I feel emotion

53 Ways to Express What You’re Feeling

You can talk about your emotions with practice, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.

Emotions are an essential part of who you are, but they can be messy, complicated, and downright confusing at times. Knowing how to name your emotions and talk about them — with both yourself and others — is a key part of developing emotional health.

You don’t have to navigate the process of identifying your emotions alone.

Paul Ekman, a psychologist and leading researcher on emotions, surveyed more than 100 scientists and used their input to develop what’s known as the Atlas of Emotions.

This online interactive tool breaks down emotions into five main categories:

anger
fear
sadness
disgust
enjoyment

Keep in mind that this is just one way of categorizing emotions. For example, a 2017 study suggests there are 27 categories of emotion.

But Ekman’s concept of five main types of emotion offers a good framework for breaking down the complexity of all the feels. Here’s a look at what each of these five categories involves.

People generally like to feel happy, calm, and good. You might express these feelings by smiling, laughing, or indulging yourself.

You might feel enjoyment when:

You feel close and connected to people you care about.
You feel safe and secure.
You’re doing something that triggers sensory pleasure.
You’re absorbed in an activity.
You feel relaxed and at peace.

How to talk about it

Some words you can use to describe different kinds of enjoyment include:

happiness
love
relief
contentment
amusement
joy
pride
excitement
peace
satisfaction

Was this helpful?

If enjoyment and its related feelings seem out of reach, try to take a look at how other emotions or feelings may be getting in the way, such as:

trouble focusing on what’s happening in the present
worry
stress
a low or anxious mood

Everyone feels sad from time to time. This emotion might relate to a specific event, such as a loss or rejection. But in other cases, you might have no idea why you feel sad.

How to talk about it

When you’re sad, you might describe yourself as feeling:

lonely
heartbroken
gloomy
disappointed
hopeless
grieved
unhappy
lost
troubled
resigned
miserable

Was this helpful?

Sadness can be hard to shake, but depending on your situation, these tips might help:

Mourn. Mourning is a typical part of grief. Whether you’re trying to recover from a loss, breakup, change, or failure to reach a goal, acknowledging your loss can help you accept and work through it. Everyone grieves in their own way, so do what feels right to you. It might help to talk about the pain you’re in, but it also might help to simply sit with your feelings for a while or express them creatively.
Do something meaningful. Doing something to help others or give back to society can help you feel more connected with other people. If you’ve recently lost someone you love, consider finishing a project they cared about or donating your time to a cause they supported.
Reach out for support. This is easier said than done when you’re at a low point. Try to remember the people in your life who care for you and likely want to help you. The pain of heartache does ease with time, even if you can’t imagine it at the moment.

It may help to talk with a therapist if your sadness lingers or begins to have a significant impact on daily life and makes it hard to work, go to school, or maintain your relationships.

Fear happens when you sense any type of threat. Depending on that perceived threat, fear can range from mild to severe.

Keep in mind that the level of fear you feel doesn’t always match up with the intensity of the threat. For example, if you live with anxiety, you might feel fear around situations that don’t actually pose much of a threat — though that doesn’t make the fear any less real.

How to talk about it

Fear can make you feel:

worried
doubtful
nervous
anxious
terrified
panicked
horrified
desperate
confused
stressed

Was this helpful?

Fear is a totally normal emotion — and one that likely kept your ancestors from being eaten alive. There are things you can do to manage this feeling:

Confront fear instead of avoiding it. If you’re afraid of something, whether it’s a serious discussion, meeting new people, or driving, it’s natural to want to stay away from the source of your fear. But this can often make your fear worse. Instead, try to face your fear safely. For example, if you develop a fear of driving, get back in your car and drive again right away. Stick close to home at first if it helps, but don’t avoid it.
Distract yourself from your fear. Sometimes fear can become so overwhelming that it’s hard to think about anything else. But ruminating, or letting the same thoughts play out over and over again, can have a negative impact on your emotional state. It can also make fear worse. If you feel yourself fixating on a worry or source of stress, try to do something distracting. Listen to an audiobook or podcast, cook with a new recipe, or go for a walk or jog with energizing music.
Consider the fear logically. Take a moment to think about your fear. Is there anything you can do about it? Can it actually harm you? What’s the worst thing that could happen if your fear came true? What would you do in that scenario? Knowing how you would deal with your fear can help you feel less afraid.

It’s important to not get discouraged if these tips seem impossible or overwhelming — they can be hard to accomplish on your own.

Consider working with a therapist, who can help you navigate mental health issues around fear, such as:

panic attacks
phobias
anxiety

Anger usually happens when you experience some type of injustice. This experience can make you feel threatened, trapped, and unable to defend yourself.

Many people think of anger as a negative thing, but it’s a normal emotion that can help you know when a situation has become toxic.

How to talk about it

Words you might use when you feel angry include:

annoyed
frustrated
peeved
contrary
bitter
infuriated
irritated
mad
cheated
vengeful
insulted

Was this helpful?

There are a lot of ways to deal with anger, many of which can cause problems for you and those around you.

