1 in 5 autistic people have alexithymia. People who have alexithymia may have trouble identifying, understanding and describing emotions. They may also struggle to show or feel emotions that are seen as socially appropriate, such as happiness on a joyous occasion.
Autistic children often struggle with emotional regulation. Big emotions in autism can be related to problems with sensory integration, communication deficits, and difficulty understanding social cues—and they can be hard to regulate and express appropriately. Emotional outbursts can be hard for everyone involved.
Autistic people may act in a different way to other people. They may find it hard to understand how other people think or feel. find things like bright lights or loud noises overwhelming, stressful or uncomfortable. get anxious or upset about unfamiliar situations and social events. They take longer to understand information and common sense.
They tend to process emotions more intensely and may have difficulty expressing them in ways that are deemed socially acceptable. For example, an autistic girl may have a blank facial expression, leading others to believe she is cold or uncaring when she is actually experiencing intense emotions.
"Just because I struggle to put how I feel into words it doesn't mean I don't feel things. In fact, the worse I feel, the more I struggle and often default to, 'I'm fine'."
Autistic people may lack the ability to recognize and label emotions, and they may have difficulty responding to social cues. This can vary from individual to individual. Cognitive empathy can be taught, so it is possible for autistic people to learn empathetic behavior. Other therapies may improve emotional empathy.
For some autistic adults, emotions do not show, either on their face, in their body or in their tone of voice. The fact that autistic people experience the full range of human emotions, including love, is indisputable. Many autistic people are observant and have excellent attention to detail of understand emotion.
Because of their difficulty in regulating their emotions, they are more likely to move to an extreme emotional state, such as a meltdown, at times. There can also be the social pressures of responding differently in terms of emotions compared with others sharing the same experience.
Someone with autism may not show any signs of grief at a funeral. Similarly, they might say they are feeling calm when they are showing physical signs of agitation and alertness. To other people, this might appear confusing and untrue. Autistic people may act in a different way to other people. Normal people will find it hard to understand how this autistic people think or feel. Because this people take longer to understand basic information and impression.
