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Alexithymia

Peter

Hypotheses. Alexithymia is not a symptom of autism. It’s a symptom of long term depression associated with autism.

When I was on antidepressants one of the first things I noticed about my mood change was that everything felt blunted. It wasn’t so much that my mood improved, it's almost like the antidepressants had made me feel slightly disconnected and disassociated from my own feelings. If you had asked me how I felt when on antidepressants I might have said I don’t know or I’m not sure a lot more than usual.

This was part of the function of the antidepressants. It allowed me to function.

It’s been suggested that a symptom of autism can be alexithymia. That something about the autistic makeup makes us less likely to be able to recognise our own feelings. I’m skeptical of this interpretation.

Have you ever heard about boiling a live frog? Bring the water up to boil quickly and the frog jumps out. Do it gradually and the frog will sit there and boil. Or people who live in houses with gas leaks who ignore it. How they become blind to the smell over time.  

I suggest that alexithymia in autism is the same kind of thing. When people have experienced negative emotion, depresion, anxiety, constantly over years, to the point where they’ve developed a learned helplessness around the situations that evoke these feelings. That this can lead to alexithymia as a form of coping strategy. That this dissociation from one’s own feelings is infact a form of emotional numbness, a form of traumatic response to long term, situation linked, anxiety and depression.

Parents

  • 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

Reply

  • 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

Children
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