Oh, my gosh! The music thing! I have done that for ages but only recently (these last couple years) realized that I was using it resonate with and amp up my underlying emotions that weren't registering for me consciously.
I have only had success with ND therapists. NT therapists just do not speak my language and I spend too much time trying to translate to then what I mean. It completely takes me out of being able to process any of it for myself. And even then, some know how to approach alexithymia well, and some don’t. The ones that do ask follow up questions and help me piece things together. So for example, “I just feel sad for no reason” gets followed up by “tell me about your week,” which to me feels like a change of subject, but my therapist ends up going, “that sounds like a lot! It makes sense you would feel sad.” And ridiculously, it always comes as a surprise when she circles it back around to the way I’m feeling today. And once she says it, I can tell she’s correct. Why wouldn’t I be sad after all that crap. I’m not a robot.
Yes, I was very lucky to be matched with a ND therapist. We worked together for 4 years and it helped me immensely. Funnily enough I started seeing her before either of us were evaluated for autism, so it was indeed luck.
@@paulhhaggard it’s funny, sometimes with my ND therapist, I can tell she understands what I mean, even when I don’t quite pick the right words and she doesn’t respond with the best words. There is still this feeling of being understood and seen. And then with the last NT therapist I tried to work with, I couldn’t get over the feeling that she just didn’t get what I was talking about, even when she was trying to be validating. The translation errors were just exhausting.
I've never experienced an autistic meltdown, though I think I nearly had a shutdown while driving in a suburb with much more intense traffic than my home town. (had to pull off into a parking lot until the sun set and wasn't blinding me, and traffic slowed down.) I know I experienced "rage" once, because, at the time, my hands were shaking so much that it was hard to type (it was related to an online situation)... but at that same time, someone asked me how I felt (they could tell), and I replied calmly: "fine"... so yeah... no idea until YEARS later. I generally play music that matches my "mood"... not to change my mood. I have an eclectic taste in music, covering a wide range of genres... basically, I read the lyrics first, and if I agree with the lyrics, I'll listen to the music, otherwise, I don't bother. I also struggle with interoception, not knowing I'm hungry, or tired, or needing to use the restroom (leading to gastrointestinal issues.) Overall, I'm an extremely calm person, with few exceptions, even in stressful situations. I've impressed people I worked with, that I didn't get overwhelmed, when they expected I would be. So there are some upsides to not feeling every swing of emotion, I guess.
What motivates me to go to the gym even when I don't feel like it is the fact that in order to have the type of body that I want where I am sculpted and where my favorite clothes are form fitting instead of loose fitting, then I have to force myself to workout at the gym even when I don't feel like it. However after a successful workout session at the gym I feel really good about myself not just because I have the type of body I want, but also because lifting weights relieves anxiety and depression, and increases energy.
My therapist has limited expertise with ASD-1 adults, especially those who are late-diagnosed. Not real sure he has anything concrete in his toolbox to avert a meltdown. Pushing 60, I've accumulated a lot of anger, so my meltdowns can be self destructive at the least. You probably know that many ASD1 folk have been misdiagnosed with BPD, or carry both concomitantly, in proportions that vary according to their circumstances, and borderline people have been stereotyped as explosive. I must quit exploding, so I thank you, Thomas. I don't see one damn thing odd about you.
Apparently, there is a rule at the guidance center I go to that counselors have to ask if you plan to hurt yourself or someone else, how bad you feel on a scale from 1-10, and a word for how you feel at every session. I realized having to do this regularly that I had a hard time labeling feelings, so I would spend the time leading up to the session trying to figure out how I felt, so I could have an answer other than “I don’t know”. It was probably a good exercise for me; anybody could achieve the same thing by picking a time every week and using it to ask themselves “How do I feel?”. I suspect the same “socialization”; rejecting inconvenient, annoying behaviors; that happens in all young children often ends up brought down x10 on autistic children, as we don’t naturally behave in more or less “average” ways. So I do suspect this disconnect between physiological, behavioral, and thought pattern “signs” and labeling said groups of signs as “feelings” of various sorts is not inherent in autism but produced as a result of chronic, early trauma. This is supported by the fact that the same phenomenon is regularly produced in allistic/neurotypical children by abusive parents. We all, as humans, have to learn to realize the signs that we are having a certain feeling and what to do about it, and autistic children are especially likely to not be supported in doing this as our feelings tend to be different from those of allistic people in the same situations.
I found a comment on another video referring to Alexithemia with a brief description and referring to it very negatively. Your description has really cleared up my confusion. I now think i have this condition. Ive known im autistic for maybe 2 months. I have yet to be diagnosed by a psychiatrist, and in about a months time am going to be tested. Your video has helped me understand what is going on with me. I never know how i feel and sometimes i feel off but have no idea why. When someone asks me how i feel i automatically reply "good" not because im good but thats the answer because thats how ive learnt to reply.
Interesting that I have to say, as much music as I listen to, you can pretty much always tell my mood by the music I listen to. I try not to listen to sad music unless I need to cry or get over something sad.
