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How to access one’s true feelings

aurelis

My masking has led me to be very much to trying to please people, and feelings such as opening up about romantic feelings for someone has been so buried that I don’t even know how to access those feelings. I’m slowly getting better but I’ve buried them under nice sounding phrases like “I’m taking my time” and “I’m not ready yet”.

I really find such feelings, and even feelings that express anger and frustration hard to access in the moment, because I’m used to masking to something more acceptable. Which means often I retreat into my head and go silent until there’s a safer space to express feelings.

I feel all this bottling of feelings about many things makes me feel as if I’ve left parts of myself in different points in the timeline of my life, and I feel unable to grow. I opened up to a counsellor about this today and the thought of opening up on this made me feel for a brief moment that there could be hope for being able to have a relationship.

Recently, I’ve been close to defeat, knowing that my people pleasing and my struggle to access my real emotions block me from being able to even go forward with a relationship, and I would really like that. I would love to try.

i don’t know if this resonates with anyone…

  • in reply to aurelis
    aurelis said:
    my people pleasing is making me feel hesitant if I need to change therapists

    Oh boy do I feel for you there. Thankfully I’ve had good experiences with my therapists, but I’ve always had that in the back of my head that even if I had a bad experience I’d be reluctant to leave. It’s crazy how we can feel like we can’t let our therapists down.

  • In order to get the maximum benefit from talking therapy / counselling (whether during this initial course of six sessions, and/or any subsequent course), you might find it helpful to borrow or buy this book. It discusses various types of therapy and counselling, together with advice on choosing the right therapist or counsellor - all from an autistic person's viewpoint. Several of us here have found it very helpful:

    The Autistic Survival Guide to Therapy

    In the meantime, you might like to share this with your counsellor:

    NAS and Mind - Good practice guide for professionals delivering talking therapies for autistic adults and children

  • in reply to Autismman

    I think about how people do that all the time. I also am really naive, so if there is a danger of a social situation, I really struggle to sniff it out too and respond with my feelings towards it, and then end up relying on others’ feelings, and then I just feel like a passenger to life.

  • in reply to Iain

    After my first session, I never thought about whether they knew about autism in detail. Although it was good first session, I’m not sure if they did or not… I’m now thinking of asking in next session (I only get six sessions free as it’s given from my work, and my people pleasing is making me feel hesitant if I need to change therapists)

  • I would try not to pressure yourself too much, I know this is basic and default sounding advice but these things take time (more copy and paste advice) Feelings are there for us to judge what is the best decision to make so don’t rush and take your time in figuring out what works best for you. Give yourself a break most importantly and remember you also deserve that as much as anyone else. People pleasing is something I’ve been guilty of doing most of my life because I didn’t wish to rock the boat or say/do the wrong thing to get negative attention or judgement. I felt I was the “yes man” and wondered why everyone else seemed to be able to point blank speak their minds or do what they felt was best for them. How did they have a stronger version of themselves that came out when they needed it and how did they then sit back down and process that decision. 

  • I would consider asking your counseller if they can give a session on how to get in touch with your feelings as an autist who (it sounds like) has alexithymia.

    There is an interesting article discussing this here:

    https://reframingautism.org.au/autism-and-emotions-how-and-why-do-autistic-people-process-emotions-differently/

    I had this issue and worked through it with my psychotherapist using the emotion wheel to be able to identify how I felt and be able to articulate it, then in couples counselling to discuss emotions with my wife in a meaningful way.

    I still struggle with mirroring discussions but that is just me.

    Just make sure whoever you are working with has a solid understanding of autism and, ideally, alexithymia.