Alexithymia

Are you familiar with the term Alexithymia? Have you ever experienced challenges identifying, describing and expressing emotions?

Alexithymia has been described as 'emotional blindness', or someone who has difficulties sensing and describing their own emotions. Alexithymia is not a medical diagnosis but rather a condition that often co-occurs with autism and ADHD. It's important to understand that not everyone with alexithymia has the same experiences. Some people may have gaps and distortions in perceived "typical" emotions; others may realise they are feeling an emotion but are unsure how to describe which one, others confuse emotional signs for something else entirely, like misinterpreting butterflies in the stomach for hunger. Alexithymia can also make it difficult for people to identify and respond to emotions in others, which may lead to challenges or a breakdown in communication affecting workplace relationships.

In the past, there has been a perception that autistic individuals don't have empathy however (thankfully!) it has widely been proven this is a misconception and quite frankly isn't true. Rather, research has shown that many autistic individuals experience alexithymia and it's those individuals who may encounter difficulties interpreting and expressing emotions whereas others don't. In other words, emotion-related difficulties are intrinsic to alexithymia and not to autism. It's important to understand that experiencing alexithymia doesn't mean you do not feel or that you don't empathise with others but rather it represents a blockage in your feeling channel.

Alexithymia may interfere with interoception. Exploring interoceptive support strategies and utilising tools such as the "emotional wheel" (by Robert Plutchik) may be useful to allow individuals to better articulate their emotions and to link them to their internal state.

Do you experience alexithymia? If so, what strategies have you found to be effective to assist you? Or perhaps you are autistic and you too want to bust the misconceptions that exist around empathy. Please comment below.

Credit for this visual: This visual was created by the talented @ItsEmilyKaty and shared via their Instagram account.