The next time you find yourself in a huff, try these tips for managing anger more productively:

Take a break. When you feel frustrated, putting some distance between yourself and the upsetting situation can help you avoid in-the-moment reactions or angry outbursts. Try taking a walk or listening to a calming song. While you’re away, take a few minutes to consider what’s causing your anger. Does the situation have another perspective? Can you do anything to make it better?
Express your anger constructively. You might avoid talking about your anger to help prevent conflict. Internalizing can seem like a safe strategy, but your anger can fester, and you may end up holding a grudge. This can affect your interpersonal relationships as well as your emotional well-being. Instead, take time to cool off if you need it, and then try expressing your feelings calmly and respectfully.
Focus on finding a solution. Anger is often difficult to deal with because it makes you feel helpless. Working to solve the problem that’s causing your anger can help relieve this frustration. You may not be able to fix every situation that makes you angry, but you can usually bring about some improvement. Ask other people involved what they think and work together. You can also try asking your loved ones for their input. Different perspectives can help you consider solutions you may not have seen yourself.

Everyone gets angry from time to time. But if you feel like you have anger issues, a therapist can help you develop effective tools for dealing with these emotions.

You typically experience disgust as a reaction to unpleasant or unwanted situations. Like anger, feelings of disgust can help protect you from things you want to avoid.

It can also pose problems if it leads you to dislike certain people, including yourself, or situations that aren’t necessarily bad for you.

How to talk about it

Disgust might cause you to feel:

dislike
revulsion
loathing
disapproving
offended
horrified
uncomfortable
nauseated
disturbed
withdrawn
aversion

Was this helpful?

Disgust can happen as a natural response to something you dislike. In some situations, you might want to work through or overcome your disgust. These strategies can help:

Practice compassion. It’s common to feel uncomfortable when facing things you fear or don’t understand. Many people dislike being around sick people, for example. If you feel disturbed when thinking about sick people, try spending some time with an unwell friend or loved one, or offering to help them out. It’s important to take steps to protect your own health, so first, make sure their illness is not contagious.
Focus on the behavior, not the person. If someone you care about does something that offends or disgusts you, you may disapprove and react by withdrawing, pushing them away, or getting angry. Instead, try talking with that person. For example, if your sister smokes, avoid coughing loudly or making pointed comments about the smell of tobacco. Instead, tell her that cigarette smoke makes you feel sick and you’re concerned for her health. Offer to help her quit or work with her on finding support.
Expose yourself slowly. Some things may turn your stomach no matter what. Maybe you can’t stand any type of creepy-crawly creature but wish you could try gardening. To get over your disgust for worms, you might start by reading about them and looking at pictures of them. If you worry about them getting on your hands, you could try wearing gardening gloves. If you don’t like watching them move, you could try watching short video clips about worms to get used to them before seeing them in real life.

If you feel strong dislike toward a group of people, a specific person, or yourself, consider talking with a therapist about your feelings (noticing a theme here?).

Even if you are not sure exactly what’s behind your disgust, a therapist can help you work through the emotion and explore positive ways of coping with it.

Emotions can be complicated. Some might feel intense, while others seem mild in comparison. You might feel conflicting emotions at any given time.

But emotions can serve a purpose, even when they’re negative. Instead of trying to change the emotions you experience, consider how you react to them. It’s usually the reactions that create challenges, not the emotions themselves.

53 Ways to Express What You’re Feeling

You can talk about your emotions with practice, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.

You don’t have to navigate the process of identifying your emotions alone.

Paul Ekman, a psychologist and leading researcher on emotions, surveyed more than 100 scientists and used their input to develop what’s known as the Atlas of Emotions.

This online interactive tool breaks down emotions into five main categories:

anger
fear
sadness
disgust
enjoyment

Keep in mind that this is just one way of categorizing emotions. For example, a 2017 study suggests there are 27 categories of emotion.

But Ekman’s concept of five main types of emotion offers a good framework for breaking down the complexity of all the feels. Here’s a look at what each of these five categories involves.

People generally like to feel happy, calm, and good. You might express these feelings by smiling, laughing, or indulging yourself.

You might feel enjoyment when:

You feel close and connected to people you care about.
You feel safe and secure.
You’re doing something that triggers sensory pleasure.
You’re absorbed in an activity.
You feel relaxed and at peace.

How to talk about it

Some words you can use to describe different kinds of enjoyment include:

happiness
love
relief
contentment
amusement
joy
pride
excitement
peace
satisfaction

Was this helpful?

If enjoyment and its related feelings seem out of reach, try to take a look at how other emotions or feelings may be getting in the way, such as:

trouble focusing on what’s happening in the present
worry
stress
a low or anxious mood

Everyone feels sad from time to time. This emotion might relate to a specific event, such as a loss or rejection. But in other cases, you might have no idea why you feel sad.

How to talk about it

When you’re sad, you might describe yourself as feeling:

lonely
heartbroken
gloomy
disappointed
hopeless
grieved
unhappy
lost
troubled
resigned
miserable

Was this helpful?

