anyone else get this?

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does anyone else have issues with figuring out and expressing their emotions unless it's something strong like upset or angry or excited but even then not feeling like you're accurately expressing your emotions when you try to express emotion in nt ways?

I don't express emotions well. I feel kind of silly if I try to express emotions, the words don't seem to mean anything, I can't connect the words with the feeling.
I prefer people to just understand me and know how I feel. I'm stoic like my grandmother.
I can have a strong bond with people who don't express emotions but we understand each other anyway.

Most definitely. They've figured out I can't express anger or frustration properly after I ended up in hospital. I just don't know what to do. I know I'm angry, but I have no idea what to do about it, so I let my frustration out... on myself.

I know when I'm happy and I know when I'm angry but I don't know many others. And with happy I don't even know how to express that either, just tend to rock or flap, if I'm alone anyway, I try not to in front of others but my parents are noticing my stims more and I don't know I'm doing them. I have never subconsciously flapped, but I have done most other things I think.

I really don't know how to express my emotions and I didn't even figure that out by myself.

Yeah, I have a hard time identifying my emotions. Sometimes, I just feel "disturbed", which is the worst feeling ever, because if you could identify the feeling you were feeling then you could understand it and perhaps even express it. But, when you just feel "disturbed", you just don't have a clue what to do, or why you feel that way, so then I find it harder to control my actions when I am like that because it is so incredibly uncomfortable.

Yeah, that's me...

Since when I use words I'm not ever really accessing the emotional part of me (I am not sure I am capable of using words when I have strong emotions and am processing them somewhat, seemingly, properly), I absolutely have issues with expressing myself.

Listening to music is helpful, but it's not me who creates the music, it just resonates with something inside me. If I am actively playing piano I might get some expression that way, but again, as with speech, the actions of playing the piano interfere somewhat with the ability to process the emotions such that I feel them. I can more easily put fake expression into played music than real expression, and when putting in real expression the performance is usually not as good. BUT at least if it's music I've written I know what it's supposed to sound like and I can bring out what I know I usually want brought out.
I used to sing a lot, but that's as completely out of the question for expressing myself and singing at all well. That's like talking.


I didn't realize that I had a problem with this until not very long ago, but it's always been there and I wasn't even aware enough to know that it was a problem

I barely have a grasp of what emotional expression IS. I cry, make faces of agony, scream or yell, stomp my feet, throw things (nothing quite like breaking something when I'm angry). These are my forms of emotional expression. Higher forms of emotional expression, poetry, creating music, etc, aren't pure forms of expression because in order to create them I cannot be emotional.


I'm somewhat hopeful that this is something, now that I know it is a problem, that I can work on and it can improve.

It doesn't help that I am actually intensely private when it comes to stuff like this either.

Yep, i internalize a lot of my emotion. I know anger and frustration; I know depression/sadness and happiness. Some extreme emotions like love and especially joy are harder for me to figure out.

The first time I was hospitalized, the psychiatrist I was seeing made comment of my blunted affect, but I think ultimately called it psychomotor retardation as a result of severe major depression. He tasked me with telling him a joke and making him laugh before he would agree to discharge me. Seemed odd, and I didn't know many jokes to tell. Apparently the joke I did tell him was so awful (Or badly delivered) that it was that fact alone that made him laugh.

Fast forward about 7 or 8 years and I'm being interviewed for a job as a software quality tester. The interviewer basically told me that he turned me down because he felt I never displayed a strong desire or enthusiasm for the job...

I have friends and acquaintances tell me I'm not a very 'excitable' person. I just don't know what's the correct display of an emotion I'm not entirely sure I'm feeling to the extent that most seem to expect.

Anger used to be the only emotion that I knew how to express. However when a heated argument turned into punching a wall in frustration my partner requested I attend an anger management course. I no longer scare the living bejesus out of my partner which I am thankful for but I now no longer know how to express my anger so it tends to just bottle up. Same with my bouts of depression which range from mild to severe...there is no safe way to express it.

Excitement is also a tricky one. My partner was sharing an interesting website a few days ago which I actually found to be a very good concept and had nothing but high praise for it which is the opinion I shared. She seemed to take more notice of my blank expression and monotoned voice. Good times were not had.