Alexithymia refers to difficulty feeling, identifying, or recognizing emotions in oneself, and accurately identifying emotions in others.
This pathologization has been used to stereotype Autistic people as “unfeeling”, lacking in emotions, and unable to read the emotions of others. This is a gross oversimplification that is harmful to many Autistic people.
While some Autistics may struggle to experience or identify emotions in the way that allistics (non-autistic people) do, that does not mean we do not feel emotions, not even close.
In fact, a lot of Autistics experience emotions very intensely, and those who do struggle to recognize and name emotions are not always Autistic.
Alexithymia has been described in other neurotypes as well, including people with Borderline Personality (BPD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), major depression (MD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to name a few.
As Dr. Devon Price explained in his recent book, Unmasking Autism, many Autistics struggle to figure out why we’re feeling emotions.
For some it’s not identifying what emotion we’re feeling, it’s noticing that we’re feeling something before we’re already carried away by it.
“When we’re upset or uncomfortable, we often fail to recognize it until we’re nearly on the verge of a complete meltdown.” — Dr. Devon Price
This can be due, in part, to challenges with interoception, which hinder our ability to perceive and recognize the physical indications of our emotions.
Neuronormative concepts
Another possibility is that emotions, their sensations, and their external expressions are described and taught to us through a neuronormative lens.
Dr. Walker defines neuronormativity as the following:
“The performance of the local dominant culture’s current prevailing images of how a so-called “normal” person with a so-called “normal” mind thinks and looks and behaves.”
— Dr. Nick Walker
Social-emotional lessons at school, and learned cultural norms and expectations are based on what non-autistic people experience, perceive, and deem “normal”.
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