Just realized why I can't do #yoga even though I want & need to -

because I found the right 1 & it worked

#FML

Between #Burnout #alexithymia #Perimenopause and being pretty much disconnected from my body all the time, yoga is almost like a guided #meltdown

I know it's good & I crave those releases but damn its asking a lot of my #AutisticInertia to get it to voluntarily take a stroll through the ruins of Trauma Town.

I have trouble understanding and identifying my own emotions. Alexithymia is common amongst autistic people.

I will often display an emotion that I see others doing in order to “pass”.

image: @21andsensory
linktr.ee/21andsensory

#ActuallyAutistic #Alexithymia #AuDHD @actuallyautistic

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Alexithymia

The amount of times I feel vaguely upset and uncomfortable in the Universe only to discover that it’s because I haven’t listened to my favorite music in a while 🤪

“Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Am I mad at Sam? Am I mad at politics? Am I sick? When did I last shower? When did I last go outside?”

(45 internal questions later)

“…MUSIC! It’s music. I haven’t listened to my comfort playlist in too long. Bam, solved it, I am the world’s greatest detective.”

And breathe! Just signed the Gets-Us-Out-Of-A-Hole Project contract.

I know they can still go away, but I generally feel better when there's digital “pen on paper”.

Going to see if I can experience some relief this afternoon. 😮‍💨

#ActuallyAutistic #alexithymia #SmallBusiness #freelance

#Autism and #alexithymia

Whilst no Diagnosis of either condition I was very interested to learn how to about Alexithymia as it mirrors my own behaviours and difficulties when I have to explain to to a Doctor how I am feeling. I am normally 'fine' Thought I would share as it may be helpful to others.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-esteem-in-autistic-children/202307/autism-and-alexithymia

> Exploring the impact of alexithymia on autistic individuals.

One of the "fun" things that's common in #autistic folks (including me) is #alexithymia, which is described as "an inability to identify and describe emotions."

I feel like one of my issues is that I have no particular baseline for "normal" (ie, neurotypical) emotions.

Thus, not only am I unable to describe what I'm feeling, but I do not know whether what I'm feeling is a "normal" part of human experience, or if it's something common to ND folks, or it's normal for NTs and heightened for me.

Current state: Last night I had six hours sleep (avg is 4.5-5), but could barely stay awake at 7am.

I've just come off an on-call work week, which is (in theory) "Work from 9am to 3pm (M-F), take a break, then work from 8pm to 10pm calling end-users and responding to support tickets." (aka 6/5/2). Handover at 10:30am on Saturday morning.

Part of the problem is ADHD distraction, so the 6 hours blows out with 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, so I end up eating into my break time. On the other hand, some days are just 6+ hours of hyperfocus, and my break time just gets smashed.

Firstly, the whole "talking/responding to end users" thing will be a red flag for ND folks, because I have to mask on being ND, but also emotionally because it's #techsupport.

Secondly, I did not work a 6/5/2 day any day this week. Every day was extremely stressful, with a lot of hyperfocus chunks, but some "ADHD lost time" and was more like a 8.5/2/2.5.

I just did my handover, which (once again), took 1.5 hours from start to finish, but 30 minutes of that was ADHD distraction.

So I started working at 10:30am, finished working at 12pm, but "lost" 30 minutes in the process.

But EMOTIONALLY, I was doing great. I was feeling relaxed & chill, relieved to hand off. I signed out from Slack & work stuff, swapped back to my PC.

Within half an hour, I was a cranky, snappy, hyper-reactive mess, who feels like I'm spiralling into a depression?

I've got so many things around me that need to be done. Being sick for several weeks, then relocating to the new office has left my home office a disaster. Son's friend is coming to stay for a week as well, so lots of cleaning needs to be done, plus there's all the chores that didn't get done because I was working. AND someone (ME) has to go grocery shopping.

The ONLY example I had for this kind of thing was a workaholic father who just kept going and going like the fucking Energizer bunny.

I don't know what to do right now. If I take some time for "self-care", the other shit still needs to be done.

When I look at the numbers, I charged 46 hours of billable time, but I *feel* like I worked a 65 hour week.

Plus, my brain was still in "work mode" this morning, until I completed the handover, so today *feels* like Schrödinger's work, where I was both working and not working from when I woke up until I handed over.

In short, I have no fucking idea what "normal" is, and I don't know what to do right now.

Advice please #Autistic peeps. I also have #alexithymia.
My mom has days, possibly only hours to live. She was not a good mom, she didn’t understand autistic me, but I love her. I am totally mixed up. My logic and my emotions are confusing.
How did you cope when someone close to you was dying?

Can you describe the feeling of happiness?

What about sadness? Anger? Excitement?

