emotions fractured from language

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I just figured this out. My language tends to lack an emotional side. Like my language and my emotions are separated. Language is over here, emotions are over there. I have emotions, I just can't very well express them through the many facets of speech (tone of voice, body language, and words). When I become extremely emotional, I lose the ability to speak. I don't have good voice control in general, add intense emotions, and it's just completely gone. Maybe that is why my language must lack emotion, in order for me to even speak it.

I think NTs have completely integrated emotion and language. Like they are not even separate things to NTs. For them speech is emotion and emotion is speech. And by the word speech, I also include all the nonverbal communication they use.

Thoughts? Does anyone else know this, or did I just re-invent the wheel?

I think a therapist first pointed this out to me...She kept saying...."I'm not asking you what you think...I'm asking you how you feel"...that always stumped me. I'd say...well I think I feel...... about how I feel.

In my opinion...words are for thinking and art and nature are feeling...and I don't want to talk about art either....that is why I wrote a poem or drew a picture...so I wouldn't HAVE to put it into words....duh.

Over 30 views and only one comment? Come on people!

I get what you're saying. People who are really close to me (i.e family) get that I really only "show" about three emotions, anger, happy, sad/tired. I have a very hard time expressing anything other than that coherently--so most often say one of those three. I can't get my voice/non-verbal cues to match up with what I'm saying most of the time so many people think that everything's ok when it's not. Because of that I learned several behaviors to clue people in that aren't exactly the most healthy ways of communicating. For example, I'm mad at my Sig. Other about something, I've been trying to tell them that with my tone and they aren't getting it so I walk off and slam a door. That usually communicates that I'm mad, but not in a healthy way. (Don't do this so much anymore, I'm getting better at talking about things these days).

It generally confuses me when people ask how I'm feeling. Most of the time I don't think about it, I just AM. Then I have to think about it for a while (a long thought process, and it never happens very quickly) and usually wind up saying I'm ok because that's the easiest thing to say.

Interesting... Language tends to be located in the left side of the brain, and emotion/creative stuff on the right side. In autism I think the sides often aren't connected as well as usual. Of course the left/right brain stuff is oversimplified, language can be controlled by the right in some people, and I haven't researched neurology at all.

Does anyone else have more trouble with language when under emotional distress?

Yes..I think most humans do but perhaps we do more so then most. I know I can become mute (very rare for me), when I am very afraid. I think the fight or flee is so strong I lose the ability to understand what others are saying and I certainly can't form a response. I think that is one reason that they are trying to train some service workers and police to understand the spectrum. I think it is alo why I feel lke throwing things when I'm angry, (I don't...I walk away and go have a cigerette).

Yes.

The psychiatrist who diagnosed me actually continually drew a diagram.

It was like a circle made into four equal parts by drawing two lines through the middle.

He labeled each part:

Thinking
Feeling
Speaking
Acting

Then he drew a different diagram where the four parts were still there, but shaped differently than usual and not attached to each other.

He labeled it the same way.

And he told me that the first one was how most people were, and the second one was how I was.

This repeated over the course of the four or five years I was in therapy with him.