Can alexithymia get worse?

After decades of therapists noting "You're very much in your head aren't you?" and having to interrupt my logical analysis of something with "No, I asked how you *feel* about it.", I've realised that alexithymia could be written on the inside of my eyelids.

For decades I struggled with depression, which I'm managing so, so much better now I have the explanatory framework of autism, and despite also having Seasonal Affective Disorder I'm actually doing OK for the grey end of January.

However, my current (last month, last quarter, can't exactly remember) mood is best described as "OK, content, no worries, chilled, meh" and I have a distinct lack of joy, excitement, anticipation that I remember having vague glimpses of during my younger years. Of course, many of the things that provoked excitement were things that I was encountering for the first time (new cars, motorbikes, girlfriends, different sorts of clouds, things to photograph, radio equipment, mathematical concepts, scientific theories, new telescopes). So I can't expect "new exciting things" to go on forever.

I'm rambling now - any thoughts?

Parents
  • I have several serious health conditions so NTs label me as being severely depressed. They often don't understand that I don't do emotions like normal people so they are measuring a null-state of my mask. I do not have a response that they expect to any situation. 

    The clinical interrogations where they 'measure' me are artificial so I don't have a pre-prepared 'clinic mode' to make them happy.

    I think they are projecting their view of how they would feel in this situation.

Reply
  • I have several serious health conditions so NTs label me as being severely depressed. They often don't understand that I don't do emotions like normal people so they are measuring a null-state of my mask. I do not have a response that they expect to any situation. 

    The clinical interrogations where they 'measure' me are artificial so I don't have a pre-prepared 'clinic mode' to make them happy.

    I think they are projecting their view of how they would feel in this situation.

Children
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