Published on 12, July, 2020
I've been a lurker on the site for ages and I signed up a while ago. I'm Asperger's, 52 now, diagnosed 10 years ago.
I read all of the insightful replies people give to the various threads on here and I try to analyse the types of people behind the answers. I admire the level of support people try to give - which is amazing considering all of our own problems.
Unfortunately, all this analysis just leads me further down the realisation that I just don't get it. I really do not understand emotions. I do not feel anything other than 'meh'. A sort of nothingness. I feel anger when people either deliberately of accidentally mess me around - but other than that, there's nothing.
I run on a very, very deep seated 'prime directive' of "I must do the right thing" which makes me look almost heroic in my ability to push through adversity and do things that impress everyone and make the world go around/keep the wheels on the wagon - but I don't 'feel' anything. I am the rock that provides stability and direction and the ability to keep of the even path even though I am surrounded by life's boulders. I always keep my head while everyone else goes to pieces. All of my motives boil down to "doing the right thing"
I get no sense of satisfaction because all I'm doing is decrementing an infinite list of problems that need sorting out. I'm never finished, there's always more to do.
People say I should be proud of my achievments - I don't get it.
A few years ago, I lost a lot of people close to me all in a few months - I recall just thinking "that's good, gone with no pain, nice & quick, neat & tidy" for my mum, "what a disappointment & waste" for my father in law, "oh, that's a shame" for my friend's mum (I'd known her almost 40 years) and "oh, ok" for a couple of uncles - but that's it.
I have no concept of 'happy' in myself but I understand when other people are happy.
I get upset/cry instantly at certain pieces of music - but it's over just as instantly - sort of like eating an ice-cream - momentary effect gone in seconds.
I realise I am much more like Commander Data than I thought. I just don't get all this human stuff.
Does anyone else feel this way? Is this an acceptable normal?
Should I be doing something?
Plastic said:Does anyone else feel this way?
That's pretty much me most of the time, my only other common emotion besides "meh" is a kind of niggling irritation/frustration - more of an itch that I can't scratch than an intense feeling. I do get very anxious quite often, but don't usually register it unless someone else points it out to me, or it gets to melt-down levels. This might sound strange, but the fact that you cry when listening to music probably means that you do have emotions, but you don't consciously register them - your subconscious has the emotional response, but your conscious mind just quite detachedly thinks, "oh, that's interesting, my eyes are leaking." Similar to music, I do sometimes feel something more powerful when I see other people's emotions expressed; I can cry quite easily at other people's suffering, yet very rarely at my own (or maybe I'm crying at my own too, but don't recognise it.)
It sound to me like you have alexithymia - not a condition in its own right, but a set of traits involving poor recognition of own emotions, lack of language to describe emotions, and unresponsiveness to emotional cues that your subconscious sends via your body. It is far more common for autistic people than others, and far more likely to be to an extreme. When children develop, they actually begin to understand other people's emotions before their own; their self-awareness comes from mimicking and making correlations with the behaviour of the people around them. So in a sense, alexithymia might partly be that an autistic deficit in cognitive empathy for other people also extends to ourself.
Plastic said:Is this an acceptable normal?
To other people, only your behaviour can be acceptable or unacceptable, not your private emotions or the lack of them. People who feel strong emotions may manifest them in either acceptable or unacceptable ways, too. So ultimately, is it acceptable to you?
Plastic said:Should I be doing something?
Unless it's leading you to harm people, then not "should", no. I have found that appropriate CBT has helped me to widen my emotional repertoire a bit, and to get a bit better at identifying my feelings. This isn't easy to come by, unfortunately; alexithymia is often read by therapists as denial or lack of co-operation; a therapist with specific autism/alexithymia experience is much more likely to be successful. I did this because I did still feel a nagging pang that I wanted more companionship in my life. The main benefit so far is that I'm better at recognising my anxiety levels, which has allowed me to reduce explosive bursts of anger and melt-downs. It is too early to tell what effect, if any, it has had on anything else, nothing much has happened to me since then that I'd expect to elicit particularly strong emotions (besides anger at the DWP!) - but I guess I'm probably not the best judge of that!
Thanks for the replies - I have tried CBT in the past but felt pressured into giving the 'right answers' because I felt it was a waste of time.
When I ask about doing something, it's a concern for those around me - I'm not sure if I'm capable of change/growth but as those around me are NT, I am aware of their development and I'm concerned that my responses will not satisfy their emotional needs.
Miost of my melt-downs are internal - I just get overloaded and shut down.
Will the alexithmia diagnosis add any value? i'm already very Asperger's so how much more will that mean?