Difficulty Understanding My Feelings

Post Reply New Topic

Can Anyone Relate To This?

I seem to have a hard time trying to understanding my feelings. This seems typical for me. Please let me explain.

A good example would be last week. I was trying to understand why I was having a panic response (increased sweating, rapid breathing etc.) during driving. Nothing was happening around me at the time that was a problem. I wasn't having this problem when I started driving earlier that day. After some thought I realized it was probably because during the last intersection a car almost hit me.

There was another time where I felt "stressed". I spent a good part of my workday like that. I had to run down the list okay: my caffeine intake was normal, I got adequate sleep earlier, my medication was taken at the usual time. It was at that time that I realized the verbal altercation I had with a co-worker earlier may have contributed to my feelings of stress.

There was another time where I just felt "disturbed" for hours. I couldn't quite figure out why. The next day I suddenly had this thought that it was becuase I had viewed a true graphically violent video (it was real footage, and no I won't say what) on the internet the previous day. That may have contributed to my feelings of being disturbed earlier.

My point is I have to do a lot of thinking to figure out why I was feeling the way I was. It seems as though my body reacts and I am trying to figure out why. No one I know seems to understand what I am talking about when I have talked about this--they don't get it. It bothers me that I have strange emotions that I can't link obviously to events. I get real frustrated, its like my body doesn't function properly.

When I've talked with therapists in the past about "not understanding my feelings", they told me I should "try to open up more", or they would tell me that it is "okay to tell them". I try to explain that I am not lying to them, I am just trying to explain.

Does anyone understand?

I understand completely. I too have trouble understanding my own feelings. Often, I don't even understand what those feelings are, even in hindsight.

And I too have experienced that people around me don't believe me when I tell them I don't understand my own feelings. They all think I'm lying or I refuse to see the truth. I'm not, neither of those! I just plainly don't understand what my feelings are!

Well i'm not quite sure if i can relate to what you're experiencing but sometimes i get very restless or disturbed for no apparent reason. It's just like a feeling that something's wrong but i can't really identify it. I usually try not to dwell on it so i never think about it enough to figure out the reason behind it... It's just some very unpleasant experience. I'm usually a bit of a control freak so it scares me not to understand what i'm feeling. I understand that not taking time to think about it and avoiding the problem isn't helping me but that's what i do at the moment.

Yeah, I get this, its not too odd that people on the spectrum feel like this.
Often I can't figure out what causes an emotion, but sometimes I don't care either

Though my emotions have been chaotic lately, wondering if it is because I have a crush on a girl or because of mood swings, dont have a clue. Though my flash anger is starting to worry me.

Though, just because I don't know, do you actually feel the emotion or just realise you're feeling it because of how you react to things?
That happens with me, and I doubt its normal but I don't have a clue :S

That sounds like a normal Aspie to me.

My emotions are very similar, I don't usually know why I'm feeling stressed/sad/euphoric, but if I'm given enough time I can usually work it out.

Sounds like your therapist is trying to treat you like a NT - for them, the inability to discuss feelings is usually because they feel bad about those feelings, or they don't want to tell the therapist about them because the material might invite contempt. I got my share of being judged as repressed before I was diagnosed. It's important that any therapist is made to understand that an Aspie has brain-wiring reasons for not knowing their emotions. Otherwise you'll just get accused of blocking when you're not doing anything of the kind.

I sometimes get "agitated" or "disturbed" or "stressed" and if I think about it hard enough I can often figure out why in hindsight, but sometimes I am just lost as to why my body acts this way.

Yes, I have come to learn that a lot of my problems in therapy sessions in years past were because of the AS vs NT differences.

I understand. I can get distressed or have a feeling of frustration and not know why. Usually it's because of change that so suddenly happens I'm confused by my own change in emotions. I guess when I was younger I wouldn't notice this because I had more meltdowns.

This might be a type of mild alexthymia which is a difficulty describing your emotions. It's not a proper disorder rather a word that psychiatrists give to people who can't describe how they are feeling.

I don't get these feelings a whole lot because my moods are up and down all day, or rather my energy and focus is.

It works like this for me:
I feel good and energetic and excited therefore must be happy.
I feel bad and irritable, sometimes shaky and sweating therefore I must be angry or upset
I feel disturbed--disgust maybe?
These are just some examples. When I think about it hard enough I sometimes, but not all of the time, can link my feelings to some event(s). Sometimes I just don't know why I feel bad or good.

I''ll be honest, I'm that way too about purely physical stuff. When I had physical therapy the woman would continually frustrate me by saying "And you can feel how this pulls just a little" and I'm thinking "can I? I have no idea here, what the heck am I supposed to be feeling? She's expecting some response, lets just nod, it seems easier". I've also had doctors ask "does this hurt?" and 20 mins later when I'm in the car after they've told me I'm imagining things I suddenly go "@#$!, ok that frigging hurts where he was tapping at me".

I have a mostly normal pain response, I mean I fall down, twist my ankle and I'm doing some serious damage on my lip to keep from screaming. But smaller stuff, it's like my body keeps trying to talk to my brain, neither of them speak exactly the same language and they end up having to wait a long time for an interpreter to show up because she got caught in traffic or something. After which my brain goes "Ohh, you meant that's really really cold?! Huh, wow I guess we should put a sweater on or something? You're sure about this cold stuff right?" and my body facepalms and wonders why it got stuck with the frigging foreigner.

Yes, this seems a common thing with autism.



I am interested in how alexithymia might be related to attentional problems. Would you say you have AD(H)D or similar?



It's good that you are working at tracing the causes of your feelings. With practice, you may find that you get better/quicker at it.



Yes, try the word 'alexithymia' with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia

Yeah, it takes me a while to determine whether I am hot or cold. I have a thermometer inside my place so I have that reassurance that yes I feel hot or cold because the temperature is __, otherwise I keep wondering if it is me or the temperature.

I don't really have any ADD symptoms, so no.
Yes, definitely alexithymia.
I thought it would be more useful to share my experiences rather than "Hey, anybody else have alexithymia"

Probably. I wasn't criticising your post. You posted as though you were unaware of the term, and I thought you would find it helpful. You're welcome.

Yes. I can totally understand what you mean. A lot of the time I'll feel sad or stressed or just have a sense of unease and it will take hours of letting it float about and giving it thought before I can say why I have that feeling. It's probably one of the things that causes the most struggles in my relationship.

Yep. I know what you mean.
My general day-to-day state floats in and out of 'agitated/uneasy' but I have no idea why. I'm basically cheerful and happy enough, but this strange drifting is very puzzling.
It might change to 'dark/sad', but I can't find out what happened to make that change occur. I spend most of my time at home these days so it's not an unexpected environment change thing, and even if I'm working on something I enjoy an 'uneasiness' will suddenly intrude and I have to leave off for a while.

That's pretty much what it's like: my body decides to change my mood. If I run down a list of 'what happened just then?' things I usually end up dropping off the end with no clear answer.

It's reassuring, although not especially useful to read on that Wiki page: "Alexithymia frequently co-occurs with other disorders, with a representative prevalence of 85% in autism spectrum disorders".