Difficulty in recognizing emotions

Trogluddite said:

My little epiphanies

I get thoughts appearing from nowhere from my subconscious, they arrive with an new idea to fix or an answer to a problem. 

Well, firstly, I second all of SallySeahorse's suggestions.

There will be times when all you can do is to reassure the person that you will be ready and willing if/when they're ready to communicate, and it can be for the best to take a step or two back. When people try too hard to help, it can make us feel crowded or pressured, which only makes it more difficult for us to begin communicating. There's even a danger that it could be misread as condescension (it's usually not just our own emotions that we can have trouble reading). Rightly or wrongly, I find that people who are a little too sympathetic make me rather anxious!

From what I can gather from speaking with other alexithymic folks, we're also usually well aware that it's our emotional confusion which is the cause of our problems, and we know just how hard we are to help - so we don't expect other people to be martyrs. Unless the lack of emotional communication is affecting your relationship with this person in more significant ways than you've spoken of, you do need to accept that it is ultimately their problem, and that it's their choice how they deal with it, no matter how dysfunctional this may seem to you. I've never held a grudge against anyone who's stepped back - because I know that they only have so much emotional energy to spare for me, and they have to consider the impact on their own lives.

And one last thing. Don't forget to just be a regular "buddy". My little epiphanies when everything clicks into place often come totally out of the blue during relaxed moments when I'm not thinking about my feelings at all - I've even had them triggered by episodes of the SImpsons!  Just being a good companion who isn't judgemental about their behaviour may be more beneficial in the long run than explicitly trying to help with specific issues.

I think you can help, you just need to figure out how for that person as asking them outright probably puts too much pressure on, makes them panic and that's why they shut you out. Maybe 'tell me later if you can find the words' would give them the opportunity to think it over calmly, if they can make sense of a little of it by themselves that will give you an opening to help work out the rest. It might be easier for them to write it down instead, or possibly even communicate in a different way such as drawing? We do want to talk, we just don't always have voices that you can hear. :)

And everyone is all 'are you ok?' 'what happened?' and I'm trying to explain that nothing happened, I'm fine, the tears are just doing their own thing...

the problem is, when you are trying to be the as you said, understanding person and the other person just shuts you out you cannot do anything to help them and then you don't have a choice anymore but to leave them to their own devices to figure things out on their own 

It's not necessarily that an alexithymic person doesn't want help or deep-down wishes to shut people out - in my experience, these are mainly side-effects of being alexithymic.

Firstly, in order to have an intimate conversation about feelings with somebody, you need to know within yourself what it is that you're feeling and why. For people who have instinctive access to their emotional state, not having this implicit knowledge is probably very difficult to imagine - but it is far more profound than just "not being able to find the words". It's also common that the emotions about an event don't appear until long after the event itself - so it's hard for us make the connection between the two; and this can even affect how our memories of events get "recorded". I have had people say things to me like "it was really nice to see you enjoying yourself the other night" - and my first thought is "oh, was I?", even though I know I wasn't consciously trying to fake enthusiasm.

The apparent defensiveness is actually quite easy to explain. Quite simply; "I don't know" is not an acceptable answer to the question "how do you feel?" in most situations - especially very emotionally charged ones. Since most people cannot imagine not having immediate access to their emotions, they always assume that "I don't know" can't possibly be the true answer. Unfortunately, there are no other rational explanations for this answer which are particularly positive! - we get accused of not caring, having something to hide, being passive-aggressive, and so on. When you are constantly accused of being a liar when you can't answer as people expect, becoming defensive as a matter of habit is not altogether surprising.

The above problem doesn't just affect personal relationships. I have found that it can also be a big problem in therapeutic counselling - counsellors often incorrectly jump to the conclusion that an alexithymic patient is suppressing a trauma, or is being uncooperative because they won't invest in trying to overcome their mental health problems. The better ones, such as the wonderful person that I saw, realise the problem and work to improve the underlying alexithymia - but sadly there are too few professionals trained to work with autistic people with these kind of problems, so they try to fit us into a non-autistic mould, where "I don't know" is interpreted as "I don't want to tell you."

That's why the attentive listening, and feeding back to the person what they're saying, can be so important - it helps us to believe that we're believed, and that when talking about our emotions we don't have to fit a "template" made for other people.

Trogluddite said:

where sympathetic friends and colleagues like yourself can be a great help. Rather than pressing for a description which the person feels unable to give (it will get harder for them the more you push), act instead as a sounding-board so that they can work their way to the answer. It can be a slow process at first, and you must be careful not to bias their reading by prompting too much (it's more about listening without judgement than the talking), but my experience is that this can be a huge help.