Sadness can be hard to shake, but depending on your situation, these tips might help:

Mourn. Mourning is a typical part of grief. Whether you’re trying to recover from a loss, breakup, change, or failure to reach a goal, acknowledging your loss can help you accept and work through it. Everyone grieves in their own way, so do what feels right to you. It might help to talk about the pain you’re in, but it also might help to simply sit with your feelings for a while or express them creatively.
Do something meaningful. Doing something to help others or give back to society can help you feel more connected with other people. If you’ve recently lost someone you love, consider finishing a project they cared about or donating your time to a cause they supported.
Reach out for support. This is easier said than done when you’re at a low point. Try to remember the people in your life who care for you and likely want to help you. The pain of heartache does ease with time, even if you can’t imagine it at the moment.

It may help to talk with a therapist if your sadness lingers or begins to have a significant impact on daily life and makes it hard to work, go to school, or maintain your relationships.

Fear happens when you sense any type of threat. Depending on that perceived threat, fear can range from mild to severe.

How to talk about it

Fear can make you feel:

worried
doubtful
nervous
anxious
terrified
panicked
horrified
desperate
confused
stressed

Was this helpful?

Fear is a totally normal emotion — and one that likely kept your ancestors from being eaten alive. There are things you can do to manage this feeling:

Confront fear instead of avoiding it. If you’re afraid of something, whether it’s a serious discussion, meeting new people, or driving, it’s natural to want to stay away from the source of your fear. But this can often make your fear worse. Instead, try to face your fear safely. For example, if you develop a fear of driving, get back in your car and drive again right away. Stick close to home at first if it helps, but don’t avoid it.
Distract yourself from your fear. Sometimes fear can become so overwhelming that it’s hard to think about anything else. But ruminating, or letting the same thoughts play out over and over again, can have a negative impact on your emotional state. It can also make fear worse. If you feel yourself fixating on a worry or source of stress, try to do something distracting. Listen to an audiobook or podcast, cook with a new recipe, or go for a walk or jog with energizing music.
Consider the fear logically. Take a moment to think about your fear. Is there anything you can do about it? Can it actually harm you? What’s the worst thing that could happen if your fear came true? What would you do in that scenario? Knowing how you would deal with your fear can help you feel less afraid.

It’s important to not get discouraged if these tips seem impossible or overwhelming — they can be hard to accomplish on your own.

Consider working with a therapist, who can help you navigate mental health issues around fear, such as:

panic attacks
phobias
anxiety

Anger usually happens when you experience some type of injustice. This experience can make you feel threatened, trapped, and unable to defend yourself.

Many people think of anger as a negative thing, but it’s a normal emotion that can help you know when a situation has become toxic.

How to talk about it

Words you might use when you feel angry include:

annoyed
frustrated
peeved
contrary
bitter
infuriated
irritated
mad
cheated
vengeful
insulted

Was this helpful?

There are a lot of ways to deal with anger, many of which can cause problems for you and those around you.

The next time you find yourself in a huff, try these tips for managing anger more productively:

Take a break. When you feel frustrated, putting some distance between yourself and the upsetting situation can help you avoid in-the-moment reactions or angry outbursts. Try taking a walk or listening to a calming song. While you’re away, take a few minutes to consider what’s causing your anger. Does the situation have another perspective? Can you do anything to make it better?
Express your anger constructively. You might avoid talking about your anger to help prevent conflict. Internalizing can seem like a safe strategy, but your anger can fester, and you may end up holding a grudge. This can affect your interpersonal relationships as well as your emotional well-being. Instead, take time to cool off if you need it, and then try expressing your feelings calmly and respectfully.
Focus on finding a solution. Anger is often difficult to deal with because it makes you feel helpless. Working to solve the problem that’s causing your anger can help relieve this frustration. You may not be able to fix every situation that makes you angry, but you can usually bring about some improvement. Ask other people involved what they think and work together. You can also try asking your loved ones for their input. Different perspectives can help you consider solutions you may not have seen yourself.

Everyone gets angry from time to time. But if you feel like you have anger issues, a therapist can help you develop effective tools for dealing with these emotions.

You typically experience disgust as a reaction to unpleasant or unwanted situations. Like anger, feelings of disgust can help protect you from things you want to avoid.

It can also pose problems if it leads you to dislike certain people, including yourself, or situations that aren’t necessarily bad for you.

How to talk about it

Disgust might cause you to feel:

dislike
revulsion
loathing
disapproving
offended
horrified
uncomfortable
nauseated
disturbed
withdrawn
aversion

Was this helpful?

Disgust can happen as a natural response to something you dislike. In some situations, you might want to work through or overcome your disgust. These strategies can help:

Practice compassion. It’s common to feel uncomfortable when facing things you fear or don’t understand. Many people dislike being around sick people, for example. If you feel disturbed when thinking about sick people, try spending some time with an unwell friend or loved one, or offering to help them out. It’s important to take steps to protect your own health, so first, make sure their illness is not contagious.
Focus on the behavior, not the person. If someone you care about does something that offends or disgusts you, you may disapprove and react by withdrawing, pushing them away, or getting