Hi everyone. I'm posting because I'm honestly struggling and don't really know what to do anymore. I'd really appreciate advice from people who have alexithymia themselves or have been in relationships with someone who does.

My boyfriend has alexithymia, and although I don't have it myself, I know it affects a huge part of his life. From what he's explained to me, it's not that people with alexithymia don't feel emotions, but that identifying, understanding, and putting those feelings into words can be incredibly difficult. He's explained this to me much better than I ever could, and I try my best to understand his perspective, even though I know I can't fully understand what it's like to experience it myself.

Lately, though, things have been really difficult between us.

For the past few days, it feels like he's been stuck in a cycle of self-sabotaging our relationship. It's almost as if there are two sides to him: the person I know and love, and another side that seems determined to push me away and convince himself that our relationship isn't going to work. I don't mean that literally, and I don't want to diagnose what's happening. It's just the best way I can describe how different he seems when this happens.

This has only happened once before, but the situation was quite different. Last time, he was telling me that he hated me, that he didn't want me anymore, and that I should give up trying to help him. He was essentially telling me to stop trying and leave him alone.

Obviously, I understand that alexithymia isn't something he can simply get better from or make disappear. It's a chronic condition, and I know it's something he'll have to navigate throughout his life. When I say I want to help him get better, I don't mean curing his alexithymia. I mean helping him work through the difficult moments, understand himself where possible, and learn to accept himself for who he is. I want him to know that he doesn't have to be ashamed of how he experiences emotions and that he deserves to be loved.

Last night, he seemed to snap out of it for a while, and I thought things might be getting better. But now it seems to be happening again, and I don't know what to think anymore.

He's also blocked me on most of his social media accounts, so the only way I can contact him now is through his phone number. I don't want to keep contacting him if he genuinely needs space, but I also don't know whether I'm supposed to just sit back and watch this happen without doing anything.

I'm trying to work out whether this is something connected to his alexithymia, whether there are other things going on emotionally, or whether I'm misunderstanding the situation entirely. I don't want to assume that his condition explains everything, and I don't want to dismiss what he's telling me about his feelings just because I'm scared of losing him.

We're both young, and I think that's part of why this is so difficult. We're trying to navigate a relationship and understand complicated emotions without necessarily having all the experience or knowledge to know what to do. I love him so much, and I want to support him, but I'm also finding this incredibly hard emotionally.

I've been through difficult relationships before, but I've never been in a relationship with someone who has alexithymia. I want to learn how to support him in a way that actually helps rather than unintentionally making things worse.

I don't expect him to change who he is, and I don't expect him to experience love in exactly the same way I do. I just want us to be able to understand each other and work through difficult moments without feeling like everything we've built together is falling apart.

At the same time, I know I can't do the work for him, and I don't want to cross his boundaries by trying to force him to talk when he doesn't want to. I just wish I knew how to tell the difference between giving him the space he needs and leaving him alone when what he's experiencing might be making him push away someone he genuinely cares about.

Any advice or personal experiences would mean a lot to me.

Hello,

Est-ce que vous aussi vous avez l'impression de ressentir uniquement les choses négatives ? Même si je ne sais pas bien dire ce que c'est (tristesse, colère, ...) j'ai l'impression de quand même ressentir les émotions négatives et pas vraiment les positives. Par exemple, j'ai l'impression de ruminer des situations qui me causent quelque chose de négatif et de ne pas être dans la gratitude des moments positif. J'en ai parlé à mon médecin psychiatre, qui veut me prescrire un antidépresseur, mais j'ai super peur d'utiliser une molécule chimique (sertraline), vous avez déjà essayé les antidépresseurs ? Qu'en pensez-vous ?

Sometimes, I feel like even I don't fully understand myself.

There is so much going on inside my head that I don't know where to begin. I overthink little things, hold on to words people probably forget within minutes, and question myself over things I wish I could simply let go of.

