“I feel something, but I have no words for it”.

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by an inability to identify, describe, or express one’s own emotions. It is not apathy, which is a lack of interest and is also different than Flat Affect which is an inability to express emotions.

There are two ways that it might affect a person:

• Cognitive Alexithymia: You may be aware you are feeling something, but you cannot put a name to it or articulate it to others.
• Affective Alexithymia: You may have a limited “emotional repertoire” or struggle to experience feelings as deeply as others, though they are still present at a surface level.

Alexithymia can be very frustrating and isolating for a person who has it.

My Experience

This is a tricky one. I don’t think I have alexithymia, but there are some strong overlaps. I think I experience emotions in a very different way than most people, but I do have them and can describe them.

There is a chart I used with a therapist to try to describe my feelings.

• I found that I tend to be Mid-happy Default
  • I think I have very low fluctuation
• I can experience anger and sadness and describe them easily
  • some kind of threshold trigger for strong emotions
• i do have some trouble naming some emotions
  • I have to run a manual taxonomic search to name it – this is automatic in NT people
  • lag in naming emotions and high effort
  • I once felt an emotion pair: fear + positive alignment. I was only able to describe it as “high emotional state” (like overload) though I was eventually able to break it down into two pieces
• in many cases the emotion I name isn’t quite the same as how an NT person experiences it

These aren’t alexithymia, but they may be perceived to be related:

• Flat Affect
• Easy Going – but not really
• No mirroring

So I think I don’t have alexithymia, but certainly some overlap in appearance (phenotype).