How I learned Emotional Intelligence with Aspergers (and how you can too!) | Emotions Explained

Some people could find the idea of discovering traits of autism in themselves horrifying. I find it liberating...

I'm gonna binge watch Aspie channels today, because my social limitations are really getting to me

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for almost 10 years. It caused me to completely shut down my emotions, and protect myself from my own empathy. When that codependent relationship ended I suddenly realized that I was about to lose my only link to my friends (my ex). So I basically said 'it's now or never" and got my couple friends in a group chat and just poured my heart out to them. I was so vulnerable it was terrifying. They talked with me and comforted me, and helped me figure some stuff out about myself. In doing so we all became much closer, and I can now proudly say I've been able to comfort them in their times of need! Previously I could not have done that. I learned emotional intelligence from my caring friends. I'm so grateful.

3:30 the kindergarten story. It’s about hierarchies and their function in society. All the other kids instinctively knew to watch the teacher for their cues because she held the highest social status for the situation you were all in. You a) didn’t understand this, and b) had the distractions of the room (and other children) to deal with.

I think this part about the "why's" is huge.... I think it's fundamental. I think it even affects how we take in new information. I also think that it is a factor in Tree --> Forest thinking. We need to know all about each tree!

People say we don't have feelings. I feel we feel strongly. It's debilitating. I also have other mental health struggles. But I'm just so tortured at the moment. My past. My present. My fear of the future. Being bored. Feeling alone.

I am incredibly grateful for your content. My husband and son were both identified as having Aspergers two years ago. You have helped me understand how they see the world. These videos have been an asset to my marriage and the parenting of my son. I hope to be a patron of yours someday. Thank you!

What would be really useful is if someone made a database of various social pragmatics, the reasoning behind them and examples of use for us to study to. It would make it so much easier for us to interact with society in a productive way.

I've never had a problem with something as simple as saying "hello" to someone when they say it to me, that's a pretty easy social thing to learn, my problem is more like I think I've completely mastered "greetings" by only every saying a single phrase to everybody I meet, every single time I meet them. Or I just parrot whatever greeting they use, which people definitely think is weird. Also keeping conversations going isn't hard because I can't relate to the person, it's because my brain simply has zero interest in what the person is saying and expending any energy to generate interest is absolutely draining. My desire to be polite might be at 100% but if I have low energy it is simply impossible.

I feel in my heart my husband is asperger's and I'm just really learning how listening to you.i felt alot of yrs of feeling rejected by him cuz I didnt understand his thought process. So now I feel I'm at least underestimating the why?and it's a big step of forgiving him.cuz he had no clue. Thxs love your videos. Keep up the excellent work.im sure it's so helpful .it sure is to me.

This is fascinating - I’ve done the same thing myself, same stages. My first transition happened at 16, maybe earlier because I’m female. It all really boils down to the fact that we are wired & function differently on a fundamental level, but we learn very very quickly if we can learn the right way to do something. ‘My brain is a giant filing cabinet’ & ‘I need to understand WHY’ - 100% resonate! I love all your charts too.

For me the way to understand was to think: ok, we are decendents of monkeys with cavemen brains. So all the social behaviours can be explained in this context. For example: in school i realized that all the alpha males have a group of semi alphas to confirm and mantain his power. In return, de semi alphas would have a share of his status and power. How he gets the power? By showing force against the weaker - bullying in a nutshell. ( same in work places ) So, you dont have to fight them, just show that u are not a easy prey, and they will jump to another victim. Another example: i live in a really violent country, so i got assalted more than 9 times ( i walked with my head down and low shoulders) .. since i started adopting a more "confident posture" (head up, back strait, closed lips and loking to a point in front of me and showing no emotion ) the assalts stoped! Seens crazy but a lot of our body language afects the subconcious. ( see in elevators, people are aways looking down - for primates, looking in the eye of a stranger is a agressive berravior ) Making this kind of observations, made easy (less hard) for me to know what to say/what to do in the right context.

I used to have the "why do I have to do what everyone else is doing?" mentality too and I actively rebelled against learning social skills... now I realize that social skills are vital to success whether you like it or not. Also, you were in kindergarten when you were 3!?

OMG!!!! It's like a thousand light bulb moments were going off during this video. Only just discovered you and watched maybe 2 or 3 videos so will now subscribe and binge watch your channel. When you was describing the observation stage I can so relate, especially when you also try to learn intellectually how to socialise. I just had vision of you sitting there dressed like an explorer with a clipboard and binoculars studying a newly discovered species. I spent a huge amount of my life, especially at the school playground obsessively studying/observing these strange beings we call "humans" like I wasn't human myself. I've heard other aspies describe feeling like an "alien" or otherwise "not like other humans" Great video!

Thanks for your videos. It's such a myth that people on the spectrum have 'no' emotions. Sometimes I wonder if we actually have more emotions than NT's, but that we deal with our emotions differently. Yet at the same time, I see a very strong logical bent to our thinking. This outlook on emotional situations through the lens of logic may be what makes us appear to not understand emotions or to even have emotions from the NT perspective. It seems like what WE think we appear as, or what WE perceive ourselves to be saying or meaning is often NOT what the NT world sees or understands. It's an almost total breakdown of communication between the two neurological set-ups (NT/ASD). Unfortunately, NT's historically are the ones setting the narrative. THEY decide what, who, and why WE act a certain way - THEY have defined US to the world and this is just not right. It's time NT's stop defining people on the spectrum by what NT's think we are, and have us all speak out in every way we can to let us tell the world who we really are.

I call my brain the Rolodex, and am just now seeing my life’s events and struggles make sense, and can’t begin to describe the relief and understanding I get from watching your videos ☺️ Thank you

You finally gave me a way to explain what I mean by "I think in math". People are so afraid of math that it's not as helpful as it could be. I'm not some math genius. It's that understanding that everything connects in a measurable and predictable way. It's a comforting thought to me but I don't get opportunities to share that comfort.

One thing I've realised is that I have intense emotional responses to things. I don't just get upset, my heart actually feels like its breaking. I get so angry over seemingly minor things that others would not get upset about and I stay upset because I don't know what to do when my feelings get hurt. It can take a lot of positive experiences to erase one negative one. I also can recall exactly what happened and what was said days, months and in some cases years after things happened as if it just happened so I can be thrown right back into something emotionally if I'm triggered. I can't regulate it. It's horrible when it happens. I used to think melt downs were temper tantrums but have come to realising that my crying (I cry when I'm sad, hurt and angry) is my form of a meltdown. It's really dumb because it sabotages me. Anyway, I'm still learning and I look forward to hearing more about your course. Wondering if you think that guys are really that different from girl Aspies and whether the stereotypes are correct about male/females. One man I know identifies more strongly with what they classically say are male Asperger's traits and I feel I have more male like traits. I keep wondering about the whole androgenous thing and thinking that might have something to do with it. Thoughts?

BTW, kudos to you for your journey from struggling with EQ to actually teaching a course on EQ! Well done, sir.

The differences in how you perceived yourself from normal to dreadlocks, reminds me of when I started listening to heavy metal music, MetallicA, PanterA and so on, I couldn't grow my hair out, but I looked just like a heavy guy, people went from thinking I was boring, to thinking I was insane, which in a strange way boosted my ego, compared to their usual insults. But I still dress that way because what I realized is that was where I developed my own sense of purpose and identity; and I no longer cared what people thought about me. Great video man, I could relate to every word you spoke.