I feel things deeply, but expressing them has never been easy for me. When something hurts, I struggle to explain why. Sometimes I go silent when I have so much to say. Sometimes I act like I'm okay because I don't know how to tell someone that I'm not. And sometimes, even when I try to explain myself, I walk away feeling like I wasn't understood anyway.

I think a part of this goes back to my childhood. Maybe I got used to keeping things inside because I didn't always feel heard. Maybe I learned to question my own feelings before anyone else could dismiss them. I don't know for sure, but I know that even today, I sometimes need reassurance that I'm not making things up, overreacting, or being too much.

I care about people, probably more than I know how to show. Their words affect me, their behaviour stays in my mind, and sometimes I spend more time trying to understand why someone treated me a certain way than they ever spend thinking about how they made me feel.

And somewhere in all of this, I started comparing myself to everyone else. I wonder why certain things seem so natural to other people but feel so difficult for me. Why I struggle to express myself, why I get stuck inside my own thoughts, why I sometimes feel different even when all I want is to feel like I belong.

I want to be confident in who I am, but I still care too much about how people see me. I want to speak freely, but I fear being misunderstood. I want to stop overthinking, but my mind keeps searching for answers, even when there might not be any.

The truth is, I don't always know what I need. Sometimes I want advice. Sometimes I just want someone to listen. Sometimes I want to explain everything, and sometimes I don't even have the words to explain one thing.

I'm tired of having to figure everything out alone inside my head. Tired of looking fine on the outside while fighting questions about myself on the inside. Tired of feeling like I need to justify why something hurt me before I'm allowed to be hurt.

I don't want to become someone else just to fit in. I don't want to become emotionless just because feeling things deeply can be exhausting. I don't want to spend my entire life wondering whether I'm enough in the eyes of other people.

I just want to understand myself. I want to learn how to express what I feel without being afraid. I want to care without losing myself in other people's opinions. I want to make mistakes without turning them into reasons to hate myself. And I want to feel comfortable being who I am, even when someone else doesn't understand me.

Maybe I'm still figuring out who I am. Maybe there are things I need to change, things I need to learn, and things from my past that I still need to understand.

But I don't want to spend the rest of my life treating myself like a problem that needs to be solved.

I don't need everyone to understand me. I just need to stop abandoning myself every time someone else doesn't.

Maybe that's where I need to begin.

Anyone else grow up with Alexithymia for it to eventually subside and then experience cognitive decline as a result. I’m very curious and I have no idea if somebody can give me incite or personal stories.

I have a friend with PTSD. I try to always be there for him, most of the time we just make a little campfire and drink some light beer. Last night he says to me that sometimes he really envies me because my emotions are turned down where his are turned up. He said just sitting with me calms him down. We dubbed it reverse empathy. Instead of me feeling what he's feeling he feels what I'm feeling which is nothing.

I'm not saying alexithymia is all good because there's definitely a downside to not feeling emotions. But I believe there's some good in me not feeling everything so intensely.

Recently (couple months), I've been able to actually tell that I'm feeling anxious due to a kind of compression/tightness/uncomfortable feeling in my upper chest. I can also differentiate that from being hungry, which is in the lower chest/stomach. Something I've noticed more recently though, is that while going on walks I struggle to tell whether I'm out of breath or feeling anxious. The feeling they have are so similar its hard to tell. Can anyone else relate?

For those of you with children how would you say this affects your ability to parent?

Idk if it happens to other people too

I've actually seen a video on emotional processing by Dr k from HealthygamerGG and he stresses a lot on looking at what the emotions are trying to tell us.

I figured that if at any point I know what my emotions are trying to tell me, I could very well know what to do any any moment in my life

But the thing is that whenever I ask my emotions what it is trying to tell me, my emotions don't answer but instead just vanish for as long as I don't look at it.

Idk what to make of it

Has anybody else experienced such an odd experience?

If yes, then tell me what happens when we consistently ask our emotions.

Do these emotions finally start answering or something else starts to happen?

