Emotions

In this session, I speak about the power of emotions in high stress situations, and how these emotions manifest them selves in behaviour. Emotions are very powerful, but must be managed before they cause us or others harm.

Transcript

Hello,

It's me,

Joe,

The Autistic Buddhist,

And in this session I'm going to talk about emotions.

I'm going to describe a situation in which I would like you to use your imagination to visualize.

This exercise will be easier for people who have a car and drive routinely.

If you don't have a car,

Imagine what it would be like driving as you listen.

Let's start.

You are going to drive to a store to pick up something you need.

You get in your car,

And you start it,

And you begin to drive.

The entire process of getting into your car,

Sitting down,

Starting it,

And making some minor adjustments,

And then driving off,

You have done hundreds of times before.

And the experience is so ingrained that you can do it without thinking about it.

It is the same now as you are driving down the road.

The driving instructions are not being processed in your mind consciously.

You're not thinking about driving,

You're just doing it.

The thoughts about driving that are occurring subconsciously are doing so at a very fast rate.

The thoughts are all assessments of what you are doing and what you need to do.

You have repeated these thoughts so often that they occur in the subconscious part of your mind,

Which means these thoughts are happening and decisions are being made as a result of them that you were not aware of.

That is why you can listen to music or talk to a friend and drive at the same time.

If you were sitting in a room between two people,

And both of them were talking to you about different things,

You would either have to turn back and forth trying to keep up with both conversations,

Or end one conversation so you can speak to the other person.

But while driving,

You can actually do that.

You can carry a conversation and drive at the same time.

Of course,

If what you are doing while driving is so distracting that it overrides your subconscious flow of driving thoughts,

Like trying to text on a cell phone,

You are putting yourself in danger because the mind will soon concentrate on the texting and abandon the subconscious thoughts of the driving.

You also feel safe and confident while driving because the experience is so familiar to you that you don't need to second guess it.

So there you are driving down the road when suddenly you notice that the car is slowly starting to speed up.

No worries,

No problem,

You can manage this.

And your subconscious mind quickly tells you to slowly step on the brake and you do.

You slowly step on the brake,

The car doesn't respond.

You try again and the car continues to speed up.

Now,

All that subconscious thinking about driving comes to the forefront of your mind and takes over all aspects of thinking altogether.

If the music is on,

You are not hearing it.

You are focused on the driving issue.

You decide to step on the brake right down to the floor to stop the car,

Like slamming on the brakes,

And you do that.

There is no response,

The car continues to speed up.

Now your anxiety has built to a point where there are two thoughts in your mind that are deeply concerning.

One is that you are no longer in control of the car.

And more seriously,

Thought number two,

Is you are in danger.

And this is the point where you start to panic.

You need to think of other solutions to stop this situation.

What are you going to do as the car starts to speed up again and again and again and you can't stop it?

You have lost control and are completely terrified,

Which blocks all rational thoughts from your mind.

A highly disturbing thought enters that makes everything even worse.

You may get seriously hurt or even die.

Hold on to that feeling of panic,

Just for a moment.

The feeling of losing control,

Being scared,

Facing the reality that you may be injured or dead in the next few minutes.

Now take a deep breath and reflect on those thoughts and that feeling.

What was the experience like for you?

Think about that experience a little because I'm going to come right back to it later on in this session.

I'm going to describe a second experience,

In which I would also like you to use your imagination to visualize.

Autistic people have likely already had this experience,

So the exercise will be easier for them.

And the experience I will walk you through is a common experience for many autistic people.

Let's start.

You are invited to a small social gathering.

You and your friend will be attending.

There are only two other people that you know well,

So you decide to go.

You and your friend arrive right on time and are greeted warmly.

Initially,

You are a little apprehensive,

But start to feel more comfortable as you become more familiar with the surroundings.

The host approaches you and asks you a question about a topic you are very interested in.

You speak comfortably on that topic.

You feel safe and your level of comfort is increasing.

Suddenly,

The doorbell rings.

The host says,

Excuse me and answers the door.

The host greets and ushers in a couple who are obviously guests.

The situation has now changed.

You begin to feel slightly off.

There was only supposed to be you and three other people.

Now there are two more.

What's worse,

You don't know who they are.

You stand still and try to reassure yourself.

You may think,

This is only two other people.

So what?

The host introduces them to you and you feel mildly apprehensive.

You are devoting additional psychological resources to the situation.

So you present well.

You walk over to your friend who is talking to someone else and you just stand there.

A short while later,

The doorbell rings again.

