New Here - wheres the cure :-)

Alexithymic.
Conversion, and pain disorders.

My story:
Alexithymia
Someone that doesn't understand emotions.

To me it's that I can't "feel" my emotions yet I must control them in social situations.
I once wrote ""we're people that use emotional words that really don't know what they mean".

Really strong emotions come out as "arrrgh" at best.
Hate is really strong.
Love is really strong.
We can't tell them apart.
Emotionally incoherent.
So - Cry when you're happy Cry when your sad. Cry when you're angry. Cry when you scared.
I express extreme emotions somatically.

I can't read others emotions. How are you supposed to read "arrgh"?
I can tell you *are* emotional at the extremes.

Most correlating memory:
When I was in job corp. We had a "softball" game with around 17 people on a team. Lots of outfielders. Hard to score. Long time to get to bat.
Somewhen in the game I realized the only chance anyone had to hit a home run was to drive a long ball down the right field line through a gap between it and a building and onto the asphalt that would then let the ball run. The only spot it would take them long enough to run it down for you to get around the bases. So I pointed this out to my team mates who replied "let's see you do it". They were all trying for base hits with ground balls hit at the weak players. It was working. Since I was usually one of the "last kid" chosen (if you can't read emotions you're a weird kid) I didn't get to bat until the top of the ninth. Two outs and bases were loaded - no, really - Fouled one and then hit the ball off the building onto the asphalt. I was stunned. I took off for first. Everyone is freaking out. The entire other team is screaming at the guys to chase the ball down, there's no out of bounds. I needed to get around all the bases. It's starting to sink in. I'm running as if through oatmeal by second base. By the time i get to third I'm struggling. They're still chasing the ball down. The other runners were all home before I got to second. Everyone is screaming Run! Run! I'm down to lurching like frankestein in the old movies. I made it about 2 seconds before the ball. They had to hold me up. Someone said "that's one happy boy" I didn't know what it meant. I couldn't walk and really didn't "feel" anything.

It was the arrghest day of my life.

I started to withdraw from *any* potentionally extremely emotional experiences, Eventually over the years becoming a hermit and developing a chronic "gimp". The gimp causes me pain from the involuntary wrestling in the muscles (i think).

I start to lock up if I'm angry, scared, passionate - pick an extreme.


I just figured this all out at 52 years of age.
My IQ is 136 my EI is 64
Quite opposite extremes.

So wheres the cure?

ScottTheSculptor wrote:My IQ is 136 my EI is 64

Do you feel emotionally or socially stupid? Would you expect to get a low EI/EQ score?

Last time I took online tests I had a similar discrepancy. I feel quite competent socially. Even if I think people react strangely (e.g. are irrational or melodramatic), I don't think I'm hopeless at conversing with other people or understanding how they're feeling. I tend to be quite puzzled that I score so poorly at EQ tests. When I look at those still pictures of people's faces and it asks you to select the emotion the person is experiencing, I wonder how anybody can tell which the right answer is. But in real life, I can't recall many examples where I've responded to people in a highly inappropriate way. (Unless I am so thick that I am not realising how tactless I am!)

ScottTheSculptor wrote:So wheres the cure?

Start by avoiding all team pursuits.

Oh I have a long history of social ineptitude

Totally oblivious to social cues.
I'm absolutely sure that I've offended people without knowing it by the many times that someone has gone through the trouble of actually *saying* it - I still don't understand but put it in the "possible rule" cabinet to not do again. Enough correlations turn it into a rule. That I might apply incorrectly.

Weirdest conversation was with a woman calmly telling me how emotionally cruel I was. Didn't understand that at all.
I'm embarrassed to say that I pitied her insanity.

Besides, this *is* an accurate summary of my life;
-------------------------------------------------
Subscale IQ score = 64
Subscale percentile = 1

According to your self-report answers, your emotional intelligence is very poor. People who score like you do feel that they have trouble dealing with their own emotions and those of others. They struggle to overcome difficulties in their lives and they are unable to control their moods. It's hard for them to understand how best to motivate themselves and reach their goals. In addition, they find social interactions quite difficult, for several reasons. They may have trouble allowing themselves to get close with others, finding it difficult to be vulnerable enough to establish intimacy. They also report having trouble offering support to others, likely due to the fact that they do not understand where others are coming from or they lack ideas about how best to help.
------------------------

Do you score *that* low?