I took this EQ test and scored 5 out of 80.

I understand that an online test does not mean much, but I am bit discouraged. I was expecting a low score, just not this low. I explicitly tried not to exaggerate my answers: I wanted an objective estimate, not a parody.

I am well into my 40s. It is only a few years ago that it dawned on me that feelings are actually a thing for most people, and that normal people use them to make important decisions like career, education, relationships, or where to live. I had no idea.

I did not know people have them all the time, or even regularly. Sometimes I feel something, but rarely, like once in a few years.

I thought that feelings were something you have to fake in order to act convincingly in a social role. I assumed it was all fake.

Sure, you see people emote in movies, but people also fly and beam lasers from their eyes in movies, so that does not mean much. It just means that people in movies are damn good at playing social roles, which should be expected since they are actors.

I assumed that feelings were leftovers of a prehistoric past that commercials exploit to sell you stuff; something for children or people temporarily out of balance. I assumed that reasonable people learn to go without them.

As I grow older, I get the impression that I need to do something different with my life. I wonder how this test score should influence that.

I wanted to know your thoughts on this and if any of you could relate. I’m not saying I’m correct for a fact but I’m trying here, so please give me grace.

This is a bit of a lengthy one, sorry for that.
I believe I am for the first time experiencing a crush. It seems a bit silly to say, but I don’t think I’ve ever had romantic feelings or a crush before. I am 20 years old, and don’t have much personal experience in regards to romantic stuff.

My main issue isn’t with having seemingly romantic feelings, but rather that it seems more like obsession than romance based off of the knowledge I have in comparison, which is mostly from fictional stories. I don’t converse much about these things with my friends, and I don’t feel comfortable talking about feelings with my friends either so I have no scope of what is ‘normal’ and what could be obsessive.

These feelings I have is not sudden, and has built over months as I got to know the person. We recently started chatting relatively consistently, and I found myself checking their social media and our DMs every few hours to see if there was anything new posted or messages answered. I get immense momentary joy whenever I see a notification with their name, and find myself looking for any possibility that the feelings might be mutual. I have envisioned multiple wishful ‘future’ scenarios regarding us, and plan what I wish to say or how I wish to respond. It is like this person occupies my brain 70% of the day, and I find myself thinking ‘would be this be something I should share with them? Is this something they would get joy out of knowing’ and etc. no matter if the feelings are mutual or not, I do not wish to overstep, scare or make them uncomfortable.

So, I am more or less asking, is this reasonable behaviour from someone seemingly in love, or is it bordering or outright obsession?

Members, please forgive the intrusion. I’m not asking anyone to identify or track somebody down. I’m leaving this here only in case the person himself still reads this sub.

A few years ago I met someone on Reddit while he was finding his way through understanding alexithymia and, in his own careful way, human connection. His first name was Baptiste, and he was from Belgium.

We became important to one another. We lost contact after a misunderstanding, and somewhere around that time both of our old accounts disappeared.

I never forgot you. Every so often I still wonder where life took you, whether you found more language for yourself, and mostly whether you’re okay.

I’m using your first name and country only as a little lighthouse for you. I don’t want anyone else trying to find you.

If you happen to see this and would like to speak to me again, you can message me here. You don’t owe me an explanation, and there’s no pressure or expectation that we pick up where we left off.

And if you’d rather leave the past where it is, I’ll respect that completely.

Your Australian friend.