Last week, I thought I was angry. Turns out I was hurt. Those two give me the most trouble. Thanks for this, Thomas. You hit the nail on the head once again. 😊
Anger is what most people feel first. It’s like peeling back the onion, underneath anger is usually, frustration, annoyance, feeling let down to feeling hurt or a sense of loss. Loss of trust, loss of friendship, loss of confidence. When you hear the other’s perspective (which might be different to yours, the feeling might ease. Either that or an apology.
100% If breathing exercises don’t work for you, you haven’t found the right one for you yet. Your neurobiology has a massive influence on which ones are a good fit for you or not. Personally, I get something out of almost any breathing exercise, but my ADHD declares most of them to be too boring to bother with!!! So I have to change methods frequently.
I needed to hear that one thing you said about others seeing the emotion clearly displayed even when the emotion is not recognized and does not affect behaviour or reasoning. Now I know this isn’t something unusual for alexithymia. Since I know no one else who experiences life this way, I felt quite alone. I don’t feel that way anymore. Thank you.
This "not linking emotions to events" is sooo relatable. During covid lockdown and online school I was really stressed (too many tasks that I couldn't handle) and was just not feeling good. It took me sooo long to even notice that I wasn't feeling good and it also took me quite some time to figure out the cause. This linking stuff also applies to interoception for me. When I first got my period I thought I didn't experience any pain, but after many months I noticed that I actually do. I mean I kinda did feel the pain earlier, but I just didn't connect it to my period
Any "solution" that begins with "just" signals for me that the person saying it doesn't take me or my issues seriously. Therefore I don't need to take them, or their "solution", seriously, either.
Absolutely! "Just"...implies that whatever they're suggesting is ridiculously easy, and you should've been able to figure it out already. So invalidating!
I do preemptive breathing to regulate when I am doing something which I know will be stressful, such as driving, and it really helps keep me calm. I still have regular meltdowns when surprised by stressors.
The description of thinking faster but more disorderly resonated with me. The physical sensation I get is an unpleasant tightness in my chest. The main thing that helps me is intense exercise. The rare occasions I can get into a flow state while hard sparring on jiujitsu are blissful.
@@ThomasHenley I started a bit older than most. I am 39 and have been training and sparring for 7 years. Jiujitsu is just grappling. (I am scared of striking and brain injuries.) I do not compete either. I have enough responsibilities outside the gym that getting to the gym 3-4 times per week is all I can muster. I am too old to train through injuries. Jiujitsu allows me to burn off that pent up "fight or flight" anxiety. Being utterly physically depleted is a break from my overactive mind.
Honestly, I used to think I was a psychopath. I've never connected to anything emotionally-I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it isn't-and my emotional situations never felt like they were happening to me. When I was in my teens, my girlfriend "opted out" and I don't remember even feeling sad, it was more like I had been told a story about a stranger's partner. As you can imagine, people didn't take that very well, assuming I'm some kind of monster and never cared for her when that was so far from the truth. I was fully invested, I just didn't seem to experience any emotion with any of it. It's hard to say now, because I have a bad habit of intellectualising things, whether it was the sub-surface emotions and trauma of it all or whether it was because I fully assumed I was the worst person in the world, but I didn't have another relationship for almost a decade. When I did, we had a son pretty quickly and while his birth was the best thing that ever happened to me, I didnt feel anything. I didn't feel any love or happiness or anything and when I lost him two years later it was exactly the same. I have pictures of me with him and they feel fraudulent because I was smiling. Messed up, right? Don't worry, it disgusts me too. I was diagnosed with CPTSD a few years back-Childhood, am I right?-after an attempted self delete and some time in an institution, which also lead to an ASD/ADHD diagnosis and the therapist I was seeing broaching the subject of Alexithymia and telling me I'm probably not a psychopath, which has started me on a long and rather difficult road to recontextualise some of the things I have done and have happened to me to see when and where I had emotional responses and what to; it still feels like going through someone else's mail. Videos like your's are so important. Honestly, if we had the kind of discourse we do around neurodiversity then that we do now, I think I could have saved myself and other people a lot of heartache.
Traumatic environment propably caused you to detach from your feelings, from very early on. While dissociation is a powerful surviving method, it might cause a lot of trouble in social life and also a constant feeling of emptiness. RUclips has really been so helpful to me too, to understand and accept myself as an autistic person. Literature is mostly clinical and looks us from the outside.
@@MLX1401 You're spot on there, I wasn't shown affection pretty much from birth and that with the dissociating, and the autism, led to me rarely and improperly forming bonds. It's not even just with people, I don't have many possessions- my place is pretty American Psycho, or so I've been told- because if a thing isn't used or useful, I just... don't need it, I guess? I've also been on antidepressants for over a decade because everyone assumes that empty feeling is depression rather than just a bitch of a comorbidity. That's actually my problem with the literature, it's a bit too 'tapping on the fish bowl glass' and that's exactly how I feel, so I try to avoid it. 😅 I think it's better to have this more personal approach with neurodiversity because many of us take on new information by relating it to our own experiences, so sharing stories is kinda the name of the game.
