is this an aspie thing, or is it just me? can anyone relate?

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sometimes i have a strange feeling for hours till i finally find out i'm depressed! i dont know how i feel. people tell me i'm sad or angry and i say i'm not. i can be depressed without knowing it... i have to wonder if i'm depressed, and when i finally know how i feel, i dont always know why, and have to search for the reason.
just wanted to know if it's common in asperger, like because we have a problem undersanding other people's emotions, so we're out of touch with our emotions too, or is it just me.
anyone else have this problem?

What you're describing is called alexithymia (Wikipedia - Alexithymia) and is a well known personality trait that seems to be common among people on the Autism Spectrum (the Wikipedia page claims 85% of the people diagnosed with an ASD also have some form of alexithymia).

I myself suffer quite strongly from alexithymia. Sometimes my husband will mention that I look as if I'm enraged, while I myself am under the impression that I am very calm and composed! I have a hard time describing my feelings or even recognising them in the first place.

On the other hand, I don't suffer from "constricted imaginal processes", as the Wikipedia page calls them. I have very vivid and imaginative dreams, and fantasise all the time, to the point of reaching daydreaming quite often.

Nobody knows exactly where alexithymia comes from. It's not considered a mental disorder, just a personality trait that seems to be common among people on the AS (but not only them).

It was huge for me when I found the word alexithymia. It describes me so well. I don't even daydream. I have the reduced fantasies even.

My husband or mother will sometimes tell me I get depressed or that I am depressed when I am not. Can it just come and go? I mean can you be depressed for a week and then get over it or get depressed for one day and then be over it or be depressed while going through bad times and then its gone when things are better again? What exactly is depression? I used to think it meant having a bad day or going through bad times but it's not. Sure people can get depressed when something happens in life but it doesn't go away, they don't adjust to it so it's like adjustment disorder.

My husband will also tell me something is sexual for me and I don't even realize it. Sometimes I wonder if he is just projecting and making assumptions about me or am I really not that intuned with myself. I think I am starting to find ways now what things are sexual for me.


My husband will also tell me I am upset even though I don't think I am. He will say something is bothering me and I feel fine about it. He says he can feel these things.


I also suspect I have that too because I don't always know how I am feeling and am not sure how I feel about something and sometimes I realize later how I felt about something. Even my shrink said something about it (he didn't have a word for it then) saying how I am not aware of my feelings and how I feel and I didn't know my reason for ding things and I couldn't even express my feelings well. I thought I was expressing them but he told me those were thoughts I was expressing, not feelings. It was very frustrating because he was trying to get me to recognize my own feelings and I don't see why that is so important. He wouldn't believe me that I can actually not feel a thing.

I never knew, until my wife mentioned it to me, that I had been depressed. So, yeah, i do feel disconnected from my feelings. It's awkward.