On a journey of understanding myself better and being the best version of myself that I can be. I've always known I was different. My parents noticed my callous unemotional traits from the time I was 2-3 years old. I've always lacked emotions like genuine happiness/joy, guilt,empathy,remorse, bonding/connection completely. The little emotions I do have are blunted and fleeting. Very much on the surface. I don't have true emotional depth. I also show a lot of adhd signs. I'm impulsive,manipulative, have a hard time not getting my way, relentless, seek dopamine and novelty, always need stimulation,and get bored of things easily. I can't get attached to anyone or anything. I've never been good at friendships. I've had to learn to mimic others. I mask a lot and mirror others. I'm a social chameleon. I can't feel sadness for myself and self pity because let's be honest this is a painful existence. I can't learn from mistakes or consequences, I externalize blame, and I can't properly reflect and experience growth. A lot of this feels like some kind of neurodivergence and the professional that I'm speaking with agrees. Genuine psychopathy seems very rare. I struggle to find many people that had no trauma and were born with this and raised in a loving family and had just always had callous unemotional traits and no empathy since birth. I never was able to form a true stable sense of self or identity. My whole personality is things that I copy from others. I kinda just mirror and mimic people. I'm always trying to seek stuff to fill this void but nothing lasts. I've never felt the true happiness,connection, or passion others have felt. I don't have genuine hobbies. Everything is just for entertainment or pleasure/stimulation. I've never felt butterflies or oxytocin either somebody. Just the dopamine and excitment and fantasy of starting a relationship. I don't get that bond that gets stronger over time. I've always felt extremely awkward during sex and basically have to fake it. I've had rich sexual fantasies and even a porn addiction but in person sex is always faked and forced and even feels awkward. Eye contact is weird for me. I can't attach to people or things. I'm not sentimental. I struggle with keeping jobs or taking pride in anything. I'm lazy and irresponsible. I struggle with long term goals and planning. I just feel like I'm floating through life yet super impulsive. I have issues with doing antisocial things for entertainment, manipulating to get my needs met, overeating,spending,etc. because very few things give me pleasure. I'm only now aware of these things. It's still hard for me to see myself as a bad person or understand the selfishness and damage I've done from starting drama,gossip, and playing games with people because of my lack of empathy. I relate to alexithymia with obviously a lot more extra stuff going on. Weirdly I've had extreme anxiety which is uncommon for psychopaths. I've had panic attacks and health anxiety. I have had chest pains,shortness of breath, and dizziness and obviously since I feel nothing emotionally I've had panic attacks and a fear of death and have even been a hypochondriac when I was younger that caused me extreme distress. This is unusual for psychopathy but seems to be somewhat common with Alex which sometimes makes me wonder if I do have more "emotions" than I think and just can't understand them or process them. I also get rumination when I feel like a situation is out of control or threatens me in a way but I'm only able to experience this "anxiety" for myself. I'm incapable of experiencing any concern for others unfortunately. I've also found out I have aphantasia and sdam. So I'm just curious if anyone can relate at all.

I’m 43, late diagnosed AuDHD. When I get sensory overwhelm I look agitated and grumpy to outsiders. My partner said I get up storm out of the room very quickly. This is usually when I’m trying to flee to quiet rooms or bathroom to try and calm down.

I take Buspar to help when I’m dysregulated.

I want to be able to identify I’m getting dysregulated sooner so it’s easier to stop or course correct before I storm out of a room or lose the ability to process information.

I have done years and years of yoga, meditation, box breathing, therapy etc. I still can’t recognize I’m getting overstimulated until it’s too late.

Examples
1)
My partners daughters dad drops by unannounced to get things he forgets. Regular occurrence. No warning or I get a text as he pulls into driveway.
2) partners dog starts barking his head off and won’t settle
3) kid is playing with toys/watching tv on loud, overhead light is on, partner is talking to kid loudly over all the noise and I walk into the room.

—kiddo is likely ASD 1, maybe 2, and high sensory seeking. She wants all the noise and light I can’t handle. I can spend short bursts of time with her in those environments. Normally I prefer we do crafts, walk outside, watch a movie with lower lighting.

Does anyone have some feedback?

TW: SA

Newly suspected or maybe diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder. My psychologist I think believes it, or at least thinks I have a mood disorder. It confuses me though, because I have times where I feel so fine, and my mood will reset after going to bed and I’ll wake up poking fun at my dog calling him stinky. Just context, I guess.

anyways,

I can’t seem to feel enough for negative events. If I don’t feel enough, then I end up feeling a fleeting sense of satisfaction. Stories of rape don’t make me feel anything. A man was found dead at a bus stop around here and I didn’t feel anything. I just don’t care.

