If you’ve ever been told you are too sensitive or too cold, you’re not alone. Many Black autistic people struggle with emotions in a way that feels extreme. Either everything hits like a tidal wave, or nothing registers at all.
You might cry over something small but feel numb during big events. You might feel so much that it’s overwhelming, or you might wonder why you don’t feel much at all when you should.
If this sounds familiar, know this… your emotions are not broken, wrong, or defective. They just work differently.
Why Do Our Emotions Feel So Extreme or Absent?
Autistic brains process emotions in ways that don’t always match social expectations. Here are a few reasons why your emotions may feel like too much or too little at times.
Emotional Processing Delays
- Sometimes, emotions take longer to register. You might not react right away but feel it hours or days later.
- This can make it seem like you don’t care when something happens, but really, your brain just needs more time to process.
Hyperempathy vs. Alexithymia
- Some autistic people feel everything… deeply, painfully, and in ways that are hard to contain.
- Others experience alexithymia, which makes it difficult to recognize or describe emotions. You might feel something is off but not know what the emotion is.
Masking and Emotional Suppression
- If you grew up in a Black household where showing too much emotion was discouraged, you may have learned to push everything down.
- Over time, masking emotions can make it hard to connect with how you actually feel.
Burnout and Emotional Shutdowns
- Emotional overwhelm can lead to shutdowns where you feel numb, disconnected, or unable to process what’s happening.
- This is not not caring… this is your nervous system protecting itself from overload.
How This Affects Us in Daily Life
These emotional shifts can be confusing, frustrating, and sometimes isolating. Here’s how they show up in everyday situations.
- Relationships. You may struggle to express feelings the right way or at the right time, which can lead to misunderstandings.
- Grief and Trauma. You might not react right away to loss or bad news, then feel everything all at once later.
- Work and School. If you are seen as too emotional, you may be dismissed as unprofessional. If you don’t react enough, people assume you don’t care.
- Friendships. Some friends might misunderstand emotional shutdowns as disinterest, while others might struggle with how intensely you feel things.
The world expects emotions to fit into neat categories… but that’s not how autistic brains work.
How to Navigate Emotional Highs and Lows
You don’t need to fix your emotions. You need to understand them and work with them in a way that makes sense for you.
Identify Your Emotional Patterns
- Do you tend to feel too much or too little? Does it change based on stress, burnout, or social settings?
- Recognizing your patterns can help you prepare for emotional shifts.
Use an Emotional Labeling System
- If you struggle to identify feelings, try using emotion charts or body signals as clues.
- Instead of forcing words, ask yourself… Does this feel heavy or light? Warm or cold? Fast or slow?
Give Yourself Time to Process
- If your emotions are delayed, let people know… “I need time to process before I respond.”
- If your emotions are overwhelming, grounding exercises can help bring you back to center.
Communicate Your Needs
- It’s okay to tell people “I process emotions differently” instead of trying to force yourself into their expectations.
- If you struggle with big emotions, let trusted people know how to support you.
Don’t Judge Yourself for Feeling “Wrong”
- There is no wrong way to feel. Just because your emotions don’t match social norms doesn’t mean they aren’t valid.
- Your emotions, or lack of them, do not define your worth.
If you’ve ever been told your emotions are too much or too little, know this… you are not the problem. Your emotions are real, even if they show up in unexpected ways.
You don’t need to fit into anyone else’s emotional expectations. You just need to understand your own emotional landscape and honor it in a way that feels right for you.
As always… take what resonates, leave what doesn’t, and know that you are not alone in this journey❤