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 have 2 emotions: I call them "fizzy" and "still". Like types of water. I find it really hard to identify anything else. The fizzy emotion is a feeling that my brain is fizzy. If its a bad feeling then I'm frustrated, if its a positive feeling then I'm happy. When I'm not fizzing then I'm still, which translates to your "numb". Along with this i experience different amounts of nausea and headache in reaction to things.
Long before I was diagnosed this has always driven people mad. "you're so passive!" "you're so indifferent!" "you're completely repressed!"
I find that emojis help a lot. Even in non written communication I sometimes think of the emoji I might use then try to vocalise it. Then again, I doubt whether anyone I interact with thinks that it's helpful at all.
When 'numb' or 'still' as you put it, do you find yourself wishing you could just feel a bit more? I do. Then when I do feel something It's often intense and I wish I was numb again. Sometimes even when it's a good feeling because it hypes me up too much and then I just feel 'manic' and can't shut my brain off. Sometimes it puts me off bothering to engage in my interests because I almost dread the aftermath of not being able to come down because it's an uncomfortable feeling. To go to your 'fizzy' description it's like I'm a can of coke that has been shaken up and then opened. This is why it's so confusing for me. To say I live my life feeling 'numb' seems to ignore the number of times I'm actually too overwhelmed by a feeling. But then in between those overwhelming feelings, I would say I am numb. So numb that everything around me sometimes becomes so tedious it's painful. I also have severe long-standing depression though so I dunno which is which. Sometimes I'm so disgusted by my own interests that I can't bear to look at anything related to it. I have to really force myself into engaging in my interest to get over my numbness or disgust over it, sometimes I remain disgusted by it or numb other times it gets me out of that and I realise I do still love my interests. When I feel more I want to be numb again because it's too much, and then when I'm numb I want to feel again! It drives me crazy!
Wow, interesting. I am intrigued to know whether others feel intense emotions, and whether you are OK with that. I am really not. I like "maintaining an even strain" .... too much emotion (mine or from others) makes me deeply uncomfortable. I think that has in the past caused people to think that I was cold or repressed as well.
One of the most disastrous relationships that I ever had was with a French guy. He thrived on high drama and I think would have been quite happy to see-saw between euphoria and black depression several times per day. He also felt that because I didn't shout, yell, cry or throw plates at his head, I clearly didn't love him (he even said that once). I on the other hand would have found that level of intensity quite scary.
Extremes of emotion actually frighten me. This is probably a large part of why I am viewed as having pretty much zero empathy. I can probably do sympathy better than empathy, but basically if there is extreme emotion involved I will go quiet and withdraw completely, because basically I am like a rabbit in the headlights at that point and have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to do. There are no stored parameters for those kind of extremes, so mostly I will just remove myself from the situation as soon as I can .... which is inevitably seen as a total lack of empathy. The reality is I have no idea how to deal with those kind of situations, so better to leave than make it worse (and prolong my discomfort).
Anyone else relate? I'd be fascinated to know.....
Such a shame then that you're not allowed another prescription if you're able to prove that you can use it sensibly and are not at risk of becoming addictive. By the time you have another meltdown as bad as the last one I would guess it would takes days before you are able to access another prescription?