Handling your own emotions

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I'm pretty sure, and so is my counsellor, that I exhibit traits of alexithymia. I have difficulty expressing my emotions, and even figuring out what emotions I feel. Half of the time, I feel like I have no emotions at all. I can sometimes put a basic word to it, like happy, sad, angry. But complex emotions are completely beyond my understanding.

This post is about something more than that though.

Does anyone else have trouble handling their own emotions? I never used to feel them, but since my therapist has started working with me on putting a name to my emotions and identifying them, I seem to be feeling them more.

For example, at my holiday gathering of family, it was awkward because although I've been actively transitioning for more than a year, they are still not used to me being transgender. For the first half of the day, I felt really bad. (that's as emotionally specific as I can get). Then, a 10 year old started calling me 'he' and correcting everyone when they used the wrong name, and I felt much better.

But the influx of emotion was hard to handle. The bad stuff sucked, yeah, but I was even uncomfortable with the powerful good feelings I was feeling after I started feeling part of the family again.

It felt like an overload of another kind. Instead of sensory overload, it was emotional overload. I much prefer feeling nothing.

My therapist seems to think feeling nothing is a problem, that I really should be able to feel and accept my feelings. But if I'm going to be in a constant state of overload, no thank you.

Does anyone else experience anything like this?

My therapist thinks that when I'm feeling "nothing" I'm just not acknowledging my feelings, but I don't know. I do tend to run away from feelings and have in the past used maladaptive coping mechanisms such as an eating disorder to separate from emotion and not feel it.

Emotions impinge on senses like external sensory stimulation does, so it is exactly sensory overload.

Working with a meditation teacher who really knows how to deal with emotional stimulus would be best.

In lieu of that, I can post links to resources that you might be able to use to help yourself, most of which are free.


Shinzen Young is a wonderful meditation teacher who seems to pursue a speciality in physical pain and emotionally challenging material.

He has a channel with a playlist devoted to instructional video here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... ature=plcp

I don't own this audio, but I'm fairly sure it would help:

http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/Break-Th ... uctdetails

There's a whole host of useful guided meditations here that might help:

http://www.buddhanet.net/audio-meditation.htm

Of most practical value for your situation might be this one:

http://www.buddhanet.net/mp3/huxter/hux ... breath.mp3

And this one:

http://www.buddhanet.net/mp3/huxter/hux ... otions.mp3

I keep the breath one in my phone, though I don't really need to use it anymore... it's handy to have around.

Thank you, Moog, I will try these meditation videos.

Yes, great advise! Meditation is an amazing way to work with these sensory and emotional problems.

Walking meditation is a great way to ground yourself and I feel it's very helpful when I'm feeling overwhelmed by senses and emotion issues.

I also have issues with emotional overload. It's one of the big reasons that I'm getting an Emotional Support Animal. Having something fuzzy that curls up with me and just is there for me helps a lot with that sort of overload.

Now that I think about it, I don't know if I should label what I experience "emotional overload" though.

I mean, yesterday, I remember feeling "bad". And I was thinking, 'gee, this is uncomfortable, I wish I could escape this.' And then things got better, and I was feeling good, and I still was thinking 'gee, this is uncomfortable, I wish I could escape this.'

But I wasn't collapsing on the floor, or melting down, or showing any visible signs of emotion, except one person asked me if I was tired.

But in the situation, strong emotion would have been appropriate. I think that I experience strong emotions but only feel a tiny bit of it - but the stresses on me are as much as if I was experiencing the full strong emotion.

I think if I had to endure yesterday's emotion for longer, I would have hit the meltdown point, even if I wasn't really feeling the full extent of the emotion. That's why I only ever expose myself to stressful family situations for a day or two at a time.

Dots, your situation also describes mine very well. I have a hard time recognizing my emotions and putting a name to them, I feel very uncomfortable talking about my emotions and the best I can do is describe them in simple terms like you do.

Most of the time I feel nothing, or what I just like to call "neutral." Often times I will describe it as "content," because feeling nothing for me is actually a blessing compared to when I actually feel things.

For me, it's like a dam that breaks. Once the feelings start to arise, they can't be held back and just sort of erupt from me like a volcano exploding. Once this stage occurs, it's very hard to calm me down because I have a hard time NOT thinking about whatever it is that triggered my emotions.

If I'm in public, I will do my best to stifle my feelings and calm myself down by trying breathing exercises and meditations like the ones Moog posted. I will sometimes even try to find a dark, quiet place (I like small, windowless areas like bathrooms, closets, and laundry rooms for some reason) and just sit there for a bit. I'll close my eyes and count to 10, then 20, then 30, etc. all the while trying my best to focus on my breathing instead of my negative thoughts. I will not stop counting until I feel I have enough control over my emotions to return to the public.

However, even the breathing sometimes doesn't help and will only get me halfway under control. I will usually do my best to just bottle up the feelings, but the moment I get home I immediately just break down and bawl my eyes out for 30 minutes to an hour. Usually after that, I feel much better and go back to being my neutral self.

... And that's just the NEGATIVE feelings. I am still not sure how to deal with gratitude and whatever affections I might have for people, and I'm always at a complete loss for words whenever someone thanks me or compliments me. I just don't understand why people compliment me. It makes me feel like a fish flailing on the surface. :\

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck and hope your counselor eventually understands that you're not trying to hide away from your feelings, but that your feelings are like an untamed beast breaking through its cage for the first time, and you're the rookie ringmaster with nothing to defend yourself with. (Weird analogy, sorry. )

Wow, that 10 year old is a pretty special kid!

I do the same thing. We have to take care of ourselves.