Thinking critically . . .

I have a constrained range of emotions that aren't expressed somatically.
a little laughter is good but something *really* funny locks me up - I can't laugh and I go rigid.
It's hard to explain "laugh" and "can't understand emotions".
OK, maybe impossible. I think they call it alexithymia
I'm not sure it isn't anything but learned behavior.

So day to day zen like emotions are what I've striven for - without really realizing why.

No scary movies, roller coasters, political debates, sport rivalaries, violence (most of TV), disasters, dramas, etc.
No phone, few visitors.

Still rambling on.
It's been working real well so far . . .

Psych professionals take note: if you find your client is an alexithymic just tell them everything you suspect and then both of you try to eliminate or substatiate those suspicions.
Touchy feely won't work WE CAN'T READ EMOTIONS.
*Attempting* touchy feely will drive them away.
My failure with multiple psych attempts pretty much boils down to that.
"Wirite a journal about how you feel"? That lasted a few lines. I feel hungry. I feel tired. My leg hurts. I feel frustrated writing this. I threw it away. If I got emotional I got quiet. Any questions are logically answered using the incomplete (but mostly accurate) model of the world that we keep in our heads.
Over the decades I've never met a psych professional that I would consider intelligent. Conversations are vague. They won't ask direct questions. My MMPI assessment was done over the phone and it went like this "are you organized?" I reply "yes, very" he says "then don't worry about it." And this was specifically about "my leg hurts and I have no medical reason". That was in 1983 after three suspicious bouts of leg pain occurring over the previous decade. They seem to try and extract as much time and money as possible from the client by doing or saying very little and repeating "this stuff takes time to figure out".
Yeah - about 3 weeks of contemplating and internet searching after chasing down the word "hermit". That's less time than it takes to *get* a VA appointment.

Medical doctors won't use the word somatic. They know they'll make a lot of money off of you as you return again and again for your imaginary illness. Legal extortion.

OK

Right leg pain - no medical reason.
1975, 1978, 1980, 1983, after that I wouldn't go to the doctors for it. Wouldn't last more than a month.
1989(?) I slightly squished my T5 vertibrae and started in on a Pain Disorder (not knowing it until now).
I got over the back pain (still hurts if I twist wrong) but the leg pain went "permanent".

I think it's a loop. I'm in pain but don't know why. So that causes emotional distress that I feel as a loss of coordination that feeds the leg pain that causes the stress. But I've suspected *a* loop in the past, Just never had the "alexithymic" information until now. Nor *really* realized that I express *all* strong emotion somatically. And was only suspicious of having a pain disorder, since no paid professional would agree, they would just feed me pain pills and occasionally try anti-depressants. Four years of Vicodin - how can they live with themselves?

First step? . . .
Oops, that was the first step.

Second step? . . .

checking history.

Mom says
"You were not a crybaby, you were quiet and kind of shy. A very sweet tempered child, who just went about his own busy-ness."
and
"You were always prone to be absorbed in what you were doing to the exclusion of all else"
(my siblings? both much more emotional)

The awareness of "gimping" didn't start until puberty - I just saw it as being "clumsy" through school. Girls made me cringe and go quiet - I didn't think of it as "a somatic reaction".


I might just be wired this way.
I'm addicted to hyper-reality, and it's *in here*.

At least now I'll have the info to deal with it better.
I'll wear a sign "Alexithymic! Oblivious to emotion, please state what you feel"

the chronic pain? . . . no strategies yet.

This is not a "Conversion Disorder".
Were not disconnected from our emotions - our emotions are disconnected from us.
It's hardwired and physical.
I'm quite positive that the way *I* think is not because of a "psychological disconnect" from my emotions.
And find it quite arrogant that a psych professional would assume so - read the literature.

Collect this data for proofs;
Are there subtypes of primary alexithymia? - Mine is hardwired somatic, are there other types? The available internet data are unclear. Secondary alexithymia is misnamed, you can't temporarily be alexithymic. It's cognitive style is based totally on visual and tactile experience due to the lack of emotional input. It's developmental.
I'm theorizing that it's just the somatic type and that they should name it after me. Or just "the nerd scale".
There *will* be a consistent FMRI profile - Motor areas firing off under emotional stimuli. Guaranteed by ScottTheSculptor.
It'll have a range - some to nearly all somatic conversion of emotions. And a threshold. Also detectable by FMRI.
Analogous to synaesthesia, input stimuli routed to the wrong decoders.

