Alexithymia: what is it and what does it feel like to have it?

Alexithymia is really common amongst neurodivergent people, particularly amongst autistic people.

Essentially, it is a difficulty identifying and describing your own emotions.

#ActuallyAutistic #Alexithymia

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I am neurodivergent (autistic and ADHD) and I have alexithymia.

The way I experience it is that my body feels an emotion but doesn’t tell my brain about it.

I’m pretty sure I have the same range of emotions as anyone else. But there’s a brain-body connection missing.

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For example: Sometimes I feel tickly and like I want to laugh. It feels as though bubbles are starting in my stomach and rising up, wanting to burst out of me. I feel the urge to jump or shout or wriggle around.

This is excitement. But my brain does not tell me that.

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Instead, I just have those sensations while my brain is just... blank. (Well, not blank. It’s full of lots of things. But none of them are telling me how I feel.)

So if I want to know how I feel, I have to ‘manually’ figure it out.

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By which I mean: analyse my physical sensations, work out if I feel generally ‘good’ or generally ‘bad’, try to think of other times I’ve had these sensations, and think of anything going on right now that could be causing the emotion.

Then take an educated guess.

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BUT. This is also harder when you’re neurodivergent.

Our reactions to certain events might be quite different to the norm. So I can’t even rely on common culture or what other people feel because what I feel can often be very different to how a neurotypical might feel.

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Eg: Before a party, I get very tired. A really intense, specific kind of tired where I feel slow and lethargic and drained. This is very much not excitement, but pre-event nerves. I think my body tries to protect me from the nerves by shutting down.

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On the other hand, if I order food that I enjoy, once it arrives, I have that bubbly, jumpy excitement and often have to bounce around for a minute before I can sit down and enjoy the meal! Partly excitement from the food, partly stimulation simply from answering the door.

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I figure a lot of people would be more excited/stimulated before a party than before a takeaway (however much they love pizza) but because my experience of the world is different, my emotions about it are also different.

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Which means it’s even harder when your body/brain doesn’t tell you what emotion you’re feeling.

A few more quick examples of how this has manifested in my life:

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• I journal about something and when I look back at it it’s all in caps and has lots of swear words and I’m like... oh... I must be angry about this.

• Someone asks how I am and I say fine but start crying and realise I must be sad.

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• I’m in a hospital waiting room before an important appointment and feel sweat dripping down my arm. That has never happened before, so I take a moment, confused. Then I think “I guess I must be anxious?”

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• It’s the day before a long trip to meet my boyfriend’s family for the first time. I’m so tired I can barely function, and there’s a weird pressure in my head. Takes my mum talking with me about it before I figure I must be nervous. And still... nothing in the ole noggin.

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I tell you, it’s exhausting. Such a slow, hands on process to figure out how I’m feeling.

And I am, paradoxically, a very emotional person. Again, as a lot of NDs are. I just... don’t always know what those emotions are.

#AllAutistics #NeurodiverseSquad

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