[nicoburns]

Autistic people can have trouble accessing emotions, but a lot of the reason for that stereotype is just that they communicate their emotions and emotional reactions differently and/or that their emotional reactions to certain situations are different to those of neurotypical people: not that they're not actually feeling emotions at all.

[karmakaze]

Later in life I considered myself to be on the autistic spectrum as it explained many of my quirks. Growing up, I thought everyone was normal like me but less rational. Very recently I found out about Alexithymia, the inability to identify, describe or express one's own emotions, which actually nails it. Many of the outward interactions are similar but the internal experience is different. The best way I can describe my experiences is that the 'feeling' or even awareness of existence of an emotion lags, sometimes by hours, until it becomes sorted-out and conscious. I also don't much have emotional overloads other than being drained by certain forms of interactions that I'd chalked up to being introverted, which was odd because I'm very extroverted at times. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that I don't put effort into interacting emotionally outside my closest circles.

Maybe it's like smell, where there are many bad scents and even if it didn't impact my survival I wouldn't want to live without the sense, and I should indulge more. The only concrete thing I've learned is that significantly reducing my caffeine intake helps but also distracts.

[wayoutthere]

It’s less about being unable to access our emotions than our emotions being frequently influenced by sensory (over)stimulation — we learn to ignore them because they often tell us things that aren’t useful.

My main trigger is light — too bright, bad color, too much flicker, all of which can cause me to get “irrationally” angry in a conversation about any mundane topic. I’m not really that passionate about most of the things I get overwhelmed by, so my heightened emotional state because of some sensory stimulus is not useful.

All my anger/sadness tells me is that it’s bright and I need to either put on some sunglasses or turn off the lights. I have learned over time not to blow up at other people about it because it’s not their fault, and they’ll think that I think it is if I have a meltdown in front of them.

[BizarroLand]

It might also be that Autistic traits would be a good solo or small tribe survival adaptation.

Highly logical, no breaking down in a fit of misery, less susceptible to loneliness, very useful for times when you're stuck in a survival situation.

[labster]

I doubt autism correlates that strongly with resilience and grit. But I have long thought that groups benefit from having a portion of the population having autism. Variance in thinking means more potential strategies for success. Too much variance probably hurts group cohesion.

[PeterisP]

IMHO the most effective adaptation for "solo or small tribe survival" that we and other primates have is all the factors that decrease one's chances of being put in the very disadvantageous solo or tiny tribe situation. (For example, various submissive behaviors and the quite interesting concept of crying seem to be adaptations towards that - continuing to live in a larger tribe instead of leaving) It's simpler and more effective to try and avoid or fix that problem in the first place, instead of trying to optimize for tolerating the problem.