Alexithymia

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.

Glitter I can relate to pretty much everything you've 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."  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.

 Cereal spiller...!

I was a serial spiller of my muesli this morning 

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

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 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.

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