Alexithymia

Hello, if anybody could give me some insight, that would be greatly appreciated. I found these forums to learn more about my Asperger syndrome and what might be causing my emotional state I found out about alexithymia seems to be connecting some dots about why I react the way I do.

 
To give context I’m very impulsive sometimes with emotional reactions, I switch my mood rapidly like something that could easily pass by someone just sets me off into a depression or an upset state. I have trouble regulating my emotion, and it seems as if I’m disconnected from them at some points. Whenever people like my parents talk about emotional responses to things they associate with happiness and the behaviors they used to portray it, or not what I see them as rather a more muted tone or different outlook they say smile be happy, but my happiness is just content and showing no expression just being there if that makes any sense

my struggle comes in with the impulsive part, but nothing is really impulsive. It’s just certain aspects lead me to be over talkative or get carried away, and it just affects my overall state and mood making me depressed and feel empty whenever I react in a way, I do not see as normal to me. The thing is those reaction seem normal to others. I have experienced mass amounts of emotional mental trauma through my life and through school and there are some times where I feel void in my emotions as if I feel nothing or empty.

what happened about a year ago was I just switched off my emotional state to where I didn’t have that problem anymore I was able to stay silent and calm the way I like it for the longest period of time and overtime. That peaceful disassociation from my emotion just faded. My biggest struggle is the emotional regulation because whenever I tell myself don’t talk be silent my brain kind of forgets it and experiences certain emotion that doesn’t make sense to me so when the event that was causing them happens, no matter what emotion is happy, sad whatever I just feel down about myself because it didn’t feel right or normal to myself, it’s as if like a drew in the emotional reactions and responses from the surrounding people and that’s just the default. My brain went to. 

my biggest question is do I have alexithymia because it makes a lot of sense and I may not be describing it to the wellness. I could be to portrayed if I might have or how I emotionally react to things. My biggest struggle is learning what happened when my emotions just disassociated in, and I was in the peaceful calmness, and how do I learn to control that? Because I want to be able to understand and gauge my emotions because I know the responses and levels of when I feel them are not the same as the people around me to the point where it causes a lot of difficulty in my life and their lives.
if more information is needed to help me, I will gladly give that

I think that lots of emotions at once is common for all kinds of people.  We read a storybook about it to pupils yesterday, and it's part of the emotional coaching training I've been doing.  I've also seen it referenced a lot on TV and movies.

I'm fairly certain I don't have this, as I never lose awareness of hunger or thirst, I can feel and identify specific emotions (if way more intensely and longer than most people I think). However, something I've come to realise is that experiencing several emotions at once happens to me not infrequently, but I'm not sure NT people typically have that. They are happy, then sad, then angry, then calm. Whereas I think I can have parallel channels going at once, and a baseline of anxiety like background radiation that is never absent unless very ill. Someone said to me recently that 'hope' stands for 'Hold On, Pain Ends'. I've internally modified that to 'Hold On, Pain Eases' as that feels truer for me. Ebb and flow, but not linear and never worked through with permanence except for the most trivial of matters. 

 Cereal spiller...!

I was a serial spiller of my muesli this morning 

Yep,yep,yep

The thing is from a research study point of view how do you differentiate between not being able to easily describe your emotional state because you feel disconnected from your emotions (as if observing them from a long way off) and not being able to describe your emotional state because you don't recognise the emotions that feel very close to you? I humbly suggest that when studies on Alexithymia in autism are done the former may be picked up by testing and labeled as the later.

Steven said:

a serial killer

I'll give them benefit of a dubt, and simply assume they lack focus, and just mispelled.

Should be 'a serial filler', of shelves for example

Glitter said:

I had a moment of concern over the fact that my assessment report noted that I "made no reference to unusual or highly specific topics." 

Ah, but you see, that theory originates from the celebrated academic white paper titled 'Suspect might be a serial killer, because he owns a best-selling book featuring Hannibal Lecter'.

Intense focus, I have.

Look at me foruming and happy rocking when I should be going to sleep.

And bouncing for joy when I realised I'll be getting 2 days of autism training in a row, ine for work and one for the post-diagnostic group.  Even though I'm sure I'll already know everything they're going to tell me.

