Alexithymia
Difficulty identifying and describing your own emotions. Affects ~10% of the general population and ~50% of autistic people. Not the absence of emotions — the inability to label them.
Alexithymia (literally "no words for emotions") means you experience emotions but can't identify or articulate them. You might feel physical sensations (stomach tension, chest tightness) without connecting them to specific emotions.
Signs: when asked "how do you feel?" you genuinely don't know; you confuse physical sensations with emotions; you describe situations instead of feelings; you realize hours later what you were feeling.
Autism connection: ~50% of autistic people have alexithymia (compared to ~10% general population). This is often misread as "lacking empathy" — autistic people DO feel emotions (often very intensely), they just can't always identify or express them.
Helps: emotion wheels/charts, body-emotion mapping (where do you feel each emotion physically?), journaling, and therapy focused on emotional literacy.
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