Alexithymia, Interoception and The Murky Emotional Stew

The complicated relationship neurodivergent folks have with our emotions

Photo by Hannah Wei on Unsplash

My mother used to cook a dish made by stewing lamb chops with vegetables until it all became a grayish-brown slop. The ingredients were indistinguishable, their color and flavor long gone.

I hated it. My heart would sink when I learned that was to be the evening meal. The most I could hope for was masking it with bread and butter.

Sometimes my emotional life feels like that slop. My mood is murky and featureless and I can’t identify what contributed to it. I’m filled with dread and doom but I have no idea why.

There’s no precipitating event. More likely there’s an objectively minor event — a throwaway comment, observation, something in the news. I overlook it at the time and may not understand the significance of until much later — if at all.

I can almost hear the cogs turning in my brain as they plunge me into darkness. It is surprising but at the same time inevitable because this has been my life for as long as I can remember. Here it is again, the sinking.

My emotions live in a foreign country

It is only now, on the other side of 50 that I am starting to deconstruct the stew…