Just wait until I get a space to info dump on them, then they'll see how highly focused I am. ;) 

it's another stereotype that autistic have a useless, and odd special interest, e.g. collecting used stamps, these days it is 'socially acceptable' to call it unusual, yet they still think the same I reckon

while what matters is intense focus

It has more meaning in any of slavic languages, that was the reason why I said it like that In polish ''Glitter dobrze gada'', in movies and literature it is a phrase often used by one from a group of simple folk sitting and listening, approvingly nodding to a local wisemen.

A kind of humour from eastern europe

Often the one using that phrase is about to interject something contradictory. LOL

I don't know why interests have to be unusual? Isn't it more the intense focus on a subject rather than the topic itself? I'm all about monotropism and inertia I feel it explains a great deal. For me I often only share info if asked directly so perhaps you didn't say because you were not asked?! I see you are saying the whole thing was about your interest really. I'm pretty sure autism is one of mine too and it occupies a lot if my thoughts.

I had a moment of concern over the fact that my assessment report noted that I "made no reference to unusual or highly specific topics."  I beg to differ in that the whole thing was about my experience of being autistic, which is what I spend most of my time thinking about and also qualifies as unusual in my opinion. 

Your response here is very reassuring on that concern, because it shows that all my research and thinking on the topic resonates with another and that indicates to me that I have learned well.

I think as well there's a certain sense of things such as anxiety becoming so normalised in life (thinking everyone is like that) you don't know what is a "normal" level or not, so you end up pushing through it all the time. It's only when things get too much does one realise. Sometimes it's like the shades of grey don't exist. Just black and white.

Mariusz said:

Glitter speaks wisely.

I just love how this sentence sounds when taken out of context. XD 

Yes. Glitter speaks wisely.

Autistic need time to process feelings, to disentangle them and identify, so in the heat of the moment it is often impossible due to lack of time, so it doesn't happen on time Some are even waiting in line to get to the brain and get registered sort of, because it's too busy, it is often a case with thirst, hunger, need to urinate.

If you're alexithymic as well, you're not able to attach identified feelings to displayed body language, or read other's feelings from body language they display. I can only guess based on statistics, narrow the list of choices.

Alexithymia allows as well to delay processing feelings 'indefinitely'. You block their influence on you, so you can remain cold, rational, logical. But you need to learn by exprimenting how to do it. Once you start acting emotional it's to late to think about need to block and beginning to block.

But 'indefinitely' isn't indefinite, there is a hidden gauge, and you do not know what it shows, but there is maksimum you can delay processing. Both intensity of feelings and time spent on delaying influence it. You exceed maksimum you get meltdown, guaranteed, and it can be erupting volcano if you blocked a lot. The easiest way to get meltdown in public for autistic + alexithymic. I had 5 at work during last 10 years. Very embarassing for an adult, and there are repercussions.

Glitter I can relate to pretty much everything you've said

The thing is, alexithymia doesn't stop you from feeling things.  You still have the emotional responses and they can affect your behaviour and physical signs of emotion without you being in touch with the feeling.  So it's not the same thing as an antidepressant which numbs you.

When I get stressed, for example, I still get headaches and snap at my family.  When I'm anxious I still develop a stronger than usual inertia.  I'm now learning how to interpret those "symptoms" to uncover my feelings and where they come from.  My partner can often tell my emotional state by interacting with me before I can.

And the problem is that not picking up on my emotional state only means that I ignore my own needs until I reach the point of overwhelm.  And then I definitely suffer.  So in my case at least, it would be counter productive as a coping strategy. 

I've also had enough trauma that I've learned to mask feelings and keep things hidden, but that seems like a seperate issue to the inability to read my emotional state unless it's particularly heightened.  

I think it is possible that bring autistic and expressing emotions in different ways means that we don't develop the same language and awareness  of our feelings.  You teach a baby the word ball by showing the ball and saying ball a lot as you play.  You teach them happy and angry in a similar way, by naming the feelings when you see them expressing that kind of emotion.  But if we laugh when we're stressed and keep a straight face when we're happy, then we're not getting the same signals and the vocabulary to identify the feelings.  

But I also think that there's a link to sensory processing.  Like I don't notice when I'm thirsty and thus end up dehydrated because I forget to drink.  I don't notice the physical sensations associated with anger until I realise that I'm shouting.  This makes a lot if sense to me.