@@alexandertiberius1098 Yes, it's often assumed that childhood trauma requires extreme home conditions, like severe poverty, alcoholism and abuse. But simply living with emotionally unavailable, unstable (or very strict) parents and constantly having to hide your needs and nature will do the trick 🤪 I instantly related to that "reading someone elses mail" -feeling, it's exactly how it feels looking at old photos or visiting my parents. Could just pick any house with elderly people, visit them and feel just as natural and "home" there. Luckily otherwise I'm doing much better now, forty years later. Living with a stable and supportive partner has slowly reset my emotions 😊 Still a ton of anxiety (and the general autistic struggle) left to deal with, but I consider myself very lucky.
I can never figure out what I'm feeling till after the meltdown n then i take the thing my brain was fixated on and then the type of meltdown i had like 'it hurts' means fear, 'not like' means what it sounds like 'go away' or hiding under weighted blanket means something is causing overwhelm(not always the source I lash out at or hide from) Then the quest for the cause of the feelihg that triggered it hegins It took me going threw many many severe meltdowns to figure out I've been feeling gender dysphoria for past couple months cuz a parent has been misgendering and demanding i stay closeted, isolated and is controlling my funds and transportation. The causes of the emotion is the really hard part for me to figure out the dysphoria isnt so hard now that i know what my words not a boy n hurts to b boy. The sources contributing to the feelings or why it has increased and gotten so much worse then it was each time before.
I am so sorry this is happening to you. I hope you have access to some LGBT affirming people outside your home and are able to make some steps towards getting out of what sounds like a very trying situation.
I did the exact same thing where I split myself up into multiple "personalities" that I labelled as colors! I would celebrate feeling "purple" or "green" and get annoyed when I felt a "grey" or "red" mood coming on. I found that different colors tended to like different music (at different volumes, too).
You color coded your emotions and separated yourself out into personalities, too? Neat! Before this video and its comments, I hadn't found other people who did this.
I'm obsessed with wearing the color that reflects my baseline mood of the day. Weird, I never ever wear yellow. Light grey the most consistent usually, and all of the winter colors range. My best mood is purple or berry colors. 😊
@@wiandewaal I do the same thing with clothing colors too! Sometimes I'll put on a shirt without thinking about it and either be mildly annoyed that it doesn't match how I feel for the whole day or rush to change it to something else before I get out the door lol. I'm the same with the winter colors too - and with never wearing yellow. Funnily enough, purple's also my favorite!
I wonder if heart rate variability monitors would be helpful. It tracks the space between heartbeats to see if your body is stressed. The one I have comes with breathing exercises built it.
Interesting video. I greatly appreciate you making this video. I now know I feel my emotions fully And intensely , but there's times I freeze up and I can't express my feelings There's definitely an overlap though. You're very brave being this open. I'm not even sure I'm autistic like I'd suspected. I might be but I don't live in an area where evaluations for adults is even available. North Carolina is a bit behind on a lot of things. However I do relate a lot to many autistic individuals, but due to traumatic events in childhood I'm still neurodivergent and sadly have quite a few cluster b type traits which are also highly stigmatized in our world like narcissists lacking empathy which isn't quite true. Just as it's not true that autistic individuals lack empathy.
@ThomasHenley I think it is part of the reason I stopped interacting with people I did not know around 2012 up until I would say 2018, and that was only through phyciatic services they got me going out again. There are other reasons.
I think the question about whether autism inherently makes people alexithymic of if autism often causes traumatic experiences which then cause alexithymia. So here is a single data point (my personal experience) I'm autistic and I also have alexithymia, but I don't think I have any trauma from my childhood (I honestly have no clue how I was able to pass school without any bullying, I guess I was just very lucky) So for me I'm pretty certain it's just the autism of which alexithymia is a part (for me) and not the (non-existent) trauma causing it.
Good to se you feel comfortable to peresent your self in the way you rally feel as you talked about some videos back with the eyeliner and the "goth look"🙂👍. I have problem understanding how I feel and watt the feeling is, so now I just tell people that I feel dys-regulated when I am feeling trigger, anxious og stressed and not know with the feeling really is. That helps both me and me safe people understand me better.
Emotions are these annoying mental bugs that refuse to behave rationally, and life would be so much easier without them. I still believe this. I mean, I don't understand other people anyways, and it's so upsetting when you can't understand yourself.
Curious if the threshold your alexithymia requires contributes to your feelings of anhedonia. Can’t tell you’re enjoying something until you’re REALLY enjoying something. I suppose I have a similar threshold for understanding I’m angry. People would say I’m angry, and I would say, “no, I’m frustrated!” but I’d be acting angrily and it would only take so much more “frustration” to tip me into the “feels angry” zone. In therapy, I’ve realized I call a lot of sub-threshold feelings “frustration,” and I need to look at a feelings wheel and get more specific, or I won’t know how to help myself de-escalate.
