Alexithymia and Autism

A brief discussion.

Firstly I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this. I want to start raising awareness of not as well known traits of Autism that you, the reader, might not be aware of. I encourage you all take the time to read around the subject matter, and to be mindful when engaging in an open dialogue with neurodiverse individuals, around these topics.

Thank you.

Alexithymia… What is it exactly? Well, we need to define it don’t we? According to ScienceDirect, it gives the following:

In essence, the definition describes the individual as having difficulty in identifying emotions, & conveying this to the world around them. To use an analogy, let’s say we were to describe emotions as having a colour palette being placed in front of you. Red would typically depict anger, blue with sadness & green with envy right? Now imagine the blue and green being taken away, and being replaced with slightly different shades of red. Sometimes you may identify the wrong emotion by the shade, and this would effect how you interact with the world around you. To put it simply, an alexythimic person is thought to have a distinct disconnect between their thought processes, & how they perceive their emotions.

Now let’s combine the two together: you could imagine it makes emotions a very confusing place for Autistic people can’t you? When in a conversation with your loved ones, imagine not being able to distinguish the unspoken rules of social etiquette most people innately grasp as young children: ‘When do I stop talking about how work was today?’, ‘How do I join in a group conversation without interrupting?’, ‘Why did this person furrow their eyebrow at me and how do they feel?’ These may be questions that float around in the minds of autistic people on a regular basis.

Now imagine if you were to watch one of these performances without any prior knowledge, and the Topeng had been performed without the Penang. You would see a number of figures dressed with masks running around a stage, being unsure of the events that are unfolding in front of you. You might become very bewildered by the performers’ actions & emotions that you are seeing, and be unsure of how to describe it to someone after watching the performance.

This is an analogy, for what it might be like for someone who is Alexithymic & Autistic.

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