#identifying emotions

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Alexithymia

Difficulty expressing emotions & feelings to others.

Difficulty recognising others emotions & feelings.

Difficulty differentiating between physical & emotional sensations.

Difficulty identifying & communicating sensory needs.

[labelleizzy]

How to understand your emotions: since no one ever teaches us this.

Twenty years of journalling and therapy, basically, summed up here.

Consider pausing the video after every description to digest what she says when a concept is new, she talks quickly and the video is tightly edited.

[lunechante]

Thoughts on love, friendship and attachment

1.

During my autism diagnosis process, I was asked whether I know the difference between a friend and a colleague. ‘Of course I do’ I protested. It is only now, months later that I realise I don’t. I know the difference between a good colleagues and one I find it hard to work with. To me the first one is a friend. But I don’t know what friend is. I know that there are some colleagues I was very close to. Some I lost touch with as I physically moved away. Some I lost touch with because I realised I could not understand their way of thinking, their values any longer and I had no energy leery to spend trying. Some I still hang out with occasionally. Some I still often spend time with. I know for sure the latter are friends. But what about the ones I rarely see? We love our scarce time together. And the ones I lost to the distance? Were they once friends but not anymore? How can you tell someone’s your friend? When after 5 minutes you tell them your most intimate thought, even though a few month later distance splits you and you never even contact each other again?

What makes a friend a friend? Amongst the people I call my friends, I know that anytime on reaches out in need for support, especially emotional, I am there, available. Open to their needs. I can listen, help you distract your mind, give advice, just let me know. But when I reach out to a friend, and they’re not here, ever, are they friends? Without reciprocity?

I did at some point manage to make choice. Or maybe they were not choices. Let go of some people who were bringing to much stress that wasn’t balanced with enough good times spent together. Because I did not crave spending time with them, anymore.

An other thing I don’t understand is love. I genuinely think they are connected, friendship and love, but I can’t define them. Can’t pinpoint the feelings. I know I love my parents. My sister. Most of my students. I think I love my friends. What makes me think so is that I want to be with them, even though it takes a lot of effort. Both arranging to see them and seeing them is exhausting. Seeing them is usually a really nice time, and I never regret it, but it’s a social interaction: draining - though familiarity makes it easy. But arranging takes twice the amount of energy. The more the merrier to me is rather the more the harder. In order to enjoy the time spent together, I have to make sure that I won’t be tired already. That means planning what, when and where we’re gonna do, but also planning the rest of the day in accordance, to end up with the appropriate number of spoons (or at least try). That often also includes planning the previous and following days for that event. For years I have been the planner. Now I have identified that all this drains me, the reason why and how. It’s labelled. Yet they still expect me to deal with it. Some keep (or have now started) acting in a way that prevents any of this planning. Seems like things just can’t change. When I try expressing my needs, they don’t even respond. So I keep exhausting myself. I feel like I’m trying my hardest, but cannot be who I am. Cannot be respected for who I am. Cannot get our relationship to become healthy for me. Yet I don’t want to lose them. And I have no idea who to turn to. To be understood. I feel stuck.

[feelgoodagain]

identifying emotions taken from happy twins 11:11 on youtube

[ub-sessed]

My daughter refused to eat her lasagna because it fell apart and then screamed at her dad when he made fun her for it so I just noped right out of there and hid in my room reading fanfiction. I re-emerged a couple hours later to discover that nobody put her uneaten lasagna in the fridge and now it's been wasted.

My brain: I'm a terrible person.

So that's guilt, I guess?

[unwelcome-ozian]

[babbitsaleratus]

I've been working on emotional identification! I've had trouble recognizing emotions, which makes it super hard to deal with them. I made a poster to remind myself to go through this process whenever I feel a Seemingly Unexplainable Icky.

[s100031]

10:53 a.m.

October 14 ‘23

I love this video.💞 for all the people who have a tough time identifying their emotions.

This made me realize that I was not completely lost when it came to understanding my emotions.

This year I’ve experienced feelings like being dumbfounded, humiliated and devastated. That second emotion is dangerous. Humiliation differs from anger, as anger is closely connected to feelings of sadness.