Originally Posted by
Loki
I can experience choice paralysis even when there isn't some scenario like a grocery store or a doctor's office presenting external choices (though I experience it in those scenarios as well). At work, for instance, the two things I've noticed stall me are when I'm thinking about which decision to make at the point I know one needs to be made (this doesn't encompass all decision making, but more decision making about things I don't feel I have sufficient knowledge about and am dreading asking certain people because I dread interacting with them) and secondly, carrying out the course of action that I have decided is best once I've made a decision... I seem to dread that as well and then begin procrastinating. It's a mix of dread, lack of energy, and lack of motivation all rolled into one... and when it's in my mind, sometimes I consider it "already done" in this strange way... sometimes, for instance, I'll confuse the memory of doing something with the memory of my intention to do it... because within the memory of intention are the same visual images that would be there in the memory of action, because when I intended to do whatever it was I imagined myself doing it.
As for my feelings, I don't feel confused between my feelings and others' feelings. If I'm surrounded by too much stimuli and feel it's pulling my feelings everywhere, I usually feel overwhelmed and withdraw so I can be alone and get back to my actual feelings. Sometimes I'm confused about how I personally feel about something, and I certainly get confused about what I want (not knowing what I want) but it's not because of other people (when it comes to feelings at least)... these are simply internal confusions within myself. I usually see a divide between myself and others that I don't cross unless I know them really well. But even then I can easily recognize the difference between my feelings and theirs. I also tend to be skeptical that I really can know what someone else is feeling because I probably think of their emotional experience as unique to them and tend to see it as imposing or something for me to presume to know what they feel (as I believe only they can truly know their own experience and that I would be somewhat degrading the potency and unique significance of their experience to say that I know exactly what it is). I generally have felt that way sometimes when people have presumed to know what I'm feeling, when I can see from their behaviors regarding me that they obviously don't know what I'm feeling. I do think that a certain deep connection can be reached between two people who deeply know one another, where there could be shared feelings... but even then I don't really feel afraid that I wouldn't know my own feelings anymore. I can feel confusion between my wants and those of other people though, and it's easy for me to jump on someone else's train when they have important goals because I'm so confused about my own goals and wants and desires sometimes. And that has been a problem for me in the past, which then led to a great deal of self-analysis that I don't think led anywhere about why it happened.
I've noticed that my ESE mom (yay, I've mentioned her again) seems to confuse her emotions with those of others, but she doesn't seem to ever suspect this is happening when it's happening. She can pick up on feelings around her and convey them as her own. She has very strong and fluctuating emotions that are highly susceptible to whatever is going on around her... Her feelings are in the external realm, and they're all out in the open all the time... and because they're 'out there' it seems that everything else that is 'out there' can affect them and move them... My feelings though are something I see as inside me, separate from what is out there. Part of them probably do get transmitted out there and they can be affected there, but I often perceive a great wall between my emotions and everyone else's. I can sense the emotional atmosphere when I pay attention though, and sometimes it's vague background noise... At times when I need to know what it is I tend to pay attention to it more because something is unfolding and I feel I need to know what that is. Also I think that sometimes "emotional soaking" can occur. For instance, growing up my dad was always heavily depressed and it was so strong I could feel it everywhere around him... and sometimes I wonder if over time it soaked into me... My mom for instance tries to distance herself from negativity and will not hold certain conversations even because she "doesn't need that negativity in her life." This would provide a strong defense against 'emotional soaking' though. Perhaps although she doesn't seem to realize sometimes that she's conveying strong feelings that weren't her own, but now have sort of become her own after she picked them up, she does (obviously) realize how much being around other feelings can influence her own frame of mind.
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For example, I have even experienced to not know if I'm madly in love with a guy, or if I just felt him being madly in love with me. :frown:
! 
(see what I mean, I just did those faces because I didn't want to piss anyone off lol, like expressing emotions is not ok if it annoys anyone). 
, I wish there was some kind of sign to tell us who's feeling we feel.
), or if it was just because they WANT me to feel that-- and I was feeling their love, I would separate myself from them, and wait for the longing... I would stay separate from them as long as possible, probably paying attention mostly to what I feel when with others-- to see if I'd rather be with that person than them.
