Feelings - I dont have any

When I was 12, I had a specific moment where I emotionally changed in a split second. I quit feeling love the way I had previously. I don't get overtly angry. I tend to be more intellectual than emotional. I don't think its depression. I don't feel sad at all and never have outside of a few moments. I just don't feel emotions they way others do. I can relate to others emotions based on how I think they should feel.

I don't know where to post this in the forums... I am not bipolar, depressed, etc.. The way this started was weird... it happened when i was cutting the grass at 12 years old. nothing horrible was going on and I don't have tramatic experiences. Possibly a physical issue? I haven't talked about this over the years much because I tend to get thrown in the depressed category.

Thoughts? Am I just a freak of nature who has very shallow emotions?

Hello stan: Thanks for sharing this concern here on PC. I'm sorry I don't think there is much of anything I can offer with regard to what you've experienced. Hopefully other members may have some thoughts they can share. (I sincerely doubt that you are a "freak of nature".) I see this is your first post here on PC though. So... welcome to PsychCentral.

The mens' forum was an appropriate place to post this I would think. The only drawback might be that the mens' forum doesn't seem to see a lot of activity. The other forum that might be appropriate to this topic would be the Other Mental Health Discussion forum since it is for the discussion of "personal mental health issues that don't fit into a specific mental health topic." Here's a link to that forum:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/othe...th-discussion/

The other thing you might consider doing is to introduce yourself to the general membership over on the new member introductions forum:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/new-...introductions/

One way of approaching this might be to take some of the quizzes & tests that are on offer here on PC. Here's a link to the listing of quizzes & tests that are available:

Psychological Quizzes and Tests

I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

You sound very much like me, so I hope we're not freaks of nature. I didn't realize I was that way as young as you did, but back when I was in college, I would think, "When so-and-so dies, I'm sure I'll cry." But they would die, and I wouldn't shed a tear, even in the case of my parents, 11 years ago in the case of my father, and a few months ago in the case of my mother.

As a librarian, I was a cataloger, and as part of my work I came across works by John Elder Robison, Augusten Burroughs, and eventually Temple Grandin. Eventually I realized that the Asperger's Syndrome that they described fit me to a tee and helped me understand many things about my growing up that I had never considered. Since I'm not a health care professional and have not even been clinically diagnosed as Aspergian, I can't say that that's why you don't feel emotions. But if you haven't considered it before, take some of the quizzes on PC and see if you don't have some "aha" moments that might help you understand your lack of emotions.

I can relate to what you wrote. I had cold parents who I did not bond with emotionally. And, I've always been an introvert and an intellectual. I realized at a young age that my emotions towards others were not there. In retrospect, I was full of fear and insecurity because I believed that I did not fit in and was not accepted; fear and insecurity were the only emotions that I knew and they repressed my other emotions. I started to make a conscious effort to have empathy for others. I find that my emotions are rarely spontaneous. I have to dig sometimes and they will eventually surface. I cannot control when that happens. I have come to accept that my delayed emotional reactions are part of what makes me. Emotions are really the end result of a process; focus on empathy for others and bonding with others and the emotions will follow.

I didn't understand emotions and sympathy much either. I honestly still don't understand, which is why I tend to communicate with others who are like me. I can understand their emotions by comparing their struggles to my struggles. I can somewhat understand others' emotions by recounting my own emotions. If someone tells me that they're scared, I relate by remembering a time when I was scared.

You're not a freak of nature lol. You just process emotions differently than other people. Like you said, you think about things intellectually rather than emotionally, and that actually makes you very smart.