I suppose it is difficult when they really don't want help and they choose to deal with things on their own by themselves and shut you out too but as you said, just respect their process. :) It's just very difficult when you care for someone and see that they are hurting as well. 

I second the part about pressing for an answer - in my case, trying to force something out of me that I do not know just puts another layer of confusing emotional response on top of those I'm already struggling with.

Yeah I end up crying at random stuff sometimes and don’t even know why, I feel fine! 

YUP with the thinking I'm handling it right up until the moment it crashes around me!! Doesn't help that my response to basically every emotion is crying, even sometimes when I think I feel completely calm...

Psychologists call this difficulty "alexithymia", and it is known to be far more prevalent among autistic people, and for them, often more severe if they do experience it. If you search the internet for that word, you'll find many threads on different autism forums about it, and there are even a couple of dedicated forums.

You're quite right that alexithymic people do have emotions, and they're not much different to anybody else's. The problem is with identifying which one you're feeling and being able to find the right language to describe it to people. You might think that you'd identify an emotion from how it makes your brain feel - but actually it doesn't work quite like that. Our body is often used as a messenger between the emotional bits of the brain and the bits that make us consciously aware of them.

For example, you only know that you're stressed out because of the weird body sensations such as having a fluttery feeling in your guts and your heart rate rising - and for most people this is completely automatic. However, it seems that, for many autistic people, this "body messenger service" doesn't work quite right; maybe just because our body awareness isn't all that good. This can even lead to the very weird situation where somebody else can read the person's emotions from their physical reactions even though that person can't read the emotion for themself.

I was identified as quite profoundly alexithymic when my autism was diagnosed, and the good news is that it can improved. I was taught by a counsellor how to pay more attention to how my body feels, and how to associate those body sensations with the emotions that are causing them. The second part is to talk through a situation with a sympathetic person to work out what kind of emotions a certain situation might be associated with - using a process of elimination, if necessary ("nope, can't be that one because I don't feel agitated" etc...) Even examples of similar emotional situations from TV and films (and, as I discovered, even kids' cartoons) can also help with piecing things together.

That's exactly where sympathetic friends and colleagues like yourself can be a great help. Rather than pressing for a description which the person feels unable to give (it will get harder for them the more you push), act instead as a sounding-board so that they can work their way to the answer. It can be a slow process at first, and you must be careful not to bias their reading by prompting too much (it's more about listening without judgement than the talking), but my experience is that this can be a huge help. I doubt that I'll ever be as emotionally fluent as most people, but there has been a notable improvement in my relationships with the people around me since learning how to be an "emotion detective" like this.

I think in all honesty, their best bet is going to be trying to get help from autism services. It’s something that I need to do myself at some point. I’m sorry I can’t advise you further. I can only say that this is a very common experience in autism.

Everyone's different, but in some cases, yes. I struggled to differentiate between 'love' and 'caring' in my late teens/early twenties (there were a couple of times I thought I loved someone, but I actually just cared for them and might have had a slight crush). I'm now genuinely in love with my partner and realise that it feels entirely different. I think we just have to learn as we go along sometimes.

Kitsune said:

suddenly it all falls to pieces in spectacular style!

this it seems to be, is what is in a way happening, and I'm trying to help as much as possible but don't seem to be going about it the right way. 

do you think this could also be applied to say 'love' or 'caring' for a certain person / close to it? Where the person is unable to acknowledge the emotion to that extent? 

I really struggle to identify my emotions or that I am even feeling any emotions. Consequently, I can think that I am coping extraordinarily well with A LOT of stuff then suddenly it all falls to pieces in spectacular style! I also struggle to recognise other people's emotions. Unless it's obvious like laughing/crying/shouting.  

I really struggle to recognise my emotions. Try watching some of Purple Ella's videos on YouTube - she gives some great advice, both for autistic people and the people close to them.

It's good that you're making an effort to understand your colleague and lovely that you reached out to the ASD community to learn more. Colleagues/friends like you are very valuable.

Alexythmia is the name for this - have a look at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/alexithymia-condition-impacts-emotions-new-research-science-a8374496.html or https://theaspergian.com/2019/05/13/alexithymia-and-autism-what-its-like-to-not-know-how-you-feel/ for example.

I believe I have it; I struggle to differentiate between emotions in myself and others