Alexithymia - How to manage it?
Alexithymia means that you have challenges identifying and describing your own emotions, identifying feelings, distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations (interoception), describing feelings to others or identifying facial expressions. You might also have a thinking style focused on external events and avoiding inner experiences.
Alexithymia can be divided into two types:
Cognitive alexithymia . This means you have difficulties in identifying, verbalizing, and analyzing emotions.
Affective alexithymia — This means difficulties in imagination and emotional arousal and the level of fantasizing and day dreaming.
Alexithymia is more common among autistic people and is often overlooked in autistic people, as it is often assumed that these symptoms are just autistic traits. This can leave the individual with a feeling of being lost, not knowing what to do or how to deal with their symptoms. Alexithymia is often linked with anxiety or depression and can have devastating consequences in your personal relationships, your self-esteem and your overall wellbeing.
How can you manage alexithymia?
First of all, is important to remember that research shows that alexithymia is a defense mechanism against highly emotional events and is often linked to having experienced trauma, so it could be beneficial to work through this in therapy.
Other things that you can do to manage your alexithymia, are:
Learn more about how to identify your own emotions and how to communicate your feelings. Try to be aware everyday about your own sensations until you can make sense of them.
Practice relaxation or meditation on a daily basis to increase emotional awareness. What are you feeling? Where? How does it feel? It might be difficult to put it into words, but at this stage is just about being aware of them.
Seek out social support and cultivate close relationship with friends or family. Having alexithymia often make people isolate themselves and not look for support. It can also be linked with feeling embarrassed or ashamed about not understanding your own feelings.
Get in touch with people who have similar experiences. Knowing that there are others that feel the same way is often helpful to feel understood and to not feel lonely.
Develop a daily routine and structure that helps you manage stress and anxiety.
Engage with creative activities that stimulate your imagination. Art or music are a good start.
Ask others for clear communication and to label their own feelings.
Train your interoception. Do you need to go to the toilet? Are you hungry? How does this affects your emotions and the way you communicate? Others close to you might be able to notice this before you do.
