

 

I think this is one of the real issues about living a life with constant levels of background anxiety because it holds onto a set of emotional responses which are always just lying in the wings and the slightest trigger can bring them into play. If we are generally anxious and negative in our disposition we simply reinforce these mental patterns in our brain.

[Mannify]

Heck, Lancslad, that's a concise bit of insight. It actually makes sense, because on reflection I think I am probably more likely to experience this when there's extra underlying causes of stress. Thank you, I will think about this.

[LancsLad]

They key I have found is to find a reflex holding space, a place where you have time to recognise the emotion for what it is. A lot of the time we are not quite sure at first and so we need to look for clues around us, possibly look at other people and try and read how they have reacted.

 

In a similar way it is all about understanding what anxiety feels like and having our own reflex to push it into the background for a few seconds. Anxiety is a lower level of fear and I think we need to learn how to split them at times and recognise each for what it is. I think at a personal level doing adventure sports such as rock climbing has allowed me to differentiate between things like fear, anxiety and general angst. I have had issues in the past with anxiety management following some serious incidents but I have worked hard at regaining control over that emotion. I got back in touch with it to redifine it in a way and that was all about putting myeslf into situations where I would be anxious but fear was not an appropriate response.

 

I think for many people anxiety is an emotion over which they have very little understanding or control but it is an emotion our body and mind throws at us a lot, and often it is no more than a think about this something a bit different has happened, but we can take that either way. We can think oh yes thats interesting what does it all mean. Or we can go the other way and think oh no what the hell is this about best play safe.

 

The simple reality is if I stood very still in the middle of the high street and as people approached with a smile on my face I tried to give them a £100 note the vast majority would turn and move quickly away and fail to see the opportunity for what it was.

 

Just a thought.

[Mannify]

Thanks, Lancslad. It really helps when people help to break things down like this, because to be honest, I haven't spent much time working things out about my reactions to things, I've just got on with coping with my own realities without thinking very much. I suppose that's what a lot of people do a lot of the time. But as you say, it's not an approach which lends itself to change. If you don't think about stuff you don't change stuff.

 

Can you explain more about the 'reflex holding space'? How does that work in practice?

[LancsLad]

There has been plenty of experiments over the years where we can make conections between emotions and behavioural responses, if we can do it in rats and other animals we can do it with ourselves.

 

My view is that anxiety is a natural response as I have said but we should not turn it into something it isn't. I used to be very anxious as a child and would retreat into safe places mine have always been out in the open on hills and beaches and places like that. People can't come up and attack you easily in big open spaces, without going into reasons houses and bedrooms were not like that for me. In my late teens I decided I had to take this underlying anxiety on and as I was petrified of heights I decided to take up rock climbing. And this was very good for me because it gave me an appropriate reaction to anxiety. If I was soloing two or three feet off the ground then angst might be appropriate should I fall, I might leave a finger in a pocket and dislocate it or twist an ankle hitting the ground. five or nine feet above the ground it was appropriate for anxiety to be the underlying emotional response. Soloing at heights of 20ft or more it had better not be fear and if it was the route was at too high a level to be climbing un roped.

 

I had a few incidents happen in my life and ended up with serious mental health issues which asa side shoot led to an anxiety management group and six sessions. And we did a group talk one week, and then a week of breathing exercises and relaxation techniques etc... We then did a session where we were lying down on a mat and nice music was in the background and the person at the front was talking about a magic ballon ride in the clouds and stuff like that. And I thought what a load of of ######! But she did say if you can think of anything else which is appropriate use that. And given that prompt I found my thing.

 

My visualisation was not a relaxing ballon ride but rather something I had done and done a load of and that was traversing around my local quarry about 5 to 8 ft above the ground rock climbing. I knew all the moves and what every hold and niche felt like so instead of ballons I went into a rock climbing sequence. And it makes total sense to me because when I get anxious that level of emotion is in my body so rather than conjour up something from out of the blue I simply go with it and feel rock climbing around a place called Pex Hill. I feel anxious and half a second later I am 5ft off the ground having a little bounce on my right toe as I move my centre of gravity right and the next hold comes into reach I put my first and thir fingers of my right hand on the chalked up little ledge, stack my index finger on top of them and apply pressure through my finger tips and lift my left foot. Thats five to ten seconds for a start! If I need to hold anxiety I can do so for 15 or twenty minutes which is a full circuit in the quarry. Push comes to shove I mentaly jump off and start again.

 

In contrast I don't know if people would be shitting themselves in a magical ballon ride or falling asleep. What I know is that I climb bouldering circuits at low anxiety levels and I can just safely jump off. I can climb at an almost subconcious level in my mind and so when I feel anxious I go climbing. While I am doing that and and the anxiety is going no where for the time being it is not triggering off a range of negative responses, I have time to look around and feel other things and work out what cause the anxious emotional response in the first place. Nearly all the time I think oh was that it, it could be anything, and once I have good reason I either tune into it because it is something serious or so, so many times in my mind I simply take a controled 5ft jump backwards hit the ground of the quarry and carry on with my life.

 

I am not sure if that makes sense might need a couple of read throughs. My advice is to all anxious people think of a very real thought pattern related to something in your own life which is appropriatly conected to low level anxiety. Make those experiences real, if it is a fear of heights go and stand and walk along a mulit storey car park edge to make it very real but at low anxiety levels for example. And then when you feel anxiety go into that thought pattern as a holding place whilst you work reality out. The more you practice and the more you use it the response will be almost a reflex. At first you get anxious and you will have to work at going into your mental thought pattern but after a bit it just gets very natural. All you need are lots of anxious triggers to get the practice in and for anxious people like I can be at times that normally isnt a problem.

 

Hope this makes sense.