@@Catlily5 it makes sense, I guess I just never associated the two. But I’ve been told I’m behaving in a way that looks like anger when I’m frustrated.
I have been in therapy for 30+ years so I learned to identify my feelings better. I think I test as borderline alexithymia now. I didn't know that I was autistic until recently.
Good video. I have never encountered the word alexithymia but what you describe has a lot in common with the strategies I've learned to emotionally regulate. I'll say that for me personally, taking the right meds has been immensely helpful in order to be clear-minded enough to recognize my "emotional symptoms" before they escalate. It is an avenue that's worth exploring if you have a supportive therapist to guide you.
Love your content. ❤ You're so kind, empathetic, and intelligent. You also have a soothing voice 😊 I like the podcasts with clips edited in, but maybe more of you talking is better. 😊 Maybe you don't realize how interesting you are. Autistic people are drawn to you. Keep adjusting the show, we won't mind! You'll only make it better.
Very helpful video, I struggle with hyperawareness of body sensitivity but alexthymia don't understand or can't identify. random also but you are so attractive 🫣
I've pretty much given up on the idea that I can have any richness of emotional experiences. The emotion I feel the most is anxiety (if that even is an emotion). I wish people would stop trying to get me to feel what they think I should be feeling, or stop treating me like I'm feeling what they think I am but I'm not. But my brain does not like rich emotions. I'm not allowed to experience joy, love, camaraderie, acceptance, etc. because my brain doesn't want me to experience those emotions without some form of punishment to go with it.
I relate to the SAD SAD music, and sugar cravings which I thought was related to alcoholic re covery.. I was an alcoholic starting at age 11.and I'm just figuring out who I am. I haven't been formally ,diagnosed autistic and ADHD, but I took an informal test which said it's extremely likely. I also scored quite high on an IQtest.
oh, this video is incredibly helpful! I like the idea of making 'versions' or colours as you said to help identify different states. the things to look out for for each was very helpful too. thank you for this informative video I will probably re watch it again to take some notes.
I didn’t know if breathing exercises would help me bc I always felt in a state of panic (fight or flight) and it was sometimes physically painful to stop, slow down and breath. It took making mindful meditation and breathing exercises being a crucial part of my daily routine for a number of months to help me feel and recognise any benefit. I feel lucky that I had the freedom to do so, I know most people don’t. Idk, just my experience.
Wow I relate to this a lot. I remember at my grandpas funeral I didn’t feel sad. I was thinking the whole time “why don’t I feel sad? Am I a bad person?” It took me seeing my cousin and my brother crying to feel sad enough to cry. I felt really weird about it, why wasn’t I sad about it until I saw them crying? I also felt the same way when my dog died. I cried when he was put down, but then I felt better immediately after and it was so bizarre to me. I had to force myself to cry later that night to feel normal. Same thing when my girlfriend broke up with me. I just felt bored. Not sad at all.
I have also been at funerals where I wasn't as sad as I thought I should be. I think part of it was that I was a bit shocked and confused: it all happened pretty quick, and it took a couple days to sink in. "I knew a few months ago that X was old and frail, but just last week I heard that he was on life support, then taken off, then died, and now here we are in his church..." And sometime in the next couple days, I saw something he would have laughed at, and almost called him. And then I cried.
I feel the shape and quality or emotional valence, generally speaking. Similar to the colors, but not strictly "personalities". It doesn't really come with words. It's rather full bodied in a way. Anyway.
Would you say sometimes that along with it seeming like your central nervous system in particular brain, being as 2 aspects of yourself and functioning. Would you also experience the similar feeling in the rest of your body. I ask because this very much connected with me and got me pondering if this is felt by others as it is for myself.
I feel very strong emotions. I heard that this can be due to alexithymia. Your feelings get stronger so you will notice them. I don't know if this is true. But it does seem to me that therapy has taught me to tolerate more and more distress but has not majorly lowered my distress. So I can tolerate more mental pain before doing stupid things. But why isn't my distress lowered?
Thank you so much for all your hard work! I'm going to steal the ideas, and commit fraud in therapy as I show my own version. Oooh.... Dastardly! 🙃😁 ❤ From 🇸🇪
Oh, my gosh! The music thing! I have done that for ages but only recently (these last couple years) realized that I was using it resonate with and amp up my underlying emotions that weren't registering for me consciously.
I have only had success with ND therapists. NT therapists just do not speak my language and I spend too much time trying to translate to then what I mean. It completely takes me out of being able to process any of it for myself. And even then, some know how to approach alexithymia well, and some don’t. The ones that do ask follow up questions and help me piece things together. So for example, “I just feel sad for no reason” gets followed up by “tell me about your week,” which to me feels like a change of subject, but my therapist ends up going, “that sounds like a lot! It makes sense you would feel sad.” And ridiculously, it always comes as a surprise when she circles it back around to the way I’m feeling today. And once she says it, I can tell she’s correct. Why wouldn’t I be sad after all that crap. I’m not a robot.
Yes, I was very lucky to be matched with a ND therapist. We worked together for 4 years and it helped me immensely. Funnily enough I started seeing her before either of us were evaluated for autism, so it was indeed luck.
