Not able to explain emotions.

[Maelstrom]

So I'm going to try my best to explain this, but I have a hard time translating my thoughts into words sometimes (I read a lot of you think in pictures rather than words, but I don't think in either - it's like if a paragraph were summarized into a feeling or urge - needless to say I find words fall short and don't convey the depth of what I intend them to.

So I used to think I was an introspective person with a great capacity for relaying my thoughts and feelings to others. Over time I have found that it just isn't so. I have a hard time connecting my emotions to concepts of what illicit them unless it is something that has been explained to me.

Example: Before I knew about ASD I knew I hated showers. To the point I once went a year without a bath or shower (I would wash my hair every 2 weeks and use wet wipes on my "smelly parts" - I know, gross. Welcome to my life). When I tried to explain why I couldn't shower or bathe, all I could say is that it was exhausting, or overwhelming, but I didn't even know myself that hating getting wet, hating the noise, hating the cold of the air on my wet skin, that the hate of those (and countless other) things had a direct causal relationship to the overwhelming feelings I was getting. It wasn't until I did some reading on sensory processing issues that it all clicked for me. That the individual things that bother me is what is CAUSING the stress and making me overwhelmed and scared - like DUH!!!!.

Basically I can say I am happy, sad, scared, shameful, overwhelmed, but unless someone has said to me (or I have read) the EXACT reason I am feeling something, I find it nearly impossible to link the actions or facts to the reason behind the emotion.

This all runs in stark contrast to how I present myself. I pass as NT most of the time, excel at my job (I am who lawyers go to when they don't know how to deal with corporate law matters), and appear incredibly articulate and introspective.

Does this make sense? Does anyone else get this? Or am I really messed up? If anyone has read about this, is there a word for it?

Had a lovely aspie lady friend once who go quite ill taking showers...a touch sensitive syndrome thing I guess?

 

[Adora]

I remember having issues with finding the right words for what I was feeling,I remember when I went to the school counsellor as a teenager for bullying I noticed I struggled to find the exact words for what I was feeling and it almost felt like a block in my mouth and i just couldn't get the right words out,I use to wonder why I struggled with this but back then I didn't know I was on the Spectrum,as for showers I was similar I use to let my long hair get really oily and knotty and it didn't bother me but people kept pointing out how dirty my hair was so by age 14 I started to shower daily which has now become my routine and I now hate the idea of misssing a day shower,but I'm glad I'm not the only one who struggled with finding the right words also a hot music festival sounds like my idea of hell too.

 

[Maelstrom]

I have problems explaining to people how I feel or why in words, usually I have to write it down and work it out that way, by playing my situation out with characters or something. But man, I love showers. That sensory issue sounds like hell! Mine is people touching me, it's like being touched by spiders or something. I just begin clawing my skin until the sensation is gone, which doesn't make me look crazy at all in public! Oh, and boyfriends love it when they can't touch you without you being in total discomfort! Yay!

Hard touching may work for touch sensitives...like a really hard backrub.
Going too long without people contact messes with ones head I think?...even if you don't like it!

 

[TestToFumanity]

I feel it difficult to explain my emotions to others as well.
Not as much as I used to, still to some extent up to now.
On many occasions, emotions simply flow out of your mind as they do.
For that reason, I think it is good to let it flow the way they should.

 

[Maelstrom]

That sensory issue sounds like hell! Mine is people touching me, it's like being touched by spiders or something. I just begin clawing my skin until the sensation is gone, which doesn't make me look crazy at all in public!

Was going to sleep in bed one night and the moonlight showed a spider shadow coming down its thread from the ceiling like it was going to land on my face!
Needless to say I more or less levitated to the nearest light switch.
Spider touchingness stuff is not good...

I find aggressive people with no social boundaries can make me feel Like I just walked face walked into a spider web with a big fat hairy spider in it...

New people things strange crowds of people in strange places can give me shut down so bad I can go deaf.
But I do okay most of the time in places I know...with people I know.

 

[Maelstrom]

Lol I took it a year ago at work with my colleagues when it was dead. I indeed came up INFJ. Interesting that you picked up on that.

