≡ Topic: Autopilot

Autopilot
02.12.2016 by Fagxin

Does anyone else feel they are on autopilot a lot of the time? A lot of people say it's exhausting to fake emotions all the time but most of the time I don't really have to try that hard. Like after playing a video game, you can do it with your eyes closed once you've played enough and do things without realising. One example, in my longest relationship when an argument would happen I would match them and shout if they did, cry if they did and everything would just happen. But after I would think back and realise I didn't care at all and could have said everything calmly without emotion but I just automatically acted as if I had them. This makes it kinda difficult sometimes to tell someone I'm Alexi as they won't believe me cause of examples of times I showed emotion when in reality I just reacted how I was conditioned to. Does anyone else feel like this?

Autopilot, yes....
22.12.2016 by DXS

It's like I "trained" my body to have a certain reaction to given situations....

Similarities
24.12.2016 by reds0das

I feel the same way; people tend to say that faking emotions are pretty hard, but I can do it in ease and I don't have to put an effort much to it. It's like you really don't know what to do so you just have to copy what the majority is doing, go with the flow and put up those "emotions".

For example, people tend to come to me for emotional support; I hate that a lot because I normally do not know what to do and besides, I don't feel any remorse at all. At the end, I only went along with anything they'd say to me.

This is sad
24.12.2016 by Z

for people who cannot choose even their own reactions.

Dissociation
10.01.2017 by CV

I believe this kind of "puppet" may be a dissociative reflex.
I had an experience with this recently dealing with a difficult person. Around her, I would smile, chatter on amiably about inconsequential topics, go about leisure activities like eating out for lunch, etc. But it seemed oddly as if I was in the backseat of a car, listening to someone else talking in the front. I wasn't engaged, just peripherally aware.
Then the moment she left the facade just dropped off, and "I" suddenly "woke up" and wondered what the hell just happened, and who exactly had been dealing with her.
It may also be so that alexithymic people use emotional cues as a deflection. I know I have used laughter as a communication cue, to communicate that I was joking, not because I felt any sort of merriment. All very confusing.