💡New commentary out : "Why #Alexithymia Matters: A Process-Based Framework for a #Transdiagnostic Approach to #Psychopathology" in Clinical Psychology: Science and Pratice, with Olivier Luminet and Kristy Nielson

🔗https://doi.org/10.1037/cps0000332

New preprint: I propose epiphanesthesia as a candidate third functional category of interoceptive content, distinct from homeostatic and affective signals, with a neurobiological hypothesis and four falsifiable predictions involving a dissociation in high-alexithymia individuals.

Critical reading welcome before peer review. Boost toward interoception/alexithymia researchers appreciated.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20700796

#Interoception #Alexithymia #Preprint #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodiversity #AuDHD

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with this singer. There is something about her voice that manages to bypass my alexithymia and shake me to my core.

https://youtu.be/r6L-GUOAhGo?is=DozvPm2Jx2FpHZYO

#music #alexithymia #Neurodiversity #ActuallyAutistic #Maphra

Some people read their feelings like a thermometer. Others look, and the feeling stays unreadable. That's alexithymia - difficulty identifying and naming your own emotions, common among autistic and ADHD folk. It isn't an absence of feeling; the body responds, but the label comes slowly or not at all. We've written about what helps, including a body-up approach.

https://tslr.to/Ed7Akp #Alexithymia #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent

My (#hyperallistic) wife and I have been watching the series "Atypical", about an #autistic high-schooler. Even though the series appears to be better than its reputation, I haven't enjoyed it as much as I expected to, because of an inability to identify with the autistic protagonist Sam. And it isn't just the age difference; I remember quite vividly what high school was like. It's more that I'm atypical even among the atypical — different from Sam in several ways:

(1) #Monotropism versus #kaleidotropy: Sam has a few stereotypically restricted and repetitive interests; for example, Antarctic penguins. Any one of my interests, viewed in isolation, might look like that from the outside — yet unpredictably, at any time, they can easily be pushed aside by other, even more fascinating special interests.

(2) Sensation avoidance versus sensation seeking: Sam must wear noise-cancelling headphones to avoid shutdowns and meltdowns, for example. I do have some sensation-avoidant characteristics; in particular, I detest clothing tags as torture devices. But my attitude toward bright light is an example of the opposite tendency. I wish the bright fluorescent panels at work were even brighter; it annoys me when old ones that are starting to dim aren't promptly replaced. And both at home and at work, I find myself staring at light sources without even thinking about it. It's a stim, or would be if I didn't consciously restrain myself from doing it, reminding myself that it isn't good for my eyes.

(3) Visual thinking versus verbal thinking: although Sam is quite articulate in words, he has a special talent for drawing, and at least some tendency toward "thinking in pictures". Although I have a vivid visual imagination, I can't really draw or paint at all; and even when I see vivid images in my mind, "left-brain" abstraction, logic, and calculation remain firmly in the driver's seat. I have a tendency to remember generalizations, and forget the examples or statistics that established them — which can be inconvenient when I'm trying to persuade someone else to agree.

(4) #Alexithymia versus no alexithymia: Sam has almost as much difficulty perceiving his own emotions as in reading other people's. For example, several episodes are devoted to his struggles to decide whether or not he is in love. By contrast, although I have stereotypically autistic difficulties in reading other people's emotions from their speech and behavior, I have never had any difficulty at all in perceiving my own emotions.

I'd be interested in hearing other people's reactions to the series "Atypical", or to the contrasts I've drawn here.

@autistics

I downloaded a couple of apps that were recommended on the AuDHD Flourishing podcast episode about alexithymia - Animi, and How We Feel.

I've only tested them briefly, but I'm not sure they'll work for me. Perhaps I'm judging too soon, but...

1/

#Alexithymia

For years I thought my emotional system was defective. I was wrong.
Alexithymia is not an absence. It is a “low-noise” operating system optimized for logic rather than biochemical storms. I explore this paradox between neurodivergence and neural architecture in this essay.
You can read it for free (no paywall) here:
https://medium.com/the-unexpected-autistic-life/the-fish-that-no-longer-wanted-to-fly-06a1305113cb?sk=e6828f387679f8ff43429d287970dff4

#autism #actuallyautistic #psychology #audhd #alexithymia #neurodiversity #neurodivergent #science

This has been percolating in my #neurodivergent head for a while now...

I don't think the #autism #spectrum is an adequate way to view autism in the modern context of #neurodiversity.

I think there's a much broader neurodivergence spectrum that encompasses autism, #ADHD, #alexithymia, #RSD, #dyslexia, sensory processing disorder, etc etc.

Us #neurodifferent peeps are so often such an unseparable coagulation of many of the above, it's the only perspective that makes sense to me.

Thoughts?