Psychologists, their BS, and the Bottling of Emotions

Post Reply New Topic

Skip to the Bold if you want. So I had a psychological test my parents wanted done. I didn't quite know what it entailed. This one was done by a different psychologist. (Also my real psychologist is a psychiatrist apparently, but I like her way better, she's more open and scientific). But anyways, I got the results. It was total BS. Basically she told me the my personality which she could have asked in 5 seconds. Everything I told her she regurgitated in the form of psychological BS.

At the test she asks about my life/current problems. For example, I tell her I've only ever had three relationships and that I didn't get far with them even though they lasted, I took things slow and in the end didn't understand the other person. That I have few friends and I only consider people friends if I trust them. At the results she rearranges this to say "You keep yourself distant in relationship and are not very trusting". Yeah, I know, you could have just asked. Then she says my stress is situational. That's what I told her the entire time. The situation and people and my surroundings are causing stress. I'm not creating stress out of thin air!

Also they won't give me the full results. Ugh... She wants to do another one after 6 months. I'm declining. Not sure how expensive the test was but it was useless.

The one thing that she got wrong, she wouldn't understand my correction. She says I'm emotionally distant and keep my emotions bottled up. NO. That is NOT what is happening. I don't want to fight, so I don't initiate fights because they're exhausting and nobody listens leaving me far worse than before. But if someone initiates it, I won't hesitate to fight. Also I've been angry this whole week, keeping it in my head is not bottling it up! I just don't display the emotion on my face. Bottling it up for me is trying to ignore the feelings by concentrating on something else (trying to actually feel something else). Just because when I'm depressed or angry it doesn't show or when I'm happy people think I'm sad (my face always looks sad/neutral) doesn't mean I'm actively trying to bottle it up. I'm almost incapable of putting on a happy mask like other people do when they're "bottling their emotions". I'm not "hiding" the emotion, it's just never outside my head! Aren't emotions in the head!? If anything I keep feeling them not because I didn't talk or punch a pillow to "unbottle it" or something but because THE AWFUL STRESS/ANGER CAUSING SITUATION IS STILL HAPPENING.

Does anybody get what I'm getting at? I think I didn't explain it to her right and she just thought she was even more correct, which was annoying.

You can bottle them up without realize you are doing it. My husband does it all the time and it gives him physical symptoms like nausea, loss of appetite and he gets seizures. It's all anxiety he has and he holds it in and it gives him health problems. He doesn't know he is doing it until he is sick and he is on medicine now for anxiety.


I am not saying you are keeping them bottled up and not even realizing it. Some doctors think they know their patients better than they know themselves. Most people talk about what is bothering them so when you don't do it, they assume you are bottling it up. Then when they can't talk about it, they see it as themselves bottling it up because they can't talk about it for the same reasons you listed why you don't talk about yours because it causes fights and all and you want none of that.

I understand completely what you are saying.

And thats how i would explain it to someone too, but if they are NT, they dont "get" it like that - it comes out different.

Once again comes down to the language barrier of understanding - they dont "hear" what you say, or it sounds different to them.
Or maybe its assumption - they assume your talking about something else, maybe double meanings. They find knowledge where there is none.

I've had a rash/allergy thing for the last year and everybody tries to blame the stress of moving or my problems on it. It was small for 5 months. I had a very stressful month before my move. It was still small Then I moved to a place I LIKED, the move itself was not stressful, I liked the new place better. For months the rash gets worse. My new problems occur and everything is super stressful. The rash is still there. This week it's starting to disappear (but I'm even MORE stressed than I was). It obviously doesn't "respond" to my mood, but nobody listens. Also I don't get any other symptoms like you describe. It looks more like an allergy to something in the new environment (it's super humid). Also as a kid I was prone to skin allergies like this.

I have found that talking to people who understand helps me know I'm not in the wrong or my opinion is crazy, but other than that it doesn't relieve my stress. I've talked to friends who understood, family who didn't, current psychiatrist who does. I still feel stressed because the situation is not fixable.

What I'm pissed at is them taking my lack of emotions (probably because of the AS, which I've only discussed with friends and the psychiatrist) and making it into something which it isn't. I want to discuss Lack of Visible Emotion =/= Bottling Emotions. All the doctors keep doing what you describe and it's pissing me off. Nobody knows me better than me.

Yes! Exactly! It's like you tell them something and it HAS to have a meaning other than what you're saying. Also it's like to them putting up a mask = bottling up emotions. So they assume my lack of emotions is a mask and therefore that I'm also bottling my emotions.

You're so right about this. Has your husband ever had rage attacks?

I find the whole language of 'bottling up' emotions not useful. Emotions are not like water that goes under pressure when contained and compressed but flows freely when not contained. Unlike water, emotions do not find their own level. The whole metaphor doesn't work very well.

It use to be that I felt emotions very deeply but expressed then not at all. Starting in my late teens, that all got flipped on its head and I couldn't keep from expressing negative emotions, especially anger or frustration. I've only recently learned that this shift could have been due to changes in my brain structure that happen around that time of life.

