understanding alexithymia
29.11.2015 by taasdIm new to this site. I've been doing some research for myself and I ended up here. I've never heard of alexithymia until now and I have a few questions regarding this...condition if you will, that I have yet to find on the internet. my first question being, is alexithymia the inability to feel emotions or just recognizing them?? To me, the two intertwine, if you can not recognize what you're feeling, are you really even experiencing that particular emotion? This leads me to my second question, is alexithymia in anyway associated with sociopathy.
Just a few things I've been pondering. I'm not quite sure if I've articulated my thoughts well enough, but I'd love to hear some other perspectives.
nope
05.12.2015 by kenzie
it definitely isn't like antisocial pd. sociopathy, as you call it, involves a disregard for OTHERS feelings. it is focused almost entirely around the fact that not only do you not understand the feelings of others, but you don't even care. alexithymia is more about not being able to identify your emotions, and sometimes feeling them in a very muted way, unable to express what you are feeling or how to show it, inability to understand other's emotions. however, alexithymia is more similar to repression than sociopathy. people with antisocial personality disorder simply don't care about others in any way, and it is a completely different diagnosis. :) I'm still trying to understand alexithymia completely myself, so I'm glad we all have each other to journey through this together.
stuff
10.12.2015 by metalface
"if you can not recognize what you're feeling, are you really even experiencing that particular emotion?"
It's an interesting question. I think the various Alexi's experience and interpret things in different ways, but I can only speak for myself.
A few months ago I took a public speaking class and we were doing our first speeches (general stuff about ourselves), and when I went up there, feeling neutral as is generally my constant state, a strange thing happened. I did not fear speaking in front of people (not the strange part. well, maybe a little) but when I went up there, my voice broke, my knees shook, my palms sweat, my heart rate increased. Internally though, nothing had changed. I remained neutral, albeit with interest as to why my body's outward behaviors were so different from my internal state.
I realized I was nervous, or as I like to put it, my body was nervous.
this leads me to the conclusion that I am mostly or entirely unable to feel emotions, yet emotion resides in and is able to strongly affect my body, as an almost separate entity.
so the simple answer from me is yes, experience is still there even if you are not aware of it. at least foe me.
feeling and understanding are different
07.01.2016 by lilypad
It's like reading a book or a word and not understanding what it means, but you don't have a dictionary or anything to tell you what it means.
I still feel the emotions, i just can't control them or explain them. I still feel "happy" and "upset" I just don't have a way to explain it other than that or a way to be sure that that's what everyone else feels like when they are happy or upset.
