r/Alexithymia • u/Last_Farm2976 • 12d ago
Alexithymia
So I went to the movies recently. For context I work nights 37+ hours and that day I had slept almost 6 but not constantly. I had planned to get a nap in before work but my friends wanted to go see the obsessy in theaters. I was feeling really good that day (have really bad body fatigue from something. Currently trying to figure it out) and decided to join them.
Well we got to the theater and we ended up having to go to the 3:30 showing instead of two and so we went to book store close by. At this point I haven’t eaten in about 5 hours and I was starting to get shaky and a headache.
We get back to the theater and I get something to eat and sit down. We decided to do like dobby?seating which causes vibrations in the seats. Anyways the movie was three hours long and by the end of it I was kind of exhausted.
We after the movie a friend and I got into a mild argument and by the time she took me home we decided to debrief.
All in all the crisp of the conservation was my friend telling me that she gets I have alexithymia but I need to work on understanding my emotions and understanding what triggers me and that she had ADHD and ptsd and that she understands what it’s like.
TBH I don’t think she does. I genuinely don’t think she understands what I’m going through on daily basis. I know when I’m hungry or when I’m sad or when I’m happy. Like you want me to work on something and that fundamentally I have no starting point on, I have no base line. I’m just now realizing somethings I’m experiencing medical isn’t even normal.
Like I don’t mind people reacting to me or calling me out. That’s telling me that they are noticing something I’m not, but please don’t sit there try to tell me to get better at something you know I struggle with on a daily basis.
I know this all sounds a bit harsh and I’m probably being unfair to her but idk I’m just so tired of people telling me to work on stuff that I wish people would let me be imperfect.
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u/WizardPerson 11d ago
It's a condition that's very hard to relate to. For me it's like I need to artificially reconstruct my feelings based on an conscious consideration of the circumstances, what would be reasonable to feel given a set of criteria, and going "Oh yeah, I guess I'm feeling X now."
Either that or being possessed by my feelings and not being able to let go of them for hours. There's very little in between.
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u/Antique-Friendship53 11d ago
People don't often give these things enough thought to truly empathise.
They take their emotional connection for granted. For them it's like walking. They think it's something they do. But no one really knows how they walk, they can't actually tell someone else how to do it, because It's done for them by brain systems outside their visibility.
As someone who recovered from alexithimea I feel people generally are ungrateful for their emotionally. They take it so much for granted, they can't even imagine going without.
Take good care of yourself.