Describing feelings=/=Emotions and 2 more discussions

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Alexythymia as it is known is the inability to describe ones emotions. It is apparently a trait that is much ecpressed in people with autism, though of course there are faults with this theory but I will first come to something that is quite shameful that people claim about us: We have no emotions.

Now for anyone who has looked on this forum for the last few days lacking emotions is something that is blatantly foolish and even then as we roll back further we can see outrage, anger, disgust, surprise, hilarity and so on. Yet, that doesn't stop people claiming it about us, especially bigots. Although to be honest lacking emotions and not being able to describe them seems only to be the conclusion of hilariously self-centred people whose imagination does not extend in to the minds of others, something that becomes even more hilarious as that suggests some lack of that cherished 'empathy' we apparently don't have.

Now I can only imagine that there are a lot less visible signs coming from us about our emotional state, but I also think it has got very much to do with people misreading the same signs that make people say we have alexythemia.

Now, I don't know if anyone has been through the same process as I but I want to say just in case this seems to be a phenomenon that is common: When I describe my feelings I tend to go very far in to detail trying to describe its component parts and occasionally I get hung up trying to think which word I should use. Thus in using about five or six different emotions or feelings that might come across as indecisive, and the hesitation that occasionally occurs, might that confirm such a position?

For those of us who have otherwise issues with language besides the ultimate result could be an inability to grasp the word they want to use. Many Standard Humans, if ever they describe anything about themselves, I have seen in chats, tend to only ever use one to my three or four. I on the other hand even if I only want to use one tend to pore over all sorts of different words and emotions. Even when the word angry might suffice for most I might think about the words furious, defiled, bitter, hateful, wounded, enraged, provoked, vengeful, severe, agitated and so on in to words that may seem unusual at the time but nonetheless relevant tangentially. Take the words clear-minded. Most people don't associate that with anger, but the clarity of the emotion and of its response can have that effect in a way: Making it clear what I should do.

Not I don't really understand the need to tell one's own emotions anyway. Maybe others, but then again telling each other's emotions is not something anyone I have talked with on here seems not to be able to do. The only problems I ever see is not understanding another's motivations, which sounds less like a natural skill and more like not being presumptuous. But then again, if I can say that I am overjoyed then I am not lacking anything anyway.

Or course we have emotions...and anyone who concludes that we do not is, patently obviously, acting in response to some issues of their own that are in need of serious work, however well qualified and professional they may be.

...and I am fully aware that there are plenty of people who definately should know better yet promulgate that kind of doublepluswrongthink in one for or another, whether directly or indirectly (the dangerous one).

Alexithymia however is something quite different to that, and it isn't just an inability to describe ones own emotions, it is often an inability to identify and define them accurately too.

Communicating emotions is an huge factor in the development of relationship...not just the big deal of:

"You are *the one*"

...but more importantly in the tiny, minute by minute, development of any relationship...the fleeting "that did/did not please you" and "I do/do not care if I please you" that are the building blocks of any relationship from work colleagues to, well, *the one* through every shade in between.

I have never, personally, met an Aspie or Autistic who did not show clear indicators of significant Alexithymia, personally I would do better betting on a roulette wheel than dealing with either side of that equation, and though you can certainly learn to analyse it after the fact (which I do very well) unfortunately this is too late to be able to participate in the relational transactions and gives no insight at all into some apects of them.

I guess in relation to the last paragraph you made, that we have a different set of emotions, different modes one would say, so that we can be accurate and quick too? But I don't feel like reinventing english.

My assumption is that accuracy becomes an obsession when describing emotions. We spin rapidly around the centre point that we want, bombing around the target and not being satisfied with it, so we just use more words whilst most Standard Humans just let one sortie go in a somewhat relevant area and that's alright. It's like when it comes to emotions the radius of what we say I think is like a conventional bomb, whilst for others it is like a Nuke.

The impression it gives to them is the opposite of what it should be. Since our penchant for accuracy doesn't cross their minds our wanton use of all sorts of words gives off the impression that we have no clue of ourselves, rather than just a want to hit every bullseye.