@@MaximumTheMokona wow! Aw, I love it when things in the world work out like that.
I also say “I translate” for NT! I’ve never heard/seen this from someone else before, so that’s kind of neat
@@paulhhaggard it’s funny, sometimes with my ND therapist, I can tell she understands what I mean, even when I don’t quite pick the right words and she doesn’t respond with the best words. There is still this feeling of being understood and seen. And then with the last NT therapist I tried to work with, I couldn’t get over the feeling that she just didn’t get what I was talking about, even when she was trying to be validating. The translation errors were just exhausting.
How do you FIND one???
I've never experienced an autistic meltdown, though I think I nearly had a shutdown while driving in a suburb with much more intense traffic than my home town. (had to pull off into a parking lot until the sun set and wasn't blinding me, and traffic slowed down.)
I know I experienced "rage" once, because, at the time, my hands were shaking so much that it was hard to type (it was related to an online situation)... but at that same time, someone asked me how I felt (they could tell), and I replied calmly: "fine"... so yeah... no idea until YEARS later.
I generally play music that matches my "mood"... not to change my mood. I have an eclectic taste in music, covering a wide range of genres... basically, I read the lyrics first, and if I agree with the lyrics, I'll listen to the music, otherwise, I don't bother.
I also struggle with interoception, not knowing I'm hungry, or tired, or needing to use the restroom (leading to gastrointestinal issues.)
Overall, I'm an extremely calm person, with few exceptions, even in stressful situations. I've impressed people I worked with, that I didn't get overwhelmed, when they expected I would be. So there are some upsides to not feeling every swing of emotion, I guess.
What motivates me to go to the gym even when I don't feel like it is the fact that in order to have the type of body that I want where I am sculpted and where my favorite clothes are form fitting instead of loose fitting, then I have to force myself to workout at the gym even when I don't feel like it. However after a successful workout session at the gym I feel really good about myself not just because I have the type of body I want, but also because lifting weights relieves anxiety and depression, and increases energy.
My therapist has limited expertise with ASD-1 adults, especially those who are late-diagnosed. Not real sure he has anything concrete in his toolbox to avert a meltdown. Pushing 60, I've accumulated a lot of anger, so my meltdowns can be self destructive at the least. You probably know that many ASD1 folk have been misdiagnosed with BPD, or carry both concomitantly, in proportions that vary according to their circumstances, and borderline people have been stereotyped as explosive. I must quit exploding, so I thank you, Thomas. I don't see one damn thing odd about you.
Apparently, there is a rule at the guidance center I go to that counselors have to ask if you plan to hurt yourself or someone else, how bad you feel on a scale from 1-10, and a word for how you feel at every session. I realized having to do this regularly that I had a hard time labeling feelings, so I would spend the time leading up to the session trying to figure out how I felt, so I could have an answer other than “I don’t know”. It was probably a good exercise for me; anybody could achieve the same thing by picking a time every week and using it to ask themselves “How do I feel?”. I suspect the same “socialization”; rejecting inconvenient, annoying behaviors; that happens in all young children often ends up brought down x10 on autistic children, as we don’t naturally behave in more or less “average” ways. So I do suspect this disconnect between physiological, behavioral, and thought pattern “signs” and labeling said groups of signs as “feelings” of various sorts is not inherent in autism but produced as a result of chronic, early trauma. This is supported by the fact that the same phenomenon is regularly produced in allistic/neurotypical children by abusive parents. We all, as humans, have to learn to realize the signs that we are having a certain feeling and what to do about it, and autistic children are especially likely to not be supported in doing this as our feelings tend to be different from those of allistic people in the same situations.
Ohhhh! Much food for thought. Thank you.
I found a comment on another video referring to Alexithemia with a brief description and referring to it very negatively. Your description has really cleared up my confusion. I now think i have this condition. Ive known im autistic for maybe 2 months. I have yet to be diagnosed by a psychiatrist, and in about a months time am going to be tested. Your video has helped me understand what is going on with me. I never know how i feel and sometimes i feel off but have no idea why. When someone asks me how i feel i automatically reply "good" not because im good but thats the answer because thats how ive learnt to reply.
You are not alone. 🩵
Interesting that I have to say, as much music as I listen to, you can pretty much always tell my mood by the music I listen to. I try not to listen to sad music unless I need to cry or get over something sad.
Last week, I thought I was angry. Turns out I was hurt. Those two give me the most trouble.
Thanks for this, Thomas. You hit the nail on the head once again. 😊
Anger is what most people feel first. It’s like peeling back the onion, underneath anger is usually, frustration, annoyance, feeling let down to feeling hurt or a sense of loss. Loss of trust, loss of friendship, loss of confidence. When you hear the other’s perspective (which might be different to yours, the feeling might ease. Either that or an apology.
You slayed with this emo-vampire look
@@МарияКосмос-е6ж so true
100% If breathing exercises don’t work for you, you haven’t found the right one for you yet. Your neurobiology has a massive influence on which ones are a good fit for you or not.
