problems describing your emotions?

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Hello friends,

i wonder how the description of emotions differs between AS and NT people.

Maybe its also true for me, when i want to describe something very sad for me, often i can't find the appropriate words for it, they all seem too less to describe it accurately, therefore i often then keep it simple, and say "I was soo sad, i can't describe".

So maybe i also got this alexithymia?! Anyone there, who has read more about this, or has some better understanding about this?

thanks,
anton

Per Tony Atwood and several others this is a very common AS thing.

Ok, i have learned so far, that as an AS person , my body language needs to be trained actively in order to get a better communication with the NT people.

BUT, if i also have problems describing my emotions in words, then this also means, i probably also have to improve this too, in order to have a better relationship with an NT woman. BUT, how to do this?? anyone any clue how to improve?

greets,
Anton

Practice, practice, practice. I don't personally think it is worth it so I don't attempt to mainstream myself, but if this is what you want to do the only way you can learn is by doing.

why don't you think it is worth the effort? What is so bad to describe your feelings such that others also can understand them?

anton

Yeah, that sounds like alexythimia.

Here's a quote from meditation teacher Kenneth Folk where he delineates practices designed to 'dis embed' one's 'self' from sensations. I think they can be useful for alexythimics, to help them get more in touch with one's self. It's a kind of training, so like MidlifeAspie says; practice.

could anyone give an improvement in the description of feelings? what is a better description?

I personally am highly sensitive (AS), it takes me a long time to recover sometimes. I wonder if it is really possible to describe that, i mean, words have their limit or?

I find it very hard to describe my emotions, without crying. I'm sensitive.

Describing my emotions is like painting on a 5x7 inch canvas with a 4 inch wide brush and expecting detail.

Sometimes alexithymia can be a psychological coping mechanism where the mind shuts down pathways that process emotions as a self-defense when emotions cannot be accepted, like a horrible experience in life. I can remember having strong emotions when I was a child, then losing them, which I think was a coping mechanism at the time. I regained them to a degree but never to the extent when I was young. Alexithymia can also be neurological in origin when the actual brain pathways that process emotion are deficient. Psychological and neurological alexithymia is associated with Autism. It is likely that those that have neurological alexithymia experienced little of what is commonly understood as emotion.

I agree with Moog that some Autistic people tune out their feelings, which I think in many cases may be stronger than a normal persons feelings. I think that Anton's description of sadness that is too deep to put into words indicates that he experiences sadness, knows what it is, but can't find words to describe the full extent of it. I personally don't see this as alexithymia, more a reflection of feeling deep emotion. To me this is the opposite of Alexithymia. I think that deep emotion is what drives art and the creativity to express the depth of beauty and emotion in poetry, painting, music, etc.