Difficulty identifying emotions linked to poor mental health in autistic people *updated*

When I was a teenager I told someone I had no feelings.  That is my earliest memory of what I now understand as inability to identify my emotions.

During counselling a few years back -  as a 52 year old - I told the psychologist that I didn’t know how I felt. 
Later in the session I was sobbing and he pointed out that as evidence of sadness.  

emotion:

a strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

I tired to do a similar test in the past but found it difficult to answer the questions

Having Alexithymia  is one of the most difficult parts for me ,i have found it helps when people tell me i look happy or sad or scared , i understand anxious and angry but that is it . The two other feeling i have are when you are walking and your legs feel heavy and your feet merge with the ground which is a really nice feeling ,so i suppose may be happy. The other feeling is when you feel like you should be strapped to a rocket and just fire up into the sky like you are going to burst ,like you want to fly..this is more of a angry  feeling . but that is it . It's really hard to maintain relationships and a lot of times you are just  trying to say what you think is expected so as not to upset people close to you.

Ah yes, that does sound familiar. Good luck with it, hope you’re feeling much better now. 

Yeah, when I cry or when I feel very sad, I know what's happening. And conversely, I know when I'm feeling joyful and happy. It's the subtle shifts that occur and lead up to extremes that can go undetected.

When I wrote the post, I'd spent the day suddenly becoming tearful and sad, and I knew I was sad. But, I'd not caught the emotional reactions that had built up to the tears. Since I found the article, and read a little further, I've begun to watch out for my emotions in specific situations and address them as I experience them (not always successfully) so they don't accumulate and creep up on me after the event.

Hmm, I only got 93… Interesting. I think if I’m experiencing a strong emotion, I can usually name it; seemingly more subtle emotions are harder to pin down though.

I got around the 150 mark too.

No problem I took that test I feel like 155 is quite high, explains a lot though

Thank you for your kind words and the same for you too.

I can really relate to this. Sometimes someone asks me how I’m feeling, and I’ll say, ‘I don’t know,’ or, ‘I think I’m OK. Then everything builds up and finally overflows. I hope you’re doing ok today, thank you for sharing some really helpful info :)

Jackie, it's been quite a revelation to me. I'm approaching 50 and for the longest time I had no idea about it either. I'm starting not to judge myself too harshly if some days I feel suddenly sad or tearful. There is probably a reason for it that I've missed (or been unable to process) in the preceding days or weeks (or months).

Wow. Thanks for finding this, O.

Thank you Mykal for this - I too have had real problems with alexithymia all my life, and only recently recognised it (I am in my sixties.) It is such a relief to have a name and an underpinning theory. Hope that today is a good day.

Hello Mantra and Dawn,

Thank you for this conversation, which has been most helpful. I identify with a lot of what you discuss.

I identify with this

Yeah, questionnaire are only ever indicators, but they do provide food for thought.  I wouldn't have ever said I had issues here either, but I'm beginning to grasp that I may have been using means other than most people to do get to knowledge about feelings. I'm not or barely using interoception, and not intuiting much, I think.  I'm analysing my way through it, which takes a bit longer and if I think about the a raft of minor social glitches over my life time, the time lag to get there probably explains them.

I think, listening to my mother, the social indicators of autism were very marked in childhood (whether the assessors attribute that to autism or to something else remains to be seen), but because I didn't have a social phobia and was motivated to understand myself and others, I think I've pulled on a number of other skills to plug the gaps.  And I am a linguist after all.  I have studied pragmatics. That would give me the wherewithal to do consciously what others are seemingly doing subconsciously.  Any difference in social behaviour is going to be quite subtle now. 

Also, I can't ignore the role of my dyslexia, of course.  That effects real time information processing and would slow down the ability to keep up with conversation in groups on its own.  

These exercises are giving me a handle on HOW this works for me.  The assessors will have to tell me WHY. I'm so happy they want a full day to get to the bottom of it properly.

I never really trust questionnaires I like doing them and also doing my own research into it and then seeing if I think the questionnaire is good or not

What is high Alexithym I got 139.

I tried the test but do not know what Alexithym is I thought it was the name of the software of an IQ test but it said I have high Alexithym? 

I have only experienced this once when I was a teenager I was laughing and then I started to crying I chalked it up to being some sort of stroke.

I tend not to cry at all, but I do get very depressed though I hide the depression who know how it will be used against me so I just keep it. Under the rug life's complicated enough.

I would be interested to know does anyone one here feel like there is no help or support for adults autistic people, I feel every resource is geared towards children which it is good for children on the spectrum to receive help I feel that now I'm an adult I am exiled to a lonely and confused existence. 

Definitely discovered a lot more about myself after this. It's funny how I wouldn't have said I found identifying emotions as difficult, yet it really seems obvious now. It took doing a questionnaire - which may or may not be trustworthy, it doesn't matter - for me to open up to this idea. I now I think I 'get' a lot of other things... not knowing how a conversation is going, not knowing how people feel about me... unless both of these are stated in real time and updated as needed. So many 'ah ha' moments.... May need a nap later to process what I'm realising!!