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Alexithymia
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"Does anyone else have this? I got it as part of my neurodiversity package. Alexithymia is basically the inability to feel emotions. " It's not that I can't feel emotions more that I struggle to identify how I'm feeling | |||
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"More seriously Misschief, is it that some emotions you don't feel, some emotions you process differently from the expected "norm", a bit of both, or you really don't feel any emotions? Sad, happy, depressed, fearful etc?" They have to be very intense before I can feel them a little bit. I never lose my temper and am always very calm, even in very stressful situations. I can get depressed but I think it's more low mood combined with intense boredom. It can be difficult to motivate myself because nothing really makes me feel anything. | |||
"Does anyone else have this? I got it as part of my neurodiversity package. Alexithymia is basically the inability to feel emotions. " So if I prick you with a pin, you wouldn't be shocked, surprised, angry, hurt, annoyed, confused and so on.. If you couldn't find a plaster you'd grab a tissue, not the least bit pissed off with the faffing through draws trying to put one on?? | |||
"Does anyone else have this? I got it as part of my neurodiversity package. Alexithymia is basically the inability to feel emotions. It's not that I can't feel emotions more that I struggle to identify how I'm feeling " Is it because it's too overwhelming or because you can't feel it very well? | |||
"Does anyone else have this? I got it as part of my neurodiversity package. Alexithymia is basically the inability to feel emotions. So if I prick you with a pin, you wouldn't be shocked, surprised, angry, hurt, annoyed, confused and so on.. If you couldn't find a plaster you'd grab a tissue, not the least bit pissed off with the faffing through draws trying to put one on??" I would say "Why did you just prick me with a pin?" if it was bleeding a lot I would fold some tissue and tape it over. Pin pricks don't really bleed much though | |||
"Does anyone else have this? I got it as part of my neurodiversity package. Alexithymia is basically the inability to feel emotions. So if I prick you with a pin, you wouldn't be shocked, surprised, angry, hurt, annoyed, confused and so on.. If you couldn't find a plaster you'd grab a tissue, not the least bit pissed off with the faffing through draws trying to put one on?? I would say "Why did you just prick me with a pin?" if it was bleeding a lot I would fold some tissue and tape it over. Pin pricks don't really bleed much though" Stubbing your toe then, | |||
"More seriously Misschief, is it that some emotions you don't feel, some emotions you process differently from the expected "norm", a bit of both, or you really don't feel any emotions? Sad, happy, depressed, fearful etc? They have to be very intense before I can feel them a little bit. I never lose my temper and am always very calm, even in very stressful situations. I can get depressed but I think it's more low mood combined with intense boredom. It can be difficult to motivate myself because nothing really makes me feel anything." So, moving forward, are you looking to "find a way to feel things" (which sounds a bit like forcing a square peg into a round hole), or recognising you're made this way and focusing on techniques to manage the only real negative here - depression or low mood/boredom. Lack of motivation would also be a potential negative, buy if the only way to fully motivate is to crank up the intensity level of things, isn't that more draining? What techniques have you been advised to adopt to navigate? | |||
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"Does anyone else have this? I got it as part of my neurodiversity package. Alexithymia is basically the inability to feel emotions. So if I prick you with a pin, you wouldn't be shocked, surprised, angry, hurt, annoyed, confused and so on.. If you couldn't find a plaster you'd grab a tissue, not the least bit pissed off with the faffing through draws trying to put one on?? I would say "Why did you just prick me with a pin?" if it was bleeding a lot I would fold some tissue and tape it over. Pin pricks don't really bleed much though Stubbing your toe then," I would say "ow, for fucks sake" and then get on with my day. Pain isn't really a trigger for me, I've injured myself and broken so many bones that's it's just an annoyance. Not being able to find something winds me up, but I think thats more into autistic overload territory | |||
"More seriously Misschief, is it that some emotions you don't feel, some emotions you process differently from the expected "norm", a bit of both, or you really don't feel any emotions? Sad, happy, depressed, fearful etc? They have to be very intense before I can feel them a little bit. I never lose my temper and am always very calm, even in very stressful situations. I can get depressed but I think it's more low mood combined with intense boredom. It can be difficult to motivate myself because nothing really makes me feel anything. So, moving forward, are you looking to "find a way to feel things" (which sounds a bit like forcing a square peg into a round hole), or recognising you're made this way and focusing on techniques to manage the only real negative here - depression or low mood/boredom. Lack of motivation would also be a potential negative, buy if the only way to fully motivate is to crank up the intensity level of things, isn't that more draining? What techniques have you been advised to adopt to navigate?" Haven't been advised to adopt anything, I found therapy to be unhelpful and expensive. The general advice for it is just to "feel your feelings" which is as helpful as telling a blind person to "see their seeings". Part of it is identifying the physical aspects of emotions and identify that but interoception issues make that difficult, I suspect they're connected. Moving forward, I don't know. Just chase one hyper fixation after the other. | |||
"Does anyone else have this? I got it as part of my neurodiversity package. Alexithymia is basically the inability to feel emotions. It's not that I can't feel emotions more that I struggle to identify how I'm feeling Is it because it's too overwhelming or because you can't feel it very well?" Probably more that it's overwhelming | |||
