Topic: Just found out it has a name.

English Alexithymia Forum > Personal Experience

Just found out it has a name.
01.02.2018 by jannette

On every psycho- test I did in the past there was a remark “no insight in her own emotions and that of others”. Was even tested for autism. Today I found out that there is a name for it. Well, I don’t have the feeling that I miss that insight*. It’s a kind of paradox. To understand the problem I need the insight I don’t have.

For example, at the moment I live alone, don’t see lot of people, but I don’t feel lonely at all. Just very happy with the situation; reading, thinking, music, the panoramic view from my apartment and my 2 cats. But may be I’m very unhappy just don’t know it.
A lot of emotions are negative, why should it be a problem not te be aware of them?

Now, the other people. When I fond out about the lacking insight I wondered why people very often came to me with their problems. An acquaintance told me that it is nice to talk about a problem with someone who is not sympathetic but analytic. And there are a lot of symphatetic persons, but not a lot of analytic (her words).

So what I want to know is what is exactly the problem for the person with Alexithymia?

*this sentence is completely impossible in this context.


04.02.2018 by Artfunkel

You're right that it's no bad thing in general. But the problem I've always had is filling my free time.

While a life of "reading, thinking, music, the panoramic view from my apartment and my 2 cats" does appeal, eventually I would have an itch to start doing something more. The older I get the harder it is to find things that scratch that itch.

When I'm with friends and family I see them enjoying themselves doing fairly mundane things (e.g. watching TV, talking, drinking wine) and I think about how convenient it must be to have that mechanism in your head, giving you goals and purposes.

I've got at least sixty years ahead of me and no clue what I'm going to do with it.

alexithymia is not a disorder
01.03.2018 by k1234567890y

Alexithymia is not considered as a disorder, but it is connected to a variety of mental disorders. As you are not having mental disorders, you are fine

my interpretation
01.03.2018 by k1234567890y

It is said that people with alexithymia are overrepresented among people with mental disorders like depression and anxiety, my interpretation to this is that alexithymia itself is a variant of normal personality traits, but it makes you more easily to get mental disorders when you are distressed, and I have come up with a theory about this: your mental health is like a balloon, bad emotions are like air, you need to let bad emotions go out of your mind, otherwise it will blow up, like a balloon blows up when it gets too much air.

Anyways, alexithymia only becomes a problem when you are really distressed, it is not a problem but just a way you lead your life if you are not distressed.

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