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

Of course

Oops I didn't see the specific feedback at the bottom of the page! Closed it too fast! I'll have to do it again...

I'm nodding along with all you said. And I like your approach of reflecting on the questions. I may borrow this for me. Thank you.

Thing is, other things can cause alexithymia - depression, trauma, neurological damage due to physical injury or substance misuse etc.  It's hard to tease apart what might be an innate inability to read certain feelings (perhaps due to autism) and those that may have been acquired say, in my case due to the trauma of a family illness followed by my own.  I lost my tears, for instance.

I might copy these questions down and try reflecting on how I would have answered at say 20 and then 40 and now to see if I can tease apart what has always been true and what I think is only true now.

I'm not quite sure what they mean by "externally oriented thinking", which was the only subcategory that came up "normal", the rest all said "high alexithymia".

Yeah me too there's a few articles that have been written about alexithymia in general its quite interesting just search alexithymia with autism 

Wish it was possible to find out who/what was behind the website and the test.

Wow, I was surprised by my result too. 140 and also described as high. The questions they asked helped... I had no idea it might affect all those situations. 

Yes, definitely does deserve credit!

And you just hit another nail on the head for me too - why I seemed to be so much more exhausted after interacting with people than others - not just because of masking, though, like I originally thought. E.g. when visiting a client with a few colleagues, I would be totally absorbed in the meeting and give the best I could, and left feeling exhausted, even finding it difficult to chit chat with the colleagues about how it went afterwards. They seemed to walk away with more insights than I picked up as well - but I just thought that was me being too absorbed in 'overthinking' during the meeting or too stressed to be fully present. But maybe these are my limits. Glad I was able to do as much as I did.

It's empowering to realise the truth of how much energy this takes, though - it means I feel I'm able to get better at being selective on who gets this extra energy. The hard part for me is wondering what will happen if I don't invest in this analysing and understanding. What would happen if I miss something, someone thinks I'm being rude, dismissive or something else? I guess this is the fine line we walk, trying to find the balance somehow...

I hear you on the fear of awareness in your body. I hope things continue to improve for you. Even if it's slow, baby steps are sometimes the best speed. I'm still learning about my own sensory things, and not even close to understanding all the ways it could occur for other autistic people, but it would make sense to have a sensory fear. I've been working through sensory traumas in recent years - thankfully managed to stop PTSD flashbacks, but still a way to go. Every little piece of understanding helps.

Thanks for the link.  K - I'm shocked.  

I just found this link its an alexthimia test I got 155 which was high it doesn't take long either

www.alexithymia.us/.../

Yeah! This is all a bit of a revelation to me.  If it turns out that I am right about this, well...if I've been a trainer and managed a whole raft of working relationships and friendships my whole life by thinking through emotions, when really there's supposed to be some other magic way, then I think I've done pretty damn well and no wonder I've spent my adult life complaining I'm knackered.

And I guess it says a lot about care and empathy if someone is prepared to put that much extra effort into understanding others.  So, I should give myself some credit for that, I guess.

And yes, I'm often accused of overthinking things too.  But I can see now that it's not overthinking, it's the necessary amount of thinking to get there. I've often wondered how other people manage to be emotionally healthy without thinking so much. If I didn't think so much about this stuff, arguably I might have had a failed career and be socially isolated, as opposed to just being the quirky friend whose little gaffs and failure to get jokes is forgiven or even endearing.

The main problem I've got is that it's pretty hard to improve emotional understanding through the old body sense thing if any awareness of your own body immediately creates massive fear and meltdown. (Sigh).  I'm getting close to the causes now, but still can't see the solution.

If anyone wants to play with the feeling wheel, just google 'feeling wheel' and look under the images.  There are a number of different versions which come up.

Thank you for sharing all this, Dawn. I hadn't looked at it this way - that I might be analysing to get to the feeling of knowing. That would explain a lot for me. I've been discouraged by family and people around me for "over analysing" all my life, so I wouldn't be surprised if I hide this as well, even from myself, thinking I'm doing this in a natural way as everyone else does.

I've come across the wheel and I love it! I'm actually really happy you shared it because I remember trying to re-find it years ago and I never succeeded. As far as I know (which is limited!) emotions can be more complex than the wheel shows, but it is such a wonderful place to start and has so much to offer on its own. I find starting can be the hardest bit. 

I used to use a tool called 'tapping' (EFT, emotional freedom techniques) and it helped me tune into feelings slowly. I'm not convinced that this is the only tool that can help do this - I am sure many other approaches can work. For me, the tapping on my body in a rhythmical way calmed me and gave my anxious brain something to do while I explored the physical sensations of a feeling and asked it questions - slowly, with time - as guided by a therapist at first. I later trained in this technique, but I don't think that's necessary to do this in order to gain benefits. I just ... well... it was my 'special interest' at the time hehe! I do love mindset techniques - maybe BECAUSE of all of this - the difficulties in identifying and handling emotions. Again, what you shared helps me make sense of this, too.