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"More seriously Misschief, is it that some emotions you don't feel, some emotions you process differently from the expected "norm", a bit of both, or you really don't feel any emotions? Sad, happy, depressed, fearful etc? They have to be very intense before I can feel them a little bit. I never lose my temper and am always very calm, even in very stressful situations. I can get depressed but I think it's more low mood combined with intense boredom. It can be difficult to motivate myself because nothing really makes me feel anything. So, moving forward, are you looking to "find a way to feel things" (which sounds a bit like forcing a square peg into a round hole), or recognising you're made this way and focusing on techniques to manage the only real negative here - depression or low mood/boredom. Lack of motivation would also be a potential negative, buy if the only way to fully motivate is to crank up the intensity level of things, isn't that more draining? What techniques have you been advised to adopt to navigate? Haven't been advised to adopt anything, I found therapy to be unhelpful and expensive. The general advice for it is just to "feel your feelings" which is as helpful as telling a blind person to "see their seeings". Part of it is identifying the physical aspects of emotions and identify that but interoception issues make that difficult, I suspect they're connected. Moving forward, I don't know. Just chase one hyper fixation after the other." Sounds a bit like the advice comes from a place of "how to fake being a typical human so we feel we've done our job" rather than "you're an atypical human and we don't yet know how to give you a language for you, rather than a language for us, the more typical humans." If it were me, I would see myself as an alien, with some shared commonality with humans, but no reason to fake it for their behalf (which I do in some respects, but not for this diagnosis, which I don't have and wouldn't have). The other thing I do, and always advise, is to meditate the way Jillian and Michael at London Meditation Centre teach. I do feel heart emotions/endocrine emotions, and always have, but the meditation style I learned from them very much allows a cerebral appreciation of compassion, fear, happiness etc in a way the more "heart" emotions don't. It's a cerebral "feeling", rather than a cerebral (Western, rational) analysis of data, although classic analytic techniques are made stronger afterwards in consequence. So access to emotions cerebrally rather than classic "emotionality" or "rationality" is liberating, with a bigger scope of meaning and applicability. Can turn a source of worry into a source of profound, but subtle, energy. I probably wouldn't advise other meditation schools - they can be a bit flakey or saturated with weird/illness, and mindfulness doesn't go very far. That's all I got xxxx | |||
"So it might be as a posted said above, it's not so much inability feeling them but identifying they are having them or how they are in that moment? You'd question "why" to a pin prick (confusion), and say ffs (anger/annoyance) to stubbing toe.. Not being a dick, just trying to understand it it with my morning joe." I think the poster above is the opposite end of the scale to me. Some people struggle to identify emotions because there are too many happening at once and there is a lot of emotional 'noise'. For me it's more like emotional blindness, there is just not anything there. Sometimes I'm aware that my body is trying to do an emotion but I dont really know what and it's usually delayed. Like stress, it takes me a long time, days or weeks to realise I'm stressed and normally only know because I've broken out in spots or something. The 'why' of the pin prick is more, "you better have a good reason for doing that" I'm very unreactive, and very rarely if ever get startled. It used to drive my sister mad because she could never make me jump. I do get confused but for me it's an intellectual challenge to 'solve'. I'm a very logical thinker. I do feel anger and annoyance for sure but anger is always just the briefest flash that wouldn't even register on my face. Most people that know me have never seen me angry. | |||
" Sounds a bit like the advice comes from a place of "how to fake being a typical human so we feel we've done our job" rather than "you're an atypical human and we don't yet know how to give you a language for you, rather than a language for us, the more typical humans." If it were me, I would see myself as an alien, with some shared commonality with humans, but no reason to fake it for their behalf (which I do in some respects, but not for this diagnosis, which I don't have and wouldn't have). The other thing I do, and always advise, is to meditate the way Jillian and Michael at London Meditation Centre teach. I do feel heart emotions/endocrine emotions, and always have, but the meditation style I learned from them very much allows a cerebral appreciation of compassion, fear, happiness etc in a way the more "heart" emotions don't. It's a cerebral "feeling", rather than a cerebral (Western, rational) analysis of data, although classic analytic techniques are made stronger afterwards in consequence. So access to emotions cerebrally rather than classic "emotionality" or "rationality" is liberating, with a bigger scope of meaning and applicability. Can turn a source of worry into a source of profound, but subtle, energy. I probably wouldn't advise other meditation schools - they can be a bit flakey or saturated with weird/illness, and mindfulness doesn't go very far. That's all I got xxxx" I definitely feel like an alien, but I think a lot of ND people do. The main change I make to fit in is to replace "I think" with "I feel" in sentences. I do yoga as a form of meditation which helps ground my crap interoception. With emotions I tend to replace them with the cognitive version. Like empathy, I don't use emotional empathy I use cognitive empathy. | |||
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(Note - we really are humans, not aliens. We just don't realise what being human is yet. It's much more "alien" than we've yet realised. No gods required either. God can fuck off and suck my dick, if she existed. But she doesn't. Thank god 😉) | |||
