#shallow affect

[hauntedselves]

hello, im not sure if ive sent this ask to another blog or if it was yours and its simply in the queue but i thought id ask again just in case

main q : could you explain what would qualify shallow vs deep, intense, andor strong emotions ?

personal context : it feels like my emotions are both at once. this seems to be a trait of hpd, but i only have bpd to my knowledge, though cluster b pds do ofc tend to share traits

im not quite sure how to explain my experience but it might be one of these :

my feelings seem big but i cannot acces them / i can only handle them mechanically and from a distance (dissociation ?)

my emotions are deep in the moment, but they change rapidly and once theyre over i forget how they truly felt and associate their lack of permenance with fakeness (general bpd symptoms + emotional impermanence)

i generally feel more numb than most ppl so even small feelings feel intense to me and so im very intolerent to them

i like putting words to how i feel, so having a definition for "shallow" emotion would help, and so would knowing if other ppl experience similar feelings

and thank you so much for running this blog :]

yes i got your previous ask, and it's been sitting in my drafts since you sent it because i don't know the answer!

i can't find anything that actually explains what shallow emotions are, only that they happen and are particularly common in HPD, BPD, and probably NPD and AsPD. it's part of the criteria for HPD ("Displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions."), and it's often paired with the contradiction that emotions can be shallow and deep, intense and limited at the same time.

as for your personal experiences:

"my feelings seem big but i cannot acces them / i can only handle them mechanically and from a distance" - yep, that sounds like dissociation, or at the very least emotional dysregulation. very common in BPD.

"my emotions are deep in the moment, but they change rapidly and once theyre over i forget how they truly felt and associate their lack of permenance with fakeness" - you're right again, classic BPD & emotional dysregulation(/impermanence).

"i generally feel more numb than most ppl so even small feelings feel intense to me and so im very intolerent to them" - also classic dissociation & emotional dysregulation

i don't know which of these, if any, is an experience of shallow emotions, because i don't know what shallow emotions means! if i had to guess, i would say the first and second ones seem like something i would call "shallow" emotions. but that's a guess because, again, i don't know!

sorry it took so long for such an unsatisfactory answer!

[placeholder-txt]

My emotions are very wide but very shallow. If you jumped in the water you'd get wet, but only up to your toes.

[keskl]

the closer you want me to be the sharper the distance feels

[je-suis-charlotte]

Most psychopaths have a very shallow affect. That is, our emotions tend to be shallow in general. They are also short-lived. Now, that said, the presence of other personality disorders, most notably Borderline Personality Disorder, can cause this criterion of psychopathy to become somewhat muddy. It can also be difficult to tease the shallow affect of psychopathy from our inability to feel affective empathy or guilt and remorse. When my mother was in critical condition a few days ago, I did not feel sadness, despair, or any other emotions that most neurotypicals would have when presented with the real possibility of losing a loved one. I was completely stoic except for the adrenaline rush caused by the intellectual realization that a high-stakes game was unfolding before me. My therapist is often stunned by the lack of emotion that I present in session. We talk of my many accomplishments, both saintly and sinful, and there is nothing but stoicism as the words recounting such pour from my mouth. In my writing, I try to avoid any portrayal of emotion as it would be false. There is simply nothing – usually – there. Or is it more accurate to say that the emotions – as events unfold – are simply not permanent and thus cannot be recounted? It is a mixture of both. I have felt environmental depression when my schemes go awry. I feel intense anger over the most trivial of events. When my former supervisor (at a former employer) tried to strong-arm me, my hate burned brighter than any star. However, shortly after switching jobs, my hatred dissipated. My consternation toward my mother when I had to visit a dying relative on a regular basis would fade as soon as I drove my mother home. The intense satisfaction of an oral presentation or well-written academic paper would disappear within minutes of finishing such an endeavor. Even with my manuscript, I no longer feel the positive emotions that I had briefly after I wrote the final page. Nothing is permanent. For those times that I am merely “robotic” as I engage with others or recount past events, it is not that I am oblivious to my surroundings. I see plenty of stimuli that would provoke a strong emotional response in NTs but none that cause anything but faux emotions in myself. I will mask in order to seem in place, but under the hood the lights are turned off. I know this because I could see the tears in my brother and grandmother’s eyes as my mother was in critical condition in the hospital. They simply possess something that I do not. It is easy to see why there are parallels between the psychopath and the autistic, for example. Our emotional distance from the neurotypical is vast and deeply disconcerting to the NT. We appear to be soulless monsters with our actions and the humanity that we “lack.” Our emotions are short-lived, if present at all, and our stoicism can be off-setting. I wonder what I am missing, but I have come to the conclusion that I will never yearn. I can act when others cannot, in part due to my near-invincibility when it comes to emotional unsettling of the mind.