The host answers the door and three people arrive.

One of them speaks very loudly.

The host quickly introduces them to the room and you are now worried and apprehensive.

There are you and eight other people here and you don't know most of them.

They interact very easily with each other.

They flow from conversation to conversation and feel completely at ease.

On the other hand,

You start to feel a little isolated and your anxiety starts to build.

Your thoughts are similar to someone caught in a trap.

This is not good for me.

I need to find a way out.

Just like the driving experience previously,

You are close to panicking.

The doorbell rings again and another three people arrive.

The new arrivals know the previous arrivals and with great flair they greet each other.

Someone turns on some music,

Which is music you don't like,

And it is much too loud.

The conversation in the room gets louder too and you try to somehow isolate yourself from the entire situation.

You have no innate skills,

Techniques or ability to navigate your way out of this.

No one is really paying attention to you because they notice your discomfort.

The doorbell rings once more adding another four people to the party.

And this is your breaking point.

The usual ways you get out of these situations haven't worked.

You are rapidly losing your sense of safety and control.

You start to try to make an exit.

You tell your friend that you need to leave and a guest overhears you,

Puts their hand firmly on your shoulder and says,

Don't go now,

The party has just begun.

The physical contact was unexpected and unwanted and it makes your shoulder feel numb and your mind begins to reel.

You quickly come to the realization that you cannot cope with this situation.

There's too much going on.

This is not a social event.

This is chaos.

It is not stable.

It is extremely fluid.

There's no routine here,

No structure.

The rules about this situation are completely unknown.

There's too much sound,

Too much activity,

Too much energy.

You do not have the ability to cope with this and suddenly two thoughts enter your mind which scares you.

The first is,

I am no longer in control of myself.

And the second,

I am in danger.

You are terrified.

You start breathing heavily.

You raise your voice and say words that you don't understand.

Someone approaches you to help and you forcefully push them out of the way and this time you're shouting and running out of the home.

Once you're outside,

You look for a place to hide and hope that you don't die there or you try to make your way home very quickly.

Now take a deep breath and think about that situation.

The two situations are very similar and I'm going to talk about that now.

The psychological and emotional experience in the first exercise where you lose control of the car is the exact same experience of the autistic person at the party.

Everything is experienced at the same level with the same intensity.

Some people are unaware that autistic people have regular emotions like everyone else.

In many cases,

They also have a high case of sensitivity than others.

I have seen many autistic people show extraordinary kindness and patience when interacting with young children or pets.

I myself feel that I relate to children very well.

Children don't completely understand the world they are in.

Neither do I.

They are trying to make sense and understand an adult world which is interesting but also confusing,

Contradictory and scary and that's often how I feel.

I am also trying to make sense and understand a world which can be confusing and full of contradictions.

Children benefit from routine because that makes the world they are in safer and less scary.

I also benefit from routine and that makes my world more consistent and predictable so I can feel safe in it.

As I stated earlier,

Autistic people have emotions.

At times,

These emotions run very deep.

Our challenge is that we often don't have the ability to manage or express them effectively.

In both the car driving and social event situations,

The same mental process takes place.

And that mental process is this.

Firstly,

The emotion arises.

Secondly,

The emotion builds.

Thirdly,

There is no internal emotional management techniques or abilities that we can use.

The emotion then erupts.

Unlike a reaction,

The above process happens at a much slower rate and can most easily be identified at stage 2 when the emotion builds.

As the emotion builds,

An autistic person will likely give out behavioral signals that they are uncomfortable.

I have known some who repeatedly start to squeeze their fists together as if they're squeezing a ball in each hand.

Another person I know stands very still and stares at the floor and starts breathing heavily,

And yet another starts to speak in short panicked sentences.

After the entire experience,

In many cases you can discuss the process with the autistic person and find out the behavioral cues.

When speaking to an autistic person,

Consider using a neutral tone as if you're trying to learn something from them.

People who approach me trying to help me while using a quiet,

Soft voice,

As if you are trying to talk to someone you feel sorry for,

Is not helpful.

To discover the causes of an emotional behavioral outburst,

I approach the incident backwards.

That is,

Moving back along the chain of events to discover the origin.

Here's a scenario which I have simplified for the purpose of explanation.

Ryan just had an emotional eruption a few hours ago.

I'm going to approach Ryan and speak to him about it.

Me.

Ryan,

It sounded like you were really upset and something made you feel unsafe.

A while back.

Do you remember what it was?

Ryan.

Too many people.

Me.

There were too many people in the room.

