Published on 12, July, 2020
I was talking earlier with someone elsewhere about how it is quite common for Autistic people not to recognise their feelings and it got me thinking! I normally say that my usual 'emotional state' is 'comfortably numb' that is, most of the time, I feel nothing. Right now, sitting here typing this, I feel nothing. I've previously wondered briefly about Alexithymia and I've even done the Alexithymia test online BUT Alexithymia is essentially not recognising one's emotions yet on the rare occasion when I do 'feel' something, I do know what I am feeling at that moment in time, in fact I've always thought that I'm quite good at understanding my own emotions, when I feel them. But the talk I was having earlier made me start to question if it's more that these 'rare occasions' of 'feeling' something are actually more rare occasions of me actually recognising what I am feeling. Am I feeling all of the time and just unaware of it, except on rare occasions? Is it even possible to feel and not be aware of feeling? Perhaps I am just being dumb/naive/overthinking? What are other people's views about this please?
I've been thinking about this too recently. And I don't know how I feel about it... Lol. Seriously I don't know. It reminds me of how when I was a teenager I was convinced I might be a psychopath because apart from being very depressed generally, I didn't feel much else. I mean in between feeling overwhelmed. I don't know. I find a lot of things overwhelming, but I don't often know how to describe why I'm overwhelmed. I just know that I don't feel 'good' I rarely if ever recognise good feelings though, until I've gone back down to my normal mood (okay (possibly numb) or bad) and I'm looking back) The thing that made me realise I probably wasn't a psychopath is my interaction with non-human animals. And how much empathy I have for others. But some of that I've realised recently might not be so much empathy as such but projection. As in, I project how I think I would feel, have felt or reacted towards something and think the other person must be feeling that way too and drive myself crazy thinking about how bad they must feel.
Me neither!
I also sometimes think that I can be quite psychopathic in terms of my lack of feeling or expressing emotion. But yet I know that I’m not psychopathic, rather Autistic.
I too feel bad if others are suffering but as you said, I am probably projecting how I would feel in that situation into them rather than feeling what they feel in that situation.