Personally, I get something out of almost any breathing exercise, but my ADHD declares most of them to be too boring to bother with!!! So I have to change methods frequently.
Switching between methods might be the key, its hard to find something both enjoyable and relaxing for me
I needed to hear that one thing you said about others seeing the emotion clearly displayed even when the emotion is not recognized and does not affect behaviour or reasoning. Now I know this isn’t something unusual for alexithymia. Since I know no one else who experiences life this way, I felt quite alone. I don’t feel that way anymore. Thank you.
This "not linking emotions to events" is sooo relatable. During covid lockdown and online school I was really stressed (too many tasks that I couldn't handle) and was just not feeling good. It took me sooo long to even notice that I wasn't feeling good and it also took me quite some time to figure out the cause. This linking stuff also applies to interoception for me. When I first got my period I thought I didn't experience any pain, but after many months I noticed that I actually do. I mean I kinda did feel the pain earlier, but I just didn't connect it to my period
Any "solution" that begins with "just" signals for me that the person saying it doesn't take me or my issues seriously. Therefore I don't need to take them, or their "solution", seriously, either.
Absolutely! "Just"...implies that whatever they're suggesting is ridiculously easy, and you should've been able to figure it out already. So invalidating!
I do preemptive breathing to regulate when I am doing something which I know will be stressful, such as driving, and it really helps keep me calm. I still have regular meltdowns when surprised by stressors.
The description of thinking faster but more disorderly resonated with me. The physical sensation I get is an unpleasant tightness in my chest.
The main thing that helps me is intense exercise. The rare occasions I can get into a flow state while hard sparring on jiujitsu are blissful.
I love a bit of intense exercise too, how long have you been sparring for?
@@ThomasHenley I started a bit older than most. I am 39 and have been training and sparring for 7 years. Jiujitsu is just grappling. (I am scared of striking and brain injuries.) I do not compete either. I have enough responsibilities outside the gym that getting to the gym 3-4 times per week is all I can muster. I am too old to train through injuries.
Jiujitsu allows me to burn off that pent up "fight or flight" anxiety. Being utterly physically depleted is a break from my overactive mind.
I did this because of a stressful job . I named the personality. Even the music. His video hits hard
Fyi: Wearing Mood Rings in high school didn't help me figure out my emotions at all.
(In case someone out there was wondering)
Honestly, I used to think I was a psychopath. I've never connected to anything emotionally-I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it isn't-and my emotional situations never felt like they were happening to me.
When I was in my teens, my girlfriend "opted out" and I don't remember even feeling sad, it was more like I had been told a story about a stranger's partner. As you can imagine, people didn't take that very well, assuming I'm some kind of monster and never cared for her when that was so far from the truth. I was fully invested, I just didn't seem to experience any emotion with any of it.
It's hard to say now, because I have a bad habit of intellectualising things, whether it was the sub-surface emotions and trauma of it all or whether it was because I fully assumed I was the worst person in the world, but I didn't have another relationship for almost a decade.
When I did, we had a son pretty quickly and while his birth was the best thing that ever happened to me, I didnt feel anything. I didn't feel any love or happiness or anything and when I lost him two years later it was exactly the same. I have pictures of me with him and they feel fraudulent because I was smiling. Messed up, right? Don't worry, it disgusts me too.
I was diagnosed with CPTSD a few years back-Childhood, am I right?-after an attempted self delete and some time in an institution, which also lead to an ASD/ADHD diagnosis and the therapist I was seeing broaching the subject of Alexithymia and telling me I'm probably not a psychopath, which has started me on a long and rather difficult road to recontextualise some of the things I have done and have happened to me to see when and where I had emotional responses and what to; it still feels like going through someone else's mail.
Videos like your's are so important.
Honestly, if we had the kind of discourse we do around neurodiversity then that we do now, I think I could have saved myself and other people a lot of heartache.
Sorry you went through such a hard time.
@@Catlily5 That's very kind of you.
Traumatic environment propably caused you to detach from your feelings, from very early on. While dissociation is a powerful surviving method, it might cause a lot of trouble in social life and also a constant feeling of emptiness.
RUclips has really been so helpful to me too, to understand and accept myself as an autistic person. Literature is mostly clinical and looks us from the outside.
@@MLX1401 You're spot on there, I wasn't shown affection pretty much from birth and that with the dissociating, and the autism, led to me rarely and improperly forming bonds. It's not even just with people, I don't have many possessions- my place is pretty American Psycho, or so I've been told- because if a thing isn't used or useful, I just... don't need it, I guess? I've also been on antidepressants for over a decade because everyone assumes that empty feeling is depression rather than just a bitch of a comorbidity.
That's actually my problem with the literature, it's a bit too 'tapping on the fish bowl glass' and that's exactly how I feel, so I try to avoid it. 😅 I think it's better to have this more personal approach with neurodiversity because many of us take on new information by relating it to our own experiences, so sharing stories is kinda the name of the game.