Early intervention is vital. Going through puberty locking up when girls kiss you is a negative social experience. If they expect it . . . It might not be half bad. We "feel" the sensations, not the emotions.

I've seen it in other people without realizing it.
I'm not the only one that can't laugh really hard. The classic "nerd" is a socially awkward, clumsy around the opposite sex. "So mad he can't spit", "frozen in fear". I met one girl that would lock up completetly at orgasm (like me)- I might have missed my perfect match without realizing it.


WHERE'S MY GRANT MONEY!

Notes from a "crystallized" alexithymic. 52 years of age at discovery.

Alexithymics take the facts you give them and can work wonders with them.
But they don't "leap"?
My IQ has risen as I've learned more. I recognize more of the questions on the tests. I honestly believe that if some 200 IQ person sat down and explained how they did each question that I would forever forward score higher. Though probably not as high as 200.

No gods, No ghosts. Fantastically skeptical. Logically derived moral code
Fabulously inventive within the constraints imposed - which can be quite wide and complex.
Logical extrapolator extraordinaire.
"belief" is a carefully constructed logical argument.
Honesty, it's logical. Our world construct demands it. And we don't really get "protect others feelings" when it comes to facts (white lies).

When reading books I imagine the scene using the information provided. So I like very descriptive fiction. And hard sci-fi, I think those authors are alexithymic. Perfect extrapolations of current scientific theory. No errors of logic.
I don't return to imagine fictional "worlds" that I've read. Unless I read it again. I "see" the world only while I'm reading.
Rewatching movies or rereading books? - no, not unless it's overly complex or a long period of time since. I don't watch them for "feelings".
I'm critical of impossibilities and illogical plot twists. I also note factual errors. ad nauseum.
Classical & Ambient electronica (very few words - complex interweaving themes). Music with words is opera, I don't like opera.

subtractive thinker? I sculpt by removing, many sculpt by adding.

Exquisitively tactile. The emotions that are felt somatically are also somatically felt. They're processed separately from "normal" emotions but the processing is there none the less. "Goosebumps" are a somatic reaction. Want to see an alexithymic in exctasy? Break out the terrycloth, silk, wool, burlap, velvet, denim, feathers, brushes of all stiffnesses, etc. You get the idea. Plus hot and cold packs. Streams of air (shiver).

Tactile imagination. We don't feel emotion watching a movie but we have a "tactile sense" of the scenes. Violence and torture are painful. Porn is . . .

No imaginary friends - we think the entire idea is abhorrent. It would "damage" the world construct as much as a lie.

Ultra reality. But we know it's a construct. I don't know if a non-alexithymic can truly understand that. See "belief".

Consistent diet. I like to eat the same thing over and over and only slowly change my diet.
Restaurants know what I'm going to order because I order the same thing *every* time. Once I figure out what that one thing is. Usually takes a few tries. Example: the restaurant across the street next to the grocery store - I walk in, put money on the counter and leave, walk around the corner, get groceries, come back and my order is waiting. We never sat down and planned this. I don't even have to speak.

I like structure and get lost without it.

Depth learning. pick a subject and don't let go until satisified. Can study a subject for years. But then leave it with no "nostalgia".

Socially mute. Stumbling on stage. Deer in the headlights.
Delayed social response - a kiss from a pretty girl takes me about 3 minutes to process - she's gone by then. Fortunately same thing happens when anyone rude or violating *my* moral code "pisses me off" (the rage!).

Anyone can expect a response if they ask a question. But no-one should expect a non-solicited communication unless it is a question. Or a data dump

I sometimes forget to elaborate ideas that are logically evident to *me *.

Anyone truly alexithymic *must* adapt this cognitive style. Without access
to emotional input it's this or not functioning - it is an adaptation to a
different physiological configuration.


Any incidences thought to be caused by trauma are dead wrong. The trauma can
cause a emotion-somatic loop in someone already alexithymic, but not cause
the condition itself. [note from the future: don't be so sure]
[note from a farther future : you were correct in the first place]

Many, many of us don't realize. They've come up with management strategies
just by maturing and being exposed to this strange world of "feelers". It
isn't a problem until the emotional "triggers" that we can't feel, cause a
pain that we can feel.


Yeah, also the relationship thing. Some of us consider it a "problem"