Ryan.

Yes,

Too many,

Too many.

When there were people in the room,

What did your body do?

Ryan.

I stomped my foot.

If stomping your foot didn't work,

What did your body do next?

Ryan.

I stomped it harder.

And there is Ryan's behavioral cue.

There is him telling the world that the situation around him is getting intolerable.

If no one knows what Ryan's stomping foot means,

Ryan will have an emotional eruption,

At which point everyone will clearly understand that he is upset.

Many times,

A person trying to help an autistic person in distress will focus on the person's thoughts.

For example,

When there were too many people in the room,

How did you feel?

I have found that focusing on physical reactions more useful,

As a person may not understand what they were thinking at the time,

But they will remember what their body was doing at the time.

A non-autistic person finding themselves uncomfortable at a social event would advise the host of the event that they are not feeling well,

Or that they are very tired and just leave.

For myself,

I can feel that emotion building.

That ability came from Buddhism and its emphasis on self-awareness.

If there is a point of intervention to prevent an eruption,

It is at that stage where the emotion is starting to build.

Some autistic people know what triggers them,

But they may not be aware of the process that follows after they have been triggered.

This is also true for neurotypicals as well.

A person may know that standing in line frustrates them,

But at what point does that frustration turn into some form of physical or verbal expression?

Going back to Buddhism,

Cultivating awareness has been one of the most useful aspects of the practice.

When you are self-aware,

You can observe yourself and your mind,

You can watch thoughts emerge,

And feel the physical response that comes with them.

Just the other day I was driving to work,

And I was thinking about a situation at work that made me upset the day before.

I started into some negative self-talk,

Speaking to myself in a quite negative way about the situation,

And I felt that emotion building.

And I noticed it,

And out loud in my car,

All alone,

I said,

Whoa,

Hold on there,

I have an angry Joe this morning.

I would like to emphasize two points here.

The first is that this is a process,

And we need to understand that a process takes time.

We should not rush the understanding of the process.

When we take time to understand the process,

Gains have a greater chance of becoming more permanent in the mind.

The second is that it being a process,

There will be gains,

As well as relapses.

You will move forward,

And you may stumble,

From time to time,

But that is all part of the process.

Here is the process that happened to me in one situation.

When I was placed in an unknown social situation,

My immediate reaction was to become nervous.

As the situation progressed,

My anxiety would increase,

And I would also start to think of ways to get out of those situations.

When getting out did not seem like an option,

My anxiety increased,

And I began thinking very much like a person who was trapped.

By each minute,

My anxiety was getting worse,

And my ability to cope,

Decreasing.

It was like being in a burning house.

The longer I stayed,

The more the fire spread,

And the opportunities to escape were getting smaller.

Then,

I would either freeze,

Standing still,

Just staring out into nothing,

Or get confrontational.

Bruce's practice allowed me to reach a point in my life where what I describe only reaches a level of panic,

Rarely.

I am now at a point where at stage 2,

Emotion builds,

I can feel that happening.

It is a distinct pre-panic feeling,

Which I have come to recognize.

I also can sense the tension and the nervousness throughout my body.

I hope this information helps you,

Helps you understand how emotion builds and erupts in autistic people,

And in many cases,

In neurotypicals as well.

I still find myself in certain situations where the process builds,

And I am unable to stop it,

And I suddenly unravel.

But these situations are a lot less frequent than they were,

And being less frequent is a major improvement.

Thank you very much for listening to this session.

I hope the information benefits you,

And goodbye.

Reviews

I find this helpful, and I am almost certainly neurotypical. I am a teacher, though, so I have to accommodate people all along the spectrum, Thank you got sharing your experience. 💞🙏🏻

Excellent work by you Joe. I could understand the process in a way that I was unaware of before I listened to your presentation. Thank you for sharing your insights

Such a clear description of emotional escalation. This can benefit many. Thank you. 🙏🏻🕊

I really appreciate this talk. My emotions have been getting the better of me at times lately. When they arise during zazen I try to accept that this is what is happening in my body at that moment. The moments that occur when observing the rise, fall, and intensity with openness and non-judgement have helped a lot. This talk feels like another deepening of that awareness. The knowledgeable way Joe describes an autistic’s experience of a social gathering was very helpful - it’s an experience I’ve encountered many times. It has been gradually changing thanks to Buddhist practice and a lot of professional therapy. I’m still autistic of course, but one who is becoming more likely to find the space to pause, breathe, and respond rather than react. If you experience emotional dysregulation, the perspectives Joe offers are helpful!