No, not really, as far as I can tell...and whatever they say, nobody really know how another's emotions feel, we have pretty much the same set of emotions, varying only by individual rather than by autism.

The problem is in communicating and interpreting emotional reactions. Most autistic people cannot do that, either in others or often, if not invariably, in ourselves in the same way.

...and however "quick" we become at analysing emotional reactions we are still about as useful as a blind person texting in terms of the real time immediate interactions and transactions from which relationships are built. In terms of accuracy, in the time frame in which the interaction or transaction needs to be concluded in order to develop the relationship our level of accuracy is very unlikely to even reach "ball park", or "same county".

When we can go away and process it intellectually we can usually make a pretty fair fist of analysing it...but by then the window in which the trans/interaction needed to be completed is long passed...along with several more before and after it.

You can get round this, to an extent, through delayed (not real time like, for example, chat) text interaction, where each can go at his own pace and thus make the time to interpret reactions intellectually...but this was far easier 15 years ago when the internet was new, and few, if any non-verbal cues had integrated into online behaviour, but by now online interaction has developed a distinct underlying non-verbal language of it's own.

Even so, none of that can get you around an inability to interpret you own emotional reactions effectively.

I find this statement interesting. Can you expand on what you mean please? I don't grasp what you are saying.

It's hard for me to describe accurately, but I will give it a shot.

In the earlier days of the internet interaction was conducted along the lines of established written communication like letter writing, and (going back to the nineties) the demographics of internet users were also very different. THe were predominantly male, above average intelligence, inclined to the middle classes, and, well a bit geeky...

But as the internet has developed there has been an huge influx of other types of users like stay at home mums and the retired, and there has been a commensurate development of a unique non-verbal language.

Let me give you a very simple example.

I am replying to your specific question in public...BUT if I chose to reply by pm, even in the same words, my reply would take on significantly different undertones and meaning - from the fact that I chose to reply pm alone...non verbal cue...

If we were on facebook, not here, I could "like" instead of replying immediately, and thus conveying any one of several potential non verbal responses...I could for example mean "Good question but I cannot reply immediately" or I could mean "I want to please you" or I could even mean "I haven't got time to read your question right now but I want to be polite" which has to be interpreted in the context of who we are, the relationship between us and our relationship to the topic of the post...and maybe a whole tranche of other factors.

The NT appear to do and read this stuff as intuitively as body language...

Thanks, that makes sense. Yes, PM and public posts even using the same words have a distinctly different "flavour" about them. I tried Facebook for a few weeks and gave up on it. The superficiality of the "conversations" and the "liking" and friend requests from people I've never heard of put me off, so I disabled my account. There does seem to be a lot of "fluff" associated with communication by the internet nowadays.

I know exactly what you mean...my involvement with facebook was limited to old schoolmates who are easier to reach there for years. But for a variety of reasons in the past couple of years it has expanded into being divided (in order of preference of course ) between heavily political and staying in touch with people I know IRL.

Anyone who sends me too much fluff gets a "non verbal cue" of the unmistakable kind! (Of COURSE it is more dangerous to stand in front of a speeding train that to post "inspirational messages" on my FB wall...but ONLY JUST!)

[quote="TallyMan"]Thanks, that makes sense. Yes, PM and public posts even using the same words have a distinctly different "flavour" about them. I tried Facebook for a few weeks and gave up on it. The superficiality of the "conversations" and the "liking" and friend requests from people I've never heard of put me off, so I disabled my account. There does seem to be a lot of "fluff" associated with communication by the internet nowadays.[/quote THe problem with facebook though is the huge number of people and thus the subsequently shallow nature of the friendships on there. It's like the Standard Human way of having friends, but put in to such a high gear that they take the mick out of it themselves. Amassing thousands of friends, few of who you speak to for more than a minute, is the norm. I have an account on there. It is gloriously umkempt. I have a friend, 'aspie' too, who actually removed his account from facebook.