Yes my cute touch sensitive lady friend was INFJ I think and she had a real hard time telling me how she felt about things. I am INTJ and I do pretty good on that now as long as I am not in shutdown...in shutdown I am as expressive as a shovel.
Sort of stand there looking like a blank rock...usually can't process what happened until the next day.
That makes dating real hard because new things and the new family issues trigger shutdown quite a bit.
Sigh!

 

[radasp]

A clip from one of my posts on this topic: aspergerhuman.wordpress.com

"That is, emotions are not simple in Aspergers, but are tied into a complex web of other functions: pain as a physical reaction to the environment, is what social people call emotion. My reactions to the environment are “null” (off) or a cessation of discomfort (anxiety) or undifferentiated pain. I’m sure this is very strange for social people and difficult to believe. I have dealt with this in other posts, but my general conclusion is that “emotion words” are SOCIAL: a crying child is taught to differentiate what they are feeling into “sharing” words. Children are asked “What’s wrong?” and are supplied over and over again with word choices. Are you hungry, tired, feeling sick, lonely, afraid? If the child is laughing or excited the questions change. Are you happy – feeling good? A parent wants to be able to “take care of” or strengthen whatever is going on in the child, and the children LEARNS to identify its inner states with those words.

This does not happen with Asperger children. We may be asked over and over, What is wrong, or how do you feel, but infinite repetition will never “work.” One example is obvious: if we are overwhelmed by sensory stimulus, the possible meltdown is NOT a state that can be described by emotion words. I can remember such events early in childhood when I was bombarded by requests to “explain myself.” Even if this was a well-intended attempt to help, the request had no meaning. It was as if someone had asked what an atom bomb exploding inside oneself “feels” like – are you hungry? Tired? Did something happen? Tell us.

My later experience leads me to believe that for whatever reason, Asperger “emotion” is tied into our intellectual system, which as a young child isn’t functioning yet. We eventually learn to analyze the “entire event” that surrounded us when the emotion occurred – this is difficult even for me to understand after decades of experiencing the phenomenon. We must understand the event before identifying the “result.” And, it takes time.

 

[GoldenWanderer]

Yes! I've never been able to really grasp that concept. To this day, I can't explain much past positive and negative.

 

[MonolithImmortal]

Yep, it's alexithymia. I experience exactly what you described. Felling something very deeply, but being completely unable to explain said feeling unless someone explains it to me first.

Alexithymie - Emotional Inability

 

[EstimatedProphet]

I only figured out last year that I get overload shut-downs and that's been what's affected my performance all my life. I could only call it brain fog though.

I'm 47.

Steam, do you think you could elaborate on this observation more, because I feel like this has happened to me throughout life as well. Perhaps in a separate post so as not to hijack Ashley's questions.

You and I joined AC at nearly the same time, and it seems that we are at about the same stage of "the process" of coming to terms with a midlife diagnosis. I am 49. -EP

 

[EstimatedProphet]

Alexithimia was the second-to-last "finally the answer to why I am this way" that I discovered before I was diagnosed and realized that all of the "answers" were symptoms/manifestations of the underlying neurological condition.

I have a very, very hard time believing that 1 out of every 10 NTs have Alexithemia.

As I think Full Steam was getting at, I sometimes have to spend several days of serious thought deciphering what exactly I am feeling and the underlying cause. In fact, it took me until my early 30s to even become aware that I needed to do so in order to deal with emotions that were impacting my mood or outlook.

I would go on 10 mile runs to "clear my head" and now realize that exercise would burn off the supercharged emotional energy that was clouding my ability to understand the root cause of whatever was bothering me. Then after cooling down from the run *Bam*, the true problem and it's solution was crystal clear.

At some deeply unconscious level my mind knew what I needed to care for myself, at least that's what I believe.

 

[EstimatedProphet]

A clip from one of my posts on this topic: aspergerhuman.wordpress.com

That's solid gold right there. Thanks for sharing the excerpt.

 

[SomeRandomAspie]

I just think about my chemicals and use that to describe how I'm feeling. It's usually a mild happy, elated when I'm studying (always).

 

[louloulovesdogs]

I have this as well. and I am INTJ