I can't feel anything

I can't say I've ever been familiar with that word.

I think (tho I can't be certain) that I MAY have experienced that state - on a relatively limited time - after certain devastating emotionally traumatic events. Like a true "state of shock", numbness - a postponement of response. The rational cognitive mind keeps working, making decisions, but if you "feel" anything, it is a sense of extremely deep impervious unflappability. It took me some time to "deprocess" once I was away from the scene... but a full emotional response did not develop more at least a week.

Anyway, I have felt that before - very seldom -- but cetainly just 3 weeks ago. But is that what the term means or what it means to you?

What do you think, Tim, has made you (not) feel this way? And has something like this ever happened before?

Teri

Teri,
If anything i feel too much so i wasn't posting re my experience of it.Just thought it was an interesting article.

Boy, do I feel stupid. I had NO IDEA that was a link. That is why I try to underline my "just words" links so people can find them easily. I have my internet options set to not underline every last url and it doesn't usually cause any sorts of problems -- until it comes to here!

I'll read it and tell you if I can relate at all.

Til later...
Teri

Tim, the topic of Alexithimia is FASCINATING -- and all the labeled MRI photos so you can SEE the brain areas involved.
http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-cant-feel-anything.html

I knew there were a sad number of people without empathy, and without the ability to recognize emotional expression by looking at their faces ... but I had no idea that they had "No Words" to describe their own emotions. Able to describe, "My stomach feels ____" or "my face feels hot and my heart is slamming hard" or "I have a sqeezey cold sensation in my upper chest" or "the tip of my nose is burning"... but not be able to label what those feelings are.

When I was raised, we did NOT talk about feelings. We talked about world politics, government policies, social changes, but no one ever said, "I'm angry" or "I'm sad" or "I'm scared" -- we just reacted to our parents and they reacted to us. But no labels.

When I got married, I had a complete emotional block to talking about inner event things, but in time I learned to put labels to things and open up. But it was hard. It took so long. At first, trying to talk about feelings, I could only get one word at a time out, a half hour between each word. It could take hours to say just one sentence. My husband was very patient. He would simply sit and listen, without a single word, no matter how long it took me. Natural shrink, huh?

When my children were little, part of what I taught them was labeling of emotions. When there were scared or anxious/nervous or whatever, I would ask about how their stomach felt or whatever -- then say, "that feeling in your stomach? It means you feel nervous". Having never had that sort of teaching, I felt it was important for me to teach my own children these skills, this knowledge I never had.

But this article describes these people in the study as ALSO being "concrete" in their thinking. That paragraph said ...

Quote:

People with alexithymia seem unable to fantasize. Many of them report multiple somatic symptoms. It is also associated with hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome, substance use disorders, and some anxiety disorders. Their speech is often concrete, mundane and closely tied to external events. So they will describe physical symptoms rather than emotions, and they don’t understand that their bodily sensations are signals of emotional distress.

I'm glad I taught my children, particularly my younger bipolar badly LD child how to recognize and label her feelings. I realize that children like her are often concrete thinkers -- but I have always been enough in denial to never check it out, to test whether it is there or not. A case of trying to control how many things there are to be sad for...

I strongly recommend the Neurocritic's blog to anyone with curiousity about the mind. He has a great presentation and commentary on these issues for someone who is only 26. and what a personal history he has!!!

He has only been blogging since January and I plan to spend the next few days or wee catching up on his blogs of the past year.

PAGE TO BOOKMARK - http://NeuroCritic.blogspot.com/

Very Interesting article, indeed!! Thank you FireMonkey! I knew that it was a link, so I had gone there to read it before I read the rest of everyone's opinions. I didn't realize that that was the word they used. I'm sure alot of people have had or have this problem.
Makes one think.
Thanks again,
Linda