Alexithymia & Autism
Disclaimer: Any views, opinions and tips on this blog are personal and belong solely to myself (Kyra) and don’t represent the views of affiliated professionals and organisations. Additionally, I’m not a professional advisor regarding Autism and the content produced on this blog is solely from my own experiences.
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Imagine the confusion you would feel if you’re unable to identify whether your friend is annoyed, or unable to understand why you’re nervous around a particular person. It’s assumed that most people recognise when themselves or others are feeling a certain way. However, there are people who have difficulty with identifying and understanding emotions.
““Alexithymia refers to having trouble with identifying, understanding and describing emotions.””
Although some non-Autistic people have alexithymia, it’s been largely found that 1 in 5 Autistic people have alexithymia. In a recent study by Kinnard, Stewart and Tachanturia (2019), it was found that 49.93% of Autistic people compared to 4.89% of non-Autistic people have alexithymia.
Alexithymia and Autism
Everyone who has alexithymia will experience it differently, but there are common experiences of alexithymia in the Autistic community.
Firstly, alexithymia is linked with interoception, the ability to sense internal signals in your body. Interoception allows us to identify when we need the toilet or when we’re in pain. Many of us struggle to link our body sensations to our emotions, as our emotions allow us to understand when our body needs something. For example, I tend to ignore my toilet needs when I’m hyper-fixated on something. Even if my body is telling me I need to go, I’m so engrossed in maintaining my fixation that I ignore it.
Secondly, it’s also difficult with how we experience emotions. For some, it’s difficult to match our body language or facial expressions to how we feel internally. As a result, we may over-exaggerate or underperform our emotions. For instance, for my 21st birthday, my housemates threw a Harry Potter movie night with home-based treats. I remember one of them asking if I liked what they did, as I didn’t show happiness or excitement on my face. Although I knew I was grateful and happy, I forgot to show my feelings on my face too.
Lastly, a common trait of alexithymia that some Autistic people experience is having difficulty interpreting the emotions of other people. This means that some of us find it hard to distinguish between some or all emotions, such as anger, happiness or annoyance. I tend to ask people “how they’re feeling” because I believe that it’s safer than making assumptions. This is especially true when it’s people I don’t know or I find it hard to interpret their facial expressions or body language.
What Next?
Although alexithymia has caused difficulties in some areas of my life, such as friendships and work, knowing that I have alexithymia has allowed me to reconnect with my body by learning how to take care of myself. For instance, scheduling times of rest throughout the week to avoid a burnout and taking supplements to reduce discomfort.
If you would like to learn more about alexithymia and Autism, I would highly recommend reading Embrace Autism’s blog post on it here. They dive deep into the scientific side of the relationship between alexithymia and Autism (for the Autistic scientists out there).
There’s limited research on the intersectionality between race, disability and gender, and how it amplifies stereotypical images of specific groups, especially for Black Autistic women.