@@alexandertiberius1098 Yes, it's often assumed that childhood trauma requires extreme home conditions, like severe poverty, alcoholism and abuse.
But simply living with emotionally unavailable, unstable (or very strict) parents and constantly having to hide your needs and nature will do the trick 🤪
I instantly related to that "reading someone elses mail" -feeling, it's exactly how it feels looking at old photos or visiting my parents. Could just pick any house with elderly people, visit them and feel just as natural and "home" there.
Luckily otherwise I'm doing much better now, forty years later. Living with a stable and supportive partner has slowly reset my emotions 😊 Still a ton of anxiety (and the general autistic struggle) left to deal with, but I consider myself very lucky.
I can never figure out what I'm feeling till after the meltdown n then i take the thing my brain was fixated on and then the type of meltdown i had like 'it hurts' means fear, 'not like' means what it sounds like 'go away' or hiding under weighted blanket means something is causing overwhelm(not always the source I lash out at or hide from) Then the quest for the cause of the feelihg that triggered it hegins
It took me going threw many many severe meltdowns to figure out I've been feeling gender dysphoria for past couple months cuz a parent has been misgendering and demanding i stay closeted, isolated and is controlling my funds and transportation. The causes of the emotion is the really hard part for me to figure out the dysphoria isnt so hard now that i know what my words not a boy n hurts to b boy.
The sources contributing to the feelings or why it has increased and gotten so much worse then it was each time before.
I am so sorry this is happening to you. I hope you have access to some LGBT affirming people outside your home and are able to make some steps towards getting out of what sounds like a very trying situation.
I did the exact same thing where I split myself up into multiple "personalities" that I labelled as colors! I would celebrate feeling "purple" or "green" and get annoyed when I felt a "grey" or "red" mood coming on. I found that different colors tended to like different music (at different volumes, too).
You color coded your emotions and separated yourself out into personalities, too? Neat!
Before this video and its comments, I hadn't found other people who did this.
I'm obsessed with wearing the color that reflects my baseline mood of the day. Weird, I never ever wear yellow. Light grey the most consistent usually, and all of the winter colors range. My best mood is purple or berry colors. 😊
@@wiandewaal I do the same thing with clothing colors too! Sometimes I'll put on a shirt without thinking about it and either be mildly annoyed that it doesn't match how I feel for the whole day or rush to change it to something else before I get out the door lol. I'm the same with the winter colors too - and with never wearing yellow. Funnily enough, purple's also my favorite!
I wonder if heart rate variability monitors would be helpful. It tracks the space between heartbeats to see if your body is stressed. The one I have comes with breathing exercises built it.
Interesting video. I greatly appreciate you making this video. I now know I feel my emotions fully And intensely , but there's times I freeze up and I can't express my feelings There's definitely an overlap though. You're very brave being this open.
I'm not even sure I'm autistic like I'd suspected. I might be but I don't live in an area where evaluations for adults is even available. North Carolina is a bit behind on a lot of things. However I do relate a lot to many autistic individuals, but due to traumatic events in childhood I'm still neurodivergent and sadly have quite a few cluster b type traits which are also highly stigmatized in our world like narcissists lacking empathy which isn't quite true. Just as it's not true that autistic individuals lack empathy.
i can relate to quite a lot of this
Its a tough old thing alexithymia for sure!
@ThomasHenley I think it is part of the reason I stopped interacting with people I did not know around 2012 up until I would say 2018, and that was only through phyciatic services they got me going out again. There are other reasons.
I think the question about whether autism inherently makes people alexithymic of if autism often causes traumatic experiences which then cause alexithymia. So here is a single data point (my personal experience)
I'm autistic and I also have alexithymia, but I don't think I have any trauma from my childhood (I honestly have no clue how I was able to pass school without any bullying, I guess I was just very lucky)
So for me I'm pretty certain it's just the autism of which alexithymia is a part (for me) and not the (non-existent) trauma causing it.
Thanks that is interesting to know!
Good to se you feel comfortable to peresent your self in the way you rally feel as you talked about some videos back with the eyeliner and the "goth look"🙂👍. I have problem understanding how I feel and watt the feeling is, so now I just tell people that I feel dys-regulated when I am feeling trigger, anxious og stressed and not know with the feeling really is. That helps both me and me safe people understand me better.
Emotions are these annoying mental bugs that refuse to behave rationally, and life would be so much easier without them.
I still believe this. I mean, I don't understand other people anyways, and it's so upsetting when you can't understand yourself.
I mean is rationality rational at the end of the day?
Curious if the threshold your alexithymia requires contributes to your feelings of anhedonia. Can’t tell you’re enjoying something until you’re REALLY enjoying something.
I suppose I have a similar threshold for understanding I’m angry. People would say I’m angry, and I would say, “no, I’m frustrated!” but I’d be acting angrily and it would only take so much more “frustration” to tip me into the “feels angry” zone. In therapy, I’ve realized I call a lot of sub-threshold feelings “frustration,” and I need to look at a feelings wheel and get more specific, or I won’t know how to help myself de-escalate.