My experiences with emotions are similar. I've been labeled "emotional" since I was little. ummm, aren't we all emotional? I can identify happy, angry, sad and scared. All of the others I have trouble with. If I have a list in front of me then I might be able to figure something else out. Sometimes I feel something different but there is no word or way I could get someone else to understand what that feeling is. Not being able to put a name to it makes the emotional overload worse. For me, emotional overload and sensory overload play off of each other and it ends up in a vicious cycle.

Congrats on the courage to becoming your authentic self. BRAVO!!

Last edited by 169Kitty on 28 Dec 2011, 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

ditto!



yup, queue the meltdown



yup




I don't think it's so weird, it makes sense to me.

^^^^^

Having cats has always been the most amazing thing for me.

Due to living complications, however, I can't have them with me at this point, so I am going to shift to rats.

Well, I can feel impending emotional overload and generally do something to mitigate it. I can't always because I can't always feel the emotions leading to a meltdown until the meltdown is imminent and it is too late. Today there was a combination of factors that would have caused a meltdown if I hadn't felt it start - someone woke me up to ask me what I wanted from a local small chain burger place. They actually asked me twice because I didn't understand the first time and thought they'd said sandwiches were for dinner. Anyway, Since I didn't know, they said they'd get me a hamburger (fine with me) and left. They came back from Dairy Queen instead, as the other burger place was closed, and I had two duelling problems: One was the shift from the burger place to Dairy Queen without any warning, and the other was that I always order chicken strips from Dairy Queen, not hamburgers, except for flamethrower hamburgers, which this was not. And I already knew what was starting to happen (meltdown) so I found some way to take my mind off of all of this and let things go.

I should also add that this would not always be such a problem, but there was a lot of yelling in the house earlier and I'd gone to a busy store earlier, so I was already dealing with sensory overload.

But it was still emotional overload. Just because you can manage it some of the time doesn't make it less overloading or less distressing, it just means once you know it's there you have coping strategies. I've developed a lot of coping strategies over the years.

nice starting post. Thinking about it, I do have feelings, emotions. But do I have all nypicals used to feel? How could I tell? well, my wife seems to have more emotions than I have. But she is a aspie as well... somewhat closer to nypicals than me.

What I figured out is that my mirror neurones are close to not existing. I do react mostly only uppon analyses of the situation but of co-feeling of what others show of emotions. I learned when to smile and how for a greeting as example... istening to others and analysing what is expected from me what feelings I should show and how to responce to their feelings. But often I react too late or wrong, just a little off.

What I know, I feel anger more instead of sadness. Deepest emotions are triggered by music I really love and crawl under my skin, producing goosebumps and even tears.

As I have been between 16 and 18 years young, I learned emotional control like being a Vulcan. (Spock) and I was so strickt about it that I became mentaly ill, developed depression. I had to relearn to feel and express feeling. Still today I tend to show too much or not enough at all at wrong times.

When I am really concentrated doing something, when I am in my tunnel, I feel nothing. Neutral expression to the outside and often I get asked why I seem to be sad... well, i am not, just not smiling and not showing any emotion at all, having relaxed face muscles, because I feel nothing.

I ask myself why should I feel anything for everything? why should trigger interaly or externaly any feelings? As long as I do not care, i seem to just feel basic emotions. And because sometimes I forget to show more differenciated emotions to the outside world, people around me are puzzled about me, thinking I am strange and weird or alike and avoiding me.

I have found that attempts on my own to understand my emotions tends to fall flat. Guided therapy has managed to help and come up with coping strategies at times for me, though.

In general, though, what I need most when I'm going through emotional extremes is time alone and relaxation.

It seems I process and work my way through these types of situations almost automatically, given the right circumstances.

People are different; for many of them, feelings are all there is, they breathe, act, interact, practically exist on an emotional level. Perhaps your counselor is one of those overemotional people.

Personally i can identify the basic feelings and don't get along well with people who are wallowing happily in their emotional mud. More often than not they are just too lazy to use their mind and express their thoughts.

Florence Nightingale

Due to lack of income I've been unable to have a cat since I moved out of my family's place (for college 5 years ago), but on Christmas when I mentioned the cash I got would go into my cat fund, my parents finally talked to me about it and supported it, so now as long as I do everything I can to try to support the cat myself first, and as long as its only one cat, I can get a cat and my parents will be the safety net for if I can't afford to take care of it.

I'd commented before (but not to them) that the best Christmas present I could get would be my parents bringing me to a cat shelter, letting me pick one out, and agreeing to support it if I can't. I seem to have gotten it - am going to look at cats later this week because between some saving from tutoring and Christmas money I have enough to adopt a cat and get all initial supplies required, and my parents have agreed to be a safety net because they finally for the first time understood how much having a cat would help me regulate my emotions.




I'd not label it all "emotional overload" but would consider part of it as such.



This part was definitely impending emotional overload. I sometimes can predict overloads and try to prevent it, I sometimes can't. However, being able to predict that it will be a problem soon doesn't make it not overloading, just not hitting the breaking point.



I also have the can't hold back emotions once I hit a certain point, but I actually don't have the issue of not thinking about whatever the trigger was. I tend to more fixate on the negative emotion itself (if its negative) and don't always even know what the trigger was.


My biggest problem in this area is that I'm really weak at identifying what my emotions are before they're at a strong point. This means once they hit the breaking point I hadn't been really warned much and I hadn't prepared. In terms of negative emotions, I can figure out "I'm not okay" but don't know how strong, don't know why, and don't know how much it'd take to make me break.

On the upside things that I know will bother me I can avoid in those periods. And things that I know will help I can do.

But in these cases, I don't feel so much like I don't have emotion as like I don't know what it is even to the degree of how strong it is.