"Flat" emotions?

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I'm curious if anyone else's therapist has told them that when they're explaining past experiences that they related them with "flat emotions"? Admittedly I have not been diagnosed as with Aspergers though I did self-diagnose (just started seeing this guy). Anyway I told him about some bad friendships I had as a child and the next time he asked if I realized I explained them with "flat emotion". Now I admit I was confused b/c I literally cried through the entire coversation when I was telling him about them, but apparently I didn't verbalize what those experiences made me feel.

When I searched online about it, schizophrenia and depression seemed to be the first results. Admittedly I probably do have depression but I was curious if this could also be an Autism/Aspergers thing or not.

I'm not really sure what you mean, but from how you explained it, it sounds like I might have the opposite problem. I was told I have flat affect, meaning my emotions don't always show on my face. However, I have no problem verbalizing them. The way this affects me in life is mostly when random strangers feel the need to tell me to smile or ask me what's wrong even though I feel perfectly normal or happy.

So you show your emotions but don't verbalize them well?

I imagine both could be related to ASD. I know flat affect is, although it can be related to various mental health problems too.

I tend toward "inappropriate" emotions. For example, I might talk about the way my stepfather used to hit me, and laugh about it.

I don't know why I do that--I just do. It can't be too unusual a coping strategy. People who work in emergency services often cope by using black humor, because otherwise they'd just keep crying about having to see people hurt or dying. Maybe it's something like that.

Or maybe I just suck at expressing emotions. Who knows?

thanks. Well maybe it's not related then and is something else in origin. Or he's reading far too much into it.

In terms of understanding this terminology of flat emotions: what is the opposite of flat emotions? Rounded emotions? What do the words really mean? Is "flat emotions" a lazy verbal shorthand way of saying "no visible emotions"? If so it would be more helpful and less stigmatising to say "you don't display your emotions outwardly" than to say "you have flat emotions". The latter sounds dismissive to me, somehow.

Like the other posters, I believe what the therapist was trying to say is that you present a "flat effect" instead of displaying emotions. This is common among those of us on the spectrum. I was worse as a child, but still do it now, decades later. We do feel emotions, but don't always show it. Some of it is deliberate, as there are times when I don't want people to see how upset I am. Part of the time it is caused by my being exhausted, but most of the time it is simply a natural, automatic effect with me. I think it is caused at least in part by my being preoccupied with my own thoughts. Much of the time I literally have to work at displaying non flat responses. I've gotten better at "performing" over the decades, but I prefer not having to. This is one of the reasons why I prefer being solitary. I do make a point of waving to the neighbors, and speaking with them sometimes, as there is always the chance I might sometime need their help, due to my health problems. I don't mind them thinking I'm a loner with health problems, but I don't want them to think that I am a creepy loner with health problems, so it's wave, and howdy neighbor.

Hope this clears things up.

The last time I cried must have been as a child, most likely out of frustration.

Have never cried in over a decade, let alone in a therapist's office. To me that's a very foreign notion.

This even as my life from my teens up until the last year or so has been miserable to say the least (was also dxed with depression).

I get the naughty smile every time I think of something funny.

Then I realize my history teacher is talking about the causalities in the Great War. Oops.

My diagnostician wrote in my assessment report that I had "little variation in pitch and tone," and that I rarely showed facial expressions, though I would "smile during pleasant interactions." This was a completely foreign notion to me; I had no idea that I had little to no emotional expression in my voice and face, but now that I'm aware of it, I can hear when my voice is flat, and I've started copying others' facial expressions when I don't know what to do. My mom was telling me a few weeks ago that her friend's bird died, and I didn't know what reaction I was supposed to have, so I just watched her face and mimicked it, sort of like visual echolalia.