Topic: New Member

Hello everyone,

I've joined this forum after reading about alexithymia and, even though I haven't been diagnosed with it, I suspect that it might apply to my case. On this site I scored a 165.

I'm 29 years old, I live in Italy and work in the chemical field. During my years at university, I underwent cognitive-behavioral therapy for some anxiety-related issues, which included insomnia and occasional panic attacks. The therapy focused on obsessive-compulsive tendencies which I am now able to handle much better; however I've always had (and currently still have) trouble identifying the warning signals of anxiety, often being overwhelmed by it once it becomes too heavy.

As a child, I would be the neat, bookish one. I was bullied during elementary school but thankfully it stopped since middle school. Since I was 3, my family life was marked by the long illnesses of two relatives (nine years the first one, almost twelve the second). My parents had a marital crisis when I was 14 but they are taking the steps to divorce only now. I recognize that I've always preferred concrete and rational (or at least intellectual) challenges to emotional ones. I went through high school and university with top grades and in my free time I do some volunteering (blood donation and organization of town activities). I have more than one circle of friends, in which I'm inevitably "the reliable one", "the Spock".

I don't know whether the following details can be useful or not, but I'll sort them out and see if there is any pattern:
- I'm not in a relation and I've never had a strong desire for one, even if I know that I would work to make a couple stable if I was in one.
- Sex has no appeal to me; I thought of myself as a late bloomer when it came to attraction (even if my development through puberty was completely in the norm) but it never concretized into anything.
- I've only had a handful of dreams that I can remember in my whole life.
- I recognize stressful situations mainly by the physical symptoms that they cause to me: stomach pain, skin rash, sore throat.
- The actual burden of those situations usually comes delayed, rarely in a big load of anxiety that causes a panic attack, more often by dragging itself during the following days.
- Bursts of emotions from other people are one of the things that upset me the most. They tend to make me freeze on the spot.
- I have a hard time reading facial clues, and I've been told that I sometimes I mimic the expression of the person that is talking to me.

I hope to have a good time on the forum and to be as helpful as I can be.