Alexithymia

‘In pain’ is a good catch-all term. Conveys distress in a way neurotypical scan understand, but not much help in terms of narrowing down the ‘how/ what/ when’ specifics. 

Thank you

Thank you for this. I also said to my boss that I was 'in pain' as that was the only way I could describe it. 

I’m not sure if I have it in the truest sense, but I have realised since my diagnosis last year that the way of describing burnout was no more than saying I felt ‘tired’. I had a fairly severe mental health blip this last few weeks, and I said to my boss that I was ‘in pain’, but I didn’t feel able to describe it any better than that. Does this count as Alexithymia? I’m not sure, but even though I would say I can describe how I feel, often it isn’t specific enough to convey to anyone actually how I feel. 

Oh gosh I completely understand where you are coming from. I have this “feeling” yet when someone asks me to describe it there are no words I can find. I try and use analogies and that frustrates someone who is asking how I feel which in turn makes me confused as to why they are not understanding the analogy IS how I feel I think. Since childhood I have called the inability to express myself restlessness. If my mum asks what’s wrong my reply is “I don’t know” because I genuinely don’t know. My happiness is expressed with a nod and my sadness is always confusion, because to me sadness on others looks like crying. I also scored high for alexthymia. 

I have relied on writing a lot too

I'm fairly sure I have this as I score quite high in the online tests and there were a number of references in my autism report, that I didn't describe either my own or other people's feelings and emotions.

I've used writing to express feelings and emotions since I was young, sometimes in an oblique way, sometimes using analogies, although I use analogies more when I'm trying to explain an idea than a feeling.

The question from my assessment which struck me as most odd was being asked to describe happiness. My response was that I looked for contentment rather than happiness. When they pushed me to describe a time I was happy, I talked about being on holiday but nothing about how I felt. I was asked how I felt physically and I was just confused and asked if I was meant to feel something physically. To me happiness is something in your head and not physical.

Thank you for this x

Thank you. I'll try a test 

There's a thread a few month ago that might be of interest: https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/30898/emotion

There are online alexithymia tests (https://embrace-autism.com/online-alexithymia-questionnaire/#test). I took two, and although I did not think that I would score in the alexithymia range, I am apparently 'highly alexithymic'.

I can relate to this a lot. Thank you 

I'm not sure if I have it but I find no connection whatsoever between words that describe feelings and the feelings themselves and I have a poor awareness of the sensations in my body and sometimes a feeling comes to me in a form of thought. Just a thought nothing sensed in the body in the meantime.. I'm trying to build more body awareness in therapy. I can sense that I'm feeling something but can't name it and it's so tough to figure "what's going on" in that point.

I describe my feelings in describing a state of being or an image like I feel like an ant who's trying to carry a cherry on its back or I feel that my brain is floating in water in a sunny day or as a small fish in a stormy ocean and so on..