That's so interesting. I just heard of that recently.

I am actually not sure if that affects me. Before realising I was on the spectrum (years ago) I found a therapist that used tools that helped me dig into what my emotions are, ask questions of them, etc. I feel better at doing this now just from that experience and practice. But it's still not always easy. Finding words that feel like the best match to feelings is absolutely liberating. It's like the first step to understanding it... figuring out what/if anything needs to be done to help. Before this, I can feel so stuck.

The research they described sounded like only checking in on the selected group twice. It would be interesting to find out if an intervention, such as a therapy like I experienced, could help people and reduce these difficulties, maybe help them develop skills for life like I feel I started doing.

get proper medical advice from your GP  and get referred to a mental health team if u can

Sounds like a lovely day. 

Sorry you have been feeling that way. Sometimes I can go in a strange mood for no identifiable reason. This happened on Saturday and I also felt really sad for no reason. It's like it just comes on. Then Sunday I was fine. I was wondering if it was because I was back in work on the Monday after a week off.  But that wouldn't be enought to make me cry! And if anything I don't know why it would happen on Saturday but be OK on the Sunday.

I've also realised that in the past when I felt very sad and would cry (as a late teenager and in twenties mainly), I often didn't know why I felt sad. I tihnk sometimes I cry when I get confused or frustrated or overwhelmed cos I don't actually know how I feel. And that's the only way to express it, until I've had time to work it out.

I think it also links with ruminative thoughts as I think it's my way of working stuff out cos I don't intuitively know how I feel.

Thank you for posting the update on alexithymia, EggFriendRice, and I hope you're feeling better today.

As it happens this one has been driving me a little nuts of late.  I've always thought of myself as someone easily able to engage in conversation on emotion.  However, to listen to MH Services, apparently I am completely unwilling to do that, whilst I think I was doing nothing but that - the two views don't seem to fit, do they? It was like they never wanted the answers I was working very hard to give and I've no idea what answers they did want.  At any rate, I didn't have answers to the questions other than I gave.  I am mystified and that's disturbing my whole view of myself.   

But as I dig around the potential of autism, I realise I analyse my way to knowing what I feel and what other people feel. It's hard work, but I've always thought I was pretty good at that stuff.  I hadn't the smallest idea that there was any other way to know, let alone that the rest of the population apparently might have a quicker, more efficient way of going about it or that it might have something to do with body sensations (which I try hard to suppress because they frighten me).  All I can conclude is that something did not meet expectation here and I'm not sure what.

As I've searched for my answers I have encountered concepts like alexithymia and the emotion wheel.  Has any body else come across this?

I've become a bit obsessed by it.  None of us can ever exactly know exactly what things feel like to other people, I guess, and therefore how do we tell whether what we feel and how we feel it is is the same or different to the rest of humanity? Does the rest of humanity also analyse based on the circumstances causing the feeling, past experience of the circumstances and knowledge about what matters to that individual, or what that individual actually verbalises? 

...But I kind of need to quantify it to know if I've got a problem or not.  I'm talking about this wheel to my very accommodating private counsellor, who at least isn't trying to squeeze me into boxes I don't fit in.  I'm trying to analyse the wheel itself.  Many of the supposed "emotions", don't seem like emotions at all to me, but rather personal attributes or mental states.  I certainly can't associate any physical responses to most of them.  How the hell does any one FEEL "delightful?".  I can see that a person might be delightful; we mean they were sweet natured and good company, but how do you feel delightful? 

There's only one thing to do - I compiled a spreadsheet with yes/no answers to some basic questions and calculated as a % of total adjectives:

• Do I think it is even an emotion? Yes = 33%, No = 58%, Not sure = 9%
• Have I ever experienced it (whether I think it's an emotion or not)? Yes = 79%, No = 8%, Not sure = 13%
• Does anything physically happen then? Yes = 38%, No = 49%, Not sure = 13%

Has anyone else encountered this wheel?  How did you respond to it?  Am perceiving problems in myself that don't actually exist here, or is there really some other response I "ought" to have in relation to these adjectives?

I also note that the obvious one LOVE is conspicuous by it's absence in that centre ring.

I'm sorry to hear about the bad depression, Flint. I hope you got the help you needed when you needed it. 

Hi, Tassimo. I'm feeling a lot less tearful today. In fact, I've had no tears at all!

I think I'm better. No more tears have shown up today!

The sun is shining, it's a beautiful day!    How are you today?