Topic: Desperate need of better coping mechanism/ way to communicate feelings

I want to talk about my feelings with people but I physically can’t. Like I actually can’t speak. Talking about emotions is too overwhelming for me and I immediately need to isolate and shut down. I end up bottling my emotion and pretend they don’t exist.

Sometimes I get waves of overwhelming emotions that I can’t place. Suddenly I can’t think straight and don’t know how to regulate myself. Sometimes it can feel like the emotions aren’t even my own and I have no idea where they are coming from. All I know is it causes me distress and I can’t calm myself down.

To cope I have developed a nasty habit of locking myself in a room, sitting on the floor, biting my arm to muffle my sobs and if it doesn’t get better within a few minutes, cutting myself to distract my brain and focus on something else. 5 minutes later I’ll clean myself up and pretend it never happened. Pain never really bothered me growing up (never made me cry even as a toddler) so I never really understood the significance of this. And why it’s so unhealthy.

Despite this, as I have gotten older I feel embarrassed and ashamed by my actions but have no idea where to start in order to learn new coping mechanisms. I’d love to talk to someone or get help but I can’t talk about my feelings.

The only person who knows about this habit is my boyfriend and even then, when he tried to bring it up in conversation I immediately froze up and shut down. Completely ignoring the problem, deflecting, even though I want nothing more than to talk to anybody about this.

Does anyone have an idea how I can approach dealing with overwhelming emotions better, or anyways I could bring it up with loved ones without completely shutting down? I don’t even know how to approach the subject of having alexithymia with anyone.