Well except I have friends who are able to. I seem to be able to. You have said about my emotions before in PMs too. No amount of time should allow people to 'analyse' emotions. If someone is alexythemic then time shouldn't make it easier to solve what someone's emotions are through a PM. If anything an increased length of time should support my idea that people aren't failing to find the emotion they want but that they are failing to find the accurate word they want.

No, you have a little, but serious, word slippage there.

I did not say I could analyse anybody's emotions (nor that anyone else can), I said we have an option on trying to intellectually analyse other people's emotional reactions and responses during an interaction or transaction (and then to select an appropriate way to convey our response in turn, in order to go on developing the relationship) .

It's not only slower, it is also not the same as an intuitive grasp, you miss some things and see far more than you need to of others, and, of course, by the time you arrive at some kind of answer the inter/transaction itself has passed you by and gone on without you, in a totally different direction to the one it would have taken could you have participated fully.

As for emotions themselves, it is certainly possible for any human being to make a fair guess at identifying someone else's emotions relative to that person's other emotions, if they have sufficient time and information, but it is impossible for any human being to know how another those emotions feel for another human being at all, let alone through intellectual analysis.

When I was young I genuinely believed I could read an awful lot of things that I really couldn't and got them so far wrong that I was lucky to even survive some of the messes that got me into.

My experience of discussing emotions with you by pm has consisted entirely in being placed in a position of trying to explain how I actually feel about specifics thing for you to forcefully inform me that I do not feel that way, because you don't...which attitude is a recipe for disaster in terms of interpreting people whoever you direct it at. The inevitable result is that you will never be able know anything about anyone else.

There is even a term for it - "projective identification". (for a rough guide see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_identification then, armed with a basic grasp, go on to google primary sources if you are interested. )

I tried LinkedIn for a few weeks but couldn't stand it. I kept getting emails from people I didn't know wanting to be the Linked-In equivalent of 'friends'. I felt like people were trying to use me. I disabled my account as well, and then irritated a real-world friend who couldn't understand why I had gotten out of LinkedIn - he wanted to link. I really haven't heard from him since - I think our friendship was near to its natural end.

I've never even come close to trying Facebook. It seems to take fake and unnatural fluff up two notches from LinkedIn.

My father has done that with me before. He has seen upset when there was from my point of view none and he has seen annoyance when there was none. I and my close friend have an instantaneous understanding of each other's emotions and I do not have problems identifying my emotions, I just like being specific. The problem with that has been in my experience been between us and 'NTs' and vice versa. It doesn't take time for me to respond, so inferring that I do seems counter-intuitive to the clear assertion that I don't have problems understanding or recognizing emotions in myself and fellows of my own kind instantaneously.

As for telling you what you feel I said what I experienced from you and my conclusion. You can disagree with that but there's no reason to call it some projection. Projective identification is to personalize yourself with someone or something. I wasn't making some sort of homonculus copy of myself and impressing it in to your mould.

Also you didn't say analyze emotions but 'intellectually analyzed emotional reactions'. That seems an insignificant distinction to claim that makes me wrong.

Finally, I am not forcing you to think anything. I am making a hypothesis. That isn't mind control. People make theoretical statements about what we do or think all the time. Welcome to the reality of autism, a 'medical condition' that people debate over continuously, of which maniacs fight over, of which madmen disparage and the meek defend. It is an active topic of variables. My opinion does not threaten your identity. If I am right about something then the world turns below our feet and not just because I willed it, but because I correctly identified something, and if it isn't then well, your identity isn't threatened anyway.

I don't know why you think I am forcing anything on you when you keep telling me that you know of no 'autistic' person who does not have this alexythemia and since you haven't retracted from this point you are talking about me. I have pointed out that this is patently false.

I am proposing a theory that frees us from the constriction of not having an ability that people say we lack when it has come clear to me that like all other things people are misunderstanding us and that if we lack such an ability then why is it that we integrate with each other with comparative ease? I feel as if it is a case of blue and red, not black and white, difference, not lack. Your problem seems to be thinking outside the box of what people say about us. I am not going to be struck in to the ground so easily like a nail.

