Do I feel without realising that I feel?

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'm still trying to figure out if this is a natural neurological 'not feeling' or if it is more of a defense mechanism, or, most likely, a combination of the two. Time will tell....

    ...All of that, I say! Good Fortune To You, and end of M'Post, now. Slight smile

  • I started this thread as a sort of self exploratory thread. I do sometimes feel, just not all the time or even every day, or even most of the come really. I'm still trying to figure out if this is a natural neurological 'not feeling' or if it is more of a defense mechanism, or, most likely, a combination of the two. Time will tell....

  • Greetings to Miss Fantastic Fox... (!)... Maybe a bad thing, I have not read through this Thread, but I may offer a perspective based upon Your OP. There is a difference between 'not feeling' something and either 'not acting' upon it or 'not caring' about it. These are all normal things to feel, and occur during learning and/or self-defence. The fact that You recognise any 'feeling' of anything is a good thing, diferentiating Yourself from those who do not. 

    Your OP is "feeling nothing"... well, GOOD! You are simply concentrating and/or focussed! But once finished, then *that* is the time to "feel" anything (!!)... (I Myself do lie awake a lot at nights, after writing upon here sometimes, fretting, worrying a lot about what was written!) As I said first of all, do not confuse concentration or carelessness or ignorance with "not feeling"... not feeling without realising it is built into One's own Body, and, just like Breathing or Heartbeats, if there is a problem, then it will will become a REALISED FEELING.

    That is pretty much all I can say for now. (Sorry for the capital letters, I cannot use italics on My old Device.)

  • The more that I think about it the more I realise that I am absolutely clueless about my own emotions. There’s a lovely pretty emotion wheel in this link. ‘How’ is it even possible for humans to experience so many different emotions?!

    www.simplemost.com/.../

  • Do you mean that you experience your life in ‘third person’ context? I sometimes have phases of speaking about myself in the third person, then people start saying they are worried about me! 
    I always used to immediately think it was my fault if someone else did something horrible to me ‘what have I done?’ It’s taken many years and a lot of relearning how I look at things to realise that if someone else does something horrible the responsibility lays with them.

    I sometimes used to get told that I looked miserable when I was in my early teens. I understand now that it was probably because my face was blank and not pulling any particular expression that others assumed that I was unhappy.

  • A lot has already been said here that mirrors my own experience. But I doubt that I could add much without repetition. So I'll just say thanks yet again, Kitsune, for raising an issue which is essential to many of us. For the last 2+ years i have been investigating why it is worth me bothering about my diagnosis. I have come up with several good reasons, but this issue must be amongst the most important for late diagnosees and self-identifiers. I was just looking at a piece of photojournalism about the Czech 'soft' revolution of 1989. It brought out a huge amount of emotion (as also did the Czech Spring, when I was really quite young, circa 67) And yet the times when I have shown as much emotion about my own family can almost be counted on one hand. (But they do happen!) As the lyrics of a John Cale song once put it, "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine"; in other words, I constantly pay attention to what it is that draws out such strong emotions; or what seemingly doesn't. But, it doesn't make it any easier to discuss emotions F2F. I have attempted to tell some of my family before that this is the case, and I imagine they do actually have their own evidence; but they haven't really yet told me so. But at least, I now have some quite convincing evidence for myself, beyond the more frequently mentioned issues in the text books.

  • I feel like an observer of my experiences, when I'm supposed to react to a situation I feel nothing until I am pulled out of that observation state then I become overwhelmed. 

    I once was talking out side of my building ( wich is in the centre of town and very busy) to some people who had stopped by, and out of nowhere this guy turned the corner walked towards me and punched me right in the face I just stood there trying to figure out what I had done to him for him to act this way and it took at least 5 minutes for me to realise this guy just attached me. 

    So I then chased him, if I had caught him he would of known not to hit anyone again, he had manage to lock himself behind his girlfriends front door and then a police car pulled up and the officers had asked what was going on I could not explain but luckily the people I was with could. 

    The police then said I looked angry and that I may become violent I felt nothing at that time I thought how do I try to not look angry, to show I was not angry.  It was very bizarre, anyway turns out they knew his dad and that an apology would do he came out said sorry end of story.