Alexithymia (take a read, don't be shy)

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Okay, so I was just performing my regular Wikipedia browse, and I came across something I thought was worth sharing.

It's called alexithymia, research finding that 85% of people with AS have it. I'd never heard of it before, but upon reading about it it struck a cord. It certainly explains alot for me, and may do the same for you. Shame I can't have these revelations sooner, it would save alot of concern.

Basically, it's a detachment from emotions (understanding, processing, describing) but I encourage you to take a look for yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia

This may also be worth a read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhedonia

Hope you get some answers.

Very interesting. Thanks for posting this!

I was familiar with alexithymia from my AS research. I'm not so bad at processing emotion or anything like that. My problem is expressing emotional things; Even if I have everything I want to say scripted in my mind, I still can't express it verbally and tend to get choked up.

Yeah me too. For the longest time I thought I didn't really have emotions, but that didn't make sense because at times some things would get through. Seems my anti-emotion and pro-logic stance have an underlying neurological cause.

It's funny; I used to think social anxiety and this were actually aspects of AS, not things on their own. I don't even know what I have anymore

I need to reassess this whole matter now. How complicated this all is.

It says 85% person with ASD have Alexithymia . And one of the criteria for Alexithymia is:

We had threads in the past which pretty much universally the posters said that they do have imaginative thought.

The nature of inattention leads to fantasies often not less. And its been reported that 75% of person with ASD have ADHD like effects.

So some one has it wrong.

I agree!

It says they may include such things. I personally have an overactive imagination. Just as with AS I don't fit all the symptoms. It's not so clear cut.

Used to be that way. Have developed quite a lot in the last couple of decades but still far behind my peers.

I definitely have this to some extent...

but i have lots of really weird dreams all the time

That's how I am and I too fit many symptoms but not all.

The math just does not jive. Lack of imagination would have to be rarely observed in alexithymia for 85% of persons with ASD to have it.

Agreed,this is an absurd misunderstanding of AS to continue the falacy that we "lack imagination"....but dont throw out the baby with the bath water(I love that expression.. because I would be tempted to do it).

I was interested in the comorbidities.....IBS,thyroid and other edocrin dysfunctions as well as the CD,sex and eating disorders.I thikn these may have more significance to female AS issues(yes,I realize I am projecting some of my own experiences but here are other females here and a few males who have similiar issues).

I also think the concept of parents with AS exhibiting less facial expressions being a "possible" influence on inphant devlopment of these expressions.The only problem with this is it seems to contridict anther theory that autistics lack "mirror neurons",so would not learn through imitation anyway.???It also doesnt account for those of us who were adopted and "maybe" raised by NTs.

I was often told in couseling that I was not "intouch" with my emotions because I would be laughing or smiling while recounting an experience that they perceived as painful.(but I did sometimes cry at these times)What they didnt seem to understand was that I knew that I was hurt by the experiences I was describing but laughing at the "sheer absurdity of the cruelty the human species".Often I did feel detached from the experience of the person I used to be and felt as if I was just recounting a story in a book I had read.

I was a psych major in school and felt like I knew many NT's who were unaware of their own emotions and often acting from emotional responses that they were totally unaware of.This does not seem like an exclussively aspie trait to me as I think many of us our more aware and interspective of what is motivating our actions.???Just a thought.Actually the whole subject is a bit abstract for me.Maybe I am missing something?

Alexithymia- to describe people who appeared to have deficiencies in understanding, processing, or describing their emotions. I seem to have this I have many problems with emotion, but one thing Alexithymia says that people with it has few dreams or fantasies due to restricted imagination; and I know that I defintely fantasize and daydream very often actually, so I don't know. I defintely don't have Anhedonia, whichis an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise, and social or sexual interaction.

May have few dreams or fantasies due to restricted imagination

I have a thread on treating Anhedonia here:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... ic&t=39528

I find it hard to describe my feelings beyond the very basics like: angry, sad, happy, normal, anxious/fearful (I don't really know how to tell these two apart). I have difficulty assigning levels of strength to them. I often have difficulty just noticing these feelings until they reach a critical level where the feelings have become so strong that it often results in an outburst if I can't find a way of releasing it in a more controlled manner like the long, vigorous walks I usually take.

I found it interesting to note that the dreams I can remember having were fairly mundane ones.
Going to the neighbors because they had a slip and slide.
Having one of those inflatable trampoline building things in my back yard for my birthday and getting a Optimus Prime transformer as a gift. (They wouldn't let me jump in one at a fair because I wouldn't take my shoes off.)
The basement flooding so much that we needed scuba gear to swim around down there. Plus there were fish and sharks. This was shortly after we had some serious flooding that we spent like 5 hours bailing water out of the house during a power outage. I also love watching Discovery shows about sea life.
That I could fly by jumping and flapping my arms really hard. I just flew around the school playground and landed in trees.
Going shopping looking for food with potatoes that were not freeze dried. I hate the texture of freeze dried potatoes.
Sitting in a school doing math problems while stimming vigorously and proclaiming loudly that I am not weird, but just different.