Living with Alexithymia
By Andie Coston, QMHP
“Words matter and the right words matter most of all. In the end, they’re all that remains of us.”
-John Birmingham
In 1972, Peter Snifneos coined a word for the inability to put words to our feelings. He called it alexithymia; which is loosely translated from Greek, “without speech.” While Alexithymia quickly became a clinical word, there are other words for this concept such as, ineffable, leucocholy, nebulous, speechless, or the very new made-up word, “exulansis” from John Koening’s 2021 book, “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.” Ironically, each word provides a word for not being able to find words for our feelings or emotions.
One of the tools I use regularly in my office is the feelings wheel. I have it on a pillow that serves the purpose of helping my clients find the right words for what they are feeling. As a side perk, the pillow also provides comfort as they hold it, lean on it, or even sometimes even punch it. (I have a separate pillow for screaming.) Many times in our lives we lack the right words or language for what we are feeling in the now, or for an experience from our past. Why? Because when we are living through an experience that is too overwhelming for our bodies, our brain shuts off direct communication with the part of it that can access words. Instead, it re-routes those memories to a different place and those memories are stored in a different way. They are not whole. They are fragmented. They are feelings and visuals, but not words.
Later, when we go to talk about those experiences, we will be able to recall the emotions and sometimes the visuals, but may struggle to find the words to describe what we are feeling and seeing. For those who experienced these traumas as children, or for those who the event was severe, we may not even understand what is happening and why we are feeling the way we are. The new buzzword for this experience is becoming “triggered.” To heal these memories, we have to extract them from the wrong place, give those feelings and visuals words or a narrative, and then place them in the correct place.
How do we do this? There is not a “one size fits all” approach to finding the words for our feelings. There is still a stigma surrounding therapy, or counseling, that the therapist gives you the words, or tells you what to do, or how to feel. This is not the case. A good therapist is a guide that hands you the tools you need to discover or build the words yourself. Some of these tools are talk therapy, Narrative Therapy, or Dialectical therapy. If the traumas are hidden deep or severely fragmented, there are heavier tools such as Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), EFT, Art therapy, or Neurofeedback. The goal of all of these tools is to help you find the words to describe your feelings while not becoming triggered. Does this mean you are “cured?” No. But it means you have a voice in your own story and that’s pretty powerful.
If you would like to schedule an appointment with one of our therapists please check out our website here:
www.TheMentalWellnessCenter.com
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