100% it does! I related on the anger front too
I was told that frustration is low level anger.
@@Catlily5 hmmmm that’s good to know…. They feel very different.
@@stephenie44 That is what the mental health professionals told me. 🤷🏻♀️
@@Catlily5 it makes sense, I guess I just never associated the two. But I’ve been told I’m behaving in a way that looks like anger when I’m frustrated.
I have been in therapy for 30+ years so I learned to identify my feelings better. I think I test as borderline alexithymia now.
I didn't know that I was autistic until recently.
Good video. I have never encountered the word alexithymia but what you describe has a lot in common with the strategies I've learned to emotionally regulate. I'll say that for me personally, taking the right meds has been immensely helpful in order to be clear-minded enough to recognize my "emotional symptoms" before they escalate. It is an avenue that's worth exploring if you have a supportive therapist to guide you.
Thanks for this video Thom - I score high in alexythmia and I’m excited to learn from your experience
Thank you Bree! 😁
Love your content. ❤ You're so kind, empathetic, and intelligent.
You also have a soothing voice 😊
I like the podcasts with clips edited in, but maybe more of you talking is better. 😊
Maybe you don't realize how interesting you are. Autistic people are drawn to you.
Keep adjusting the show, we won't mind! You'll only make it better.
Omg this is what I needed in my life🙏🫶😭😭😭
Haha I’m super glad :)!
Very helpful video, I struggle with hyperawareness of body sensitivity but alexthymia don't understand or can't identify. random also but you are so attractive 🫣
I've pretty much given up on the idea that I can have any richness of emotional experiences. The emotion I feel the most is anxiety (if that even is an emotion). I wish people would stop trying to get me to feel what they think I should be feeling, or stop treating me like I'm feeling what they think I am but I'm not. But my brain does not like rich emotions. I'm not allowed to experience joy, love, camaraderie, acceptance, etc. because my brain doesn't want me to experience those emotions without some form of punishment to go with it.
I relate to the SAD SAD music, and sugar cravings which I thought was related to alcoholic re covery.. I was an alcoholic starting at age 11.and I'm just figuring out who I am. I haven't been formally ,diagnosed autistic and ADHD, but I took an informal test which said it's extremely likely. I also scored quite high on an IQtest.
Good video, Thomas!
Livelling 😮 the act of levelling up your emotional awareness character traits … where do I start farming? 🤓
oh, this video is incredibly helpful! I like the idea of making 'versions' or colours as you said to help identify different states. the things to look out for for each was very helpful too. thank you for this informative video I will probably re watch it again to take some notes.
I didn’t know if breathing exercises would help me bc I always felt in a state of panic (fight or flight) and it was sometimes physically painful to stop, slow down and breath. It took making mindful meditation and breathing exercises being a crucial part of my daily routine for a number of months to help me feel and recognise any benefit. I feel lucky that I had the freedom to do so, I know most people don’t. Idk, just my experience.
Great video Thomas!
thank you mate
I relate so much to the split brain feeling
Wow I relate to this a lot. I remember at my grandpas funeral I didn’t feel sad. I was thinking the whole time “why don’t I feel sad? Am I a bad person?” It took me seeing my cousin and my brother crying to feel sad enough to cry. I felt really weird about it, why wasn’t I sad about it until I saw them crying? I also felt the same way when my dog died. I cried when he was put down, but then I felt better immediately after and it was so bizarre to me. I had to force myself to cry later that night to feel normal. Same thing when my girlfriend broke up with me. I just felt bored. Not sad at all.
I have also been at funerals where I wasn't as sad as I thought I should be. I think part of it was that I was a bit shocked and confused: it all happened pretty quick, and it took a couple days to sink in. "I knew a few months ago that X was old and frail, but just last week I heard that he was on life support, then taken off, then died, and now here we are in his church..." And sometime in the next couple days, I saw something he would have laughed at, and almost called him. And then I cried.
That was really helpful!
I feel the shape and quality or emotional valence, generally speaking. Similar to the colors, but not strictly "personalities". It doesn't really come with words. It's rather full bodied in a way. Anyway.
Would you say sometimes that along with it seeming like your central nervous system in particular brain, being as 2 aspects of yourself and functioning.
Would you also experience the similar feeling in the rest of your body.
I ask because this very much connected with me and got me pondering if this is felt by others as it is for myself.
Oh as in feeling disconnected from your own body? Ive experienced depersonalisation a lot in my teens, it feels like that a lot
I feel very strong emotions. I heard that this can be due to alexithymia. Your feelings get stronger so you will notice them. I don't know if this is true.
But it does seem to me that therapy has taught me to tolerate more and more distress but has not majorly lowered my distress.
So I can tolerate more mental pain before doing stupid things. But why isn't my distress lowered?
After all, anger is an energy.
J Lydon
Thank you so much for all your hard work! I'm going to steal the ideas, and commit fraud in therapy as I show my own version. Oooh.... Dastardly!
🙃😁
❤ From 🇸🇪
Your color associations happen to align with westernized kabbalah.