Expression of emotion, it seems to me, has more to do with the organization and function of my brain than anything else.

On a different subject, I've noticed over the years that a lot of psychologists and other mental health workers, especially inexperienced ones, bring their own unresolved ego needs into their practice. The ones that want to help the worst, in fact, help the worst.

No he has not. he just gets sick is all. I am the one who has had "rage attacks" so I have thrown things and tossed some stuff at him and even hit him once. Sometimes it be an accident and I wouldn't mean to hit him with the item and he thought it was intentional.

My first thoughts are does the psychologist know of your AS? and does she have a clue what Autism is in general? It sounds like she is using NT standards to interpret your words and body language -- this is guaranteed to give her faulty data.

My standard reaction so such a failure to communicate is the multi-page epistle. I write it all out in my own articulate fashion; including whatever scientific data that might be at hand, edit it until is is just right, then let if fly.

I've learned to limit myself to small plastic objects, like empty soda bottles, when I must let things fly literally -- less chance of real damage and less to clean up afterwards.

Wow!! ! I have had rage attacks myself. There is a type of anger management called Rage management. It did me a lot of good. I going to be honest here though. We are both wrong to have these rage attacks on others especially those we love. If you are still having these rage attacks then please look up rage managment in your area.

My rage management counselor was a rager himself. He had two-three heart attacks because of this. It can also lead to a stroke. It is not good and it is not healthy. There were certain things that I became upset about and sometimes it led to a full fledge rage. Sometimes I can slip up.

We have a non-profit. We had a facility in which we stored food and non-food. Our facility was becoming too expensive and we thought we were going to get a new one that was half the cost and double the space. The owner of this new facility flaked and would not rent it out to us.

I was told to wait to do anything before she was able to obtain information. In addition, we had shelves that we stored everything on as well. The month went by and it was a week and a half my wife said she couldn't reach these potential landlords. I didn't know what the heck was going on and when and where I was supposed to move the stuff. Guess what??? The blame was laid out on me!! ! I accused of procrastinating. No, I didn't know the details whatsoever. I just assumed she had it handled until she told me about what our potential landlords did.

I didn't know who was supposed to handle breaking down the shelves as well. Was I supposed to call Two men and a truck myself or was she going to do it? Was I supposed to break them down myself?

When she had the gall to accuse me of procrastinating. I had a full fledge meltdown and rage attack. I am not too proud of this and I am sorry. Why couldn't we just sit down and hash all of this out? Why am I expected to read her mind like I have psychic powers?

This might be confusing because I was confused as to who was who because it was my parents taking me. We first go to a Psychologist. Get the "test" done. I get a blood test separately for everything possible. I go to the psychiatrist who will be the one I'll be having sessions/therapy with. First time she gets to know my problems. Second time, she looks at my blood, it's fine, except for high dopamine, we talk. I had so many thoughts the first time I decided to write like you said everything down. During the session I translate to her everything I wrote about my suspicions of AS. Next day we go in to see the psychologist (who does NOT know my suspicions). She gives me the BS test results. She had been chatting with my psychiatrist but the psychiatrist can't tell her anything because of privacy and stuff. I'll be telling the psychiatrist who does know about autism and will understand my explanation better.

But still, the point is that the test is BS and she wouldn't listen to me.

Do you have a better metaphor?

What I don't get is, what does expressing and emotion even mean? do people constantly put on an emotions's face? they constantly lash out if they're angry? or what?

I mean for brief emotions, I smile, laugh, everything naturally, but longer emotions, nothing happens, whatever they are. Even if I've been happy the entire week, the only difference is I do more stuff. If I'm angry and sad, I do less. But my face is the same and I don't resist the urge to lash out.

I've even tried to look sad while sad to get someone to talk to me without asking and I failed completely. I can't do voluntary emotions unless I think of it as acting, have a character set up I can relate to , etc, and even then I can only keep this up long enough to pass a drama class.

I think the whole "Repressed Emotions" is often BS.
But that's from my personal experience of just not being effected by things. There was recently a death in my family and it hasn't impacted me at all. And I don't think I'm going to bread down or anything as a result anytime soon. (It's already been a few months.) When I was a child I never had a single temper tantrum. It's pretty much impossible for me to be angry. Yet I don't go around with a large can of rage ready to fly open at a moments notice. I just process it in other ways.

I was once affected by a death, but not by the death itself but because someone close to me was distressed. Otherwise I felt nothing. It's been a year. Sometimes I think of how sad it is that we die and our stories die with us, but I don't miss them. In general I don't miss people. I think I've only ever missed my pets.

I never had tantrums as a kid either. I was very by the rules. Sometimes I would get angry, but not outright tantrums. I can get angry as I said though. And i'll lash out but rightly, not at people who aren't the problem.

If you liver near hot mineral springs then bath daily for a few weeks. Drink quality mineral water too, as you can get unwell just from bad water.
I like places where there are other users preferably women in bikinis