If the answer is no, you may be one of the many Autistic people who experiences alexithymia.

https://emergentdivergence.com/2023/06/30/what-is-alexithymia/

@actuallyautistic @autisticadvocacy #alexithymia #neurodiversity #neurodivergent #neurodivergence #burnout #autisticburnout #atypicalburnout #psychosis #meerkatmode #AuDHD #AuDHDer #Interoception #senses #sensoryprocessingdisorder #sensoryissues #sensorydifferences

Alexithymia is a significant part of the Autistic experience, and it has huge knock on effects for our mental health and wellbeing.

https://emergentdivergence.com/2023/06/28/autism-and-alexithymia-the-fallout-for-our-mental-health/

@actuallyautistic @autisticadvocacy #alexithymia #neurodiversity #neurodivergent #neurodivergence #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #addiction #substanceuse #addictiontreatment #mentalhealthprofessionals #healthcareprofessionals #autismprofessionals #CAMHS

@FrightenedRat @actuallyautistic @academicchatter

An interesting read is also this article:

Alexithymia and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Complex Relationship

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01196/full

#Alexithymia is a personality construct characterized by altered emotional awareness which has been gaining diagnostic prevalence in a range of neuropsychiatric disorders, with notably high rates of overlap with #autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

#psychology #actuallyautistic

@mystique@hachyderm.io @actuallyautistic @academicchatter
"there is a disruption between how autistic individuals subjectively experience their emotions, and their physiological emotional arousal" - yep, my body can thrum with emotion I'm oblivious to until - bam!💥

I'd say what's "core" to autism is the spiky profile due to different connectivity patterns. It tracks that many but not all have #alexithymia & support strategies must be tailored to specific needs in this (& all other) areas. #ActuallyAutistic

Found an amazing list of feelings and needs, from Connecting2Life .net!

BUT I *really* struggled w reading the original graphic design and had to redo it. I just could not intake the information with the way they put it on the page 🥴

Anyway, this list is super useful for #neurodivergent folks w #alexithymia, and everyone really

I created 3 handy flavors:

💙 Google doc
💙 Big printable PDF
💙 Editable Canva design

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JUpvHzsfuw0A9VZCdWTckNk8YPY76u5NTio6OzTIj24/edit?usp=sharing

When checking in with yourself means “no one home”
A common phrase I see not just in yoga classes, but among coaches in general (especially the short social media posts designed to garner interaction and feed the algorithm) is to "check in with your b
https://ayt.chickenyogi.com/when-checking-in-with-yourself-means-no-one-home/
#Autism #ForYogaTeachers #Perioperception #TraumaInformedYoga #alexithymia #BodyAwareness #BodyCheckIn #EmotionalAwareness #interoception #NervousSystem #PTSD

My wish for today? I wish the elder adults in my life had access to the online #autism community and books. And right now, specifically around #alexithymia & #grief. I would give up a lot to be able to distill what I’ve learned and gift it to them in a concise absorbable way. I’ll keep building knowledge with them, but I wish I could share the knowledge and support I have access to in bigger, faster tangible ways. 💔 @actuallyautistic #SocialDeterminantsOfHealth #autistic #dyslexia

@morothar I am very much similar - I find I can't enjoy "big" good things in the moment because I am too overwhelmed. My feelings are often delayed though, so I can feel some of the good things a day or a week later, but it is confusing.

I assumed this is just the way I am and that I wouldn't be able to change it, so very interested to hear what others have to say.

#alexithymia #actuallyautistic

Autistic people and suicidality
#Autism
#Suicide
#Camouflaging
#Alexithymia
#RepetativeThoughts
#LackOfSupport
https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/suicide-research

I'm noticing I'm experiencing #alexithymia more often atm. Do any #ActuallyAutistic peeps here have any advice on how to process feeling like shit seemingly "out of the blue"?

Like rn, I just feel really... Out of sorts? Like overwhelmed, a little upset and in some sort of emotional raw state. But I dont really know the root cause. There's a lot going on, so its difficult to figure out what triggers are!

The ins and outs of #alexithymia
https://open.spotify.com/episode/55IkjLAgPUfBU5edhW8Kvz

Yet another place where semantic specificity can cause an impact is in #alexithymia. If you experience what you recognize as 10 different, easily distinguished feelings, but other people only use 1 word for all of them, you may have trouble recognizing the correspondence between that 1 word and all those different things you feel. At an even more extreme level of semantic hyerspecificity, it might be the case that you experience every emotional state as sufficiently different from all the ones that came before it that every single emotion you experience feels novel, making it impossible to learn any correspondence to emotion words or methods of dealing with those emotions.

Not my graphic, but was REALLY helpful for me. I only recently learned about alexithymia, but I have suffered from it my entire life. Together with being autistic, it has had major, unwelcome impacts on my life. #AuthenticSelf #Autism #Alexithymia #Unmasking #AutisticUnmasking #SelfDiscovery