The problem is that 'NTs' aren't bothered by it. They just get on with it. It barely crosses their mind. They just focus in on those that they care about and that's the same thing with saying what one's emotions are. We go hardcore in to describing them with exquisite detail or are hung if trying to find the perfect word. They just say: I'm angry, or I am surprised. Those occasions where people get hung up or throw out a lot of words then they say 'can't understand own emotions'.

What you are missing is that I was not talking about *you* at all there, but about myself and other Aspies. If you are completely different I take your word for it.

Simples!



No, to give you my short version, "projective identification" is when you inform people that they feel or experience something because you do, usually linked to completely ignoring, and/or contradicting everything they really feel and experience however hard they try to object.



It is an incredibly important distinction, equivalent to the distinction between theoretical chiropady and reviewing the ballet.



It is not, and never will be your place to hypothesise about what other people feel in contradiction to what they tell you, not least because you have no idea what someone else feels (unless you listen to them when they tell you, of course) and your hypothesis is certain to be wrong.



Of course it isn't, but what you do in trying to browbeat people into accepting your ill-conceived, uniformed, agenda drive hypothesis of who they are, and how they feel in lieu of their experience of their real feeling and identity is pathologically controlling, as well as totally unreasonable.



...and that sort of tangential hyperbole does not, in any way, sanitize the dysfunctional, invasive and terribly inefficient level of control you are choosing to attempt to deploy.



I am not talking about you because I do not know you, you are just a text stream on an internet forum...and besides, even from what little I do know, as far as I am concerned, the jury is out on whether you are an Aspie at all.



That's a nice fantasy I am afraid, I have never seen Aspies integrate with each other with anything resembling ease in my life, far to the contrary, that is why we have, so far, found it impossible to build a unified voice on any scale.



...and if you were right I would agree with you, but you are completely wrong, so I can't...

...and friends and people who have supposed what you say about alexythymia but being open-minded found that my method fit better their experiences, and anyone indeed with an open mind. You have spoken in a way of knowing my emotions that had no basis of reason but sounded like an innate and unconscious conclusion about an emotion I had. You can't even deny that from the fact. There's just some vacuous accusation using a wikipedia link.


Indeed, which is is absolutely hilarious in hindsight given how many times you have right now tried to impress ideas about my attempt to 'forcefully change your identity' whilst in fact I offer a theory.


Making a distinction between analyze emotions and intellectually analyzed emotional reactions. Well since emotions are measured by one's actions (which includes reactions), and since analyzing is an intellectual exercise after we remove those two words we get analyzed emotional. Re-jig the grammar to take account of the missing words and we have analyze emotions.

If anything a true metaphor for this would be comparing the phrase 'medical analysis and treatment of bodily disease, ailment and disorder' with the word medicine and then complaining that the second is not the first.



I am not hypothesizing how anyone thinks for a start. I am accounting for a discrepancy between reality and theory. Finally, a good statement to end on that certain to be wrong thing: A blatant and unproven claim. Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. I guess I must like with other people ask you to provide evidence rather than make some obsessive attempt to link what I say to attempting to say what people say they feel is not true.


You tell me not to tell others what they feel about themselves and then you start making up random stuff about some agenda conspiracy.


And here's another bunch of charges for which I do not deserve. Hyperbole of what? If you want to disprove what I say then use evidence to the contrary. People actually have made death-threats over the causes of autism. Again you make another charge about my intentions after telling me not to make up stuff about what other people think.


Indeed, of course. Intuitive speculation that ignores my mention of friends with diagnoses that have the same results. I mean this accusation doesn't remind me of someone. It doesn't seem to bother you whenever you talk to anyone else who doesn't have a diagnosis.


Maybe it's because you're applying your severe problems to everyone, contradictory given your long and witheringly irrelevant remarks about me trying to 'control people' or something. Your inability to have a geographical similarity with other people without causing discomfort or tiredness of an extreme degree isn't common to us. Furthermore I think one reason why we have no unified voice is because of petty people making unverified accusations about other's agendas.

[/quote]
Transparent, presumptuous and not in any way critical. Just a wave of unverified opinion signifying a person who doesn't justify their beliefs.