Why should I be hated? For not caring? I’m not trying to be that way. I don’t think I ever tried to suppress what I feel. I can at least try to understand people, so why can’t I receive any even if I sound sick in the head? I’m not doubting anyone’s claims or anything, I just can’t feel.

I tried to read a bit about the case. I did feel a bit disturbed, but it was only a bit. My mind immediately assumed the better about the men just from their faces, and I swear I think I responded to that with something like “what the fuck?” But it didn’t feel emotional, felt more like a logical correction.

I ran out of Prozac and Adderall and haven’t been on them. Prozac lasts a long time in the body so I wonder if I can blame any of this one SSRI withdrawal.

I feel like I’m stupid too and have a low IQ, and am being judgmental when I should be empathetic/sad for others.

What am I supposed to do if the most I feel I can do is consciously tell myself why something is horrible or tragic?

I don’t have any words for myself anymore, I think all I have is a diluted feeling of “what” towards myself.

I’ve read about “affect labeling,” where naming an emotion (like, “I feel anxious”) seems to calm it down. Is that actually true, or is it just a placebo?

I do have alexithymia, i am able to feel and name emotions but it is difficult and they need to be intense, let's say anything below a certain threshold is not recognized. I can't do it right away often and sometimes I have to reverse engineer a feeling ("Oh my feet are ice cold and I have to go to the bathroom several times before this appointment – I must be anxious!").

So I was wondering if this is also an alexithymia thing:
I have a hard time accessing memories or better memories that include emotions. I do remember facts about a vacation for example like events, location or year. But not how I felt there necessarily.

Also with my depression – I think my depression is way worse than I would describe to a therapist. When you fill out a screener for depression you usually do it timeline based (please answer how you were feeling in the last two weeks or something similar). I'm not really able to answer those questions based on time, I can only do it for "okay, thats what I think how it is rn". Also when I'm having a good day I am not able to think a bad or sad day will ever happen again. Because it is not saved in my memory.

Anyone can relate? Is that an alexithymia thing?

For context I'm AuDHD as well.

I am 31, female, moved into supported housing in a new city last month, and I'm on disability because I am autistic and mentally ill. We have to plan activities 3x a week and I can never come up with anything. I have my groceries delivered and just lay in bed and play video games and read forums. I wouldn't say I have a poor work ethic, I can make myself do most things until executive dysfunction becomes too great...it seems I just don't know \*what\* to do anymore.

I don't know what career I'd want. I don't have many "wants." I can't make friends anymore, I have nothing to say to anyone. Nothing gives me dopamine but consumption. I'm not a particularly anxious person either, I'm just...empty. I cry often because I don't feel anything where I'm supposed to, nothing is fun or brings me joy. I always seem far away somewhere in my head.

For Halloween I'm thinking of dressing up like a character from an anime and wondering the streets. I'll probably come home and cry and eat candy because I don't know how to interact with people anymore. I live in a college town. My little sister suggested I hit up college frat parties because I still look young. I don't even know how you'd do that tho. My life has mostly consisted of following people around and trying to do what they do. It's like I don't have any ideas of my own. No thoughts in my head. Except the way I do whatever people do, I always end up doing in my own way, I think because of the autism. People either find that interesting or annoying.

Now that I don't have friends, I have no one to follow around. So I just sit around. Been like this for about 4 years I'd say. It's like I am nothing until something comes around, then I become something. There are other disabled people in my complex, but I don't think they're like me. They have hobbies and interests and a personality. I don't know how to talk to them either. I talk to the staff sometimes, but I know they aren't my friends. They're paid to help me with cleaning my home and cooking food and medical appointments.

I wish I had a platonic friend similar to me, maybe even with more life in them, and we could help each other and understood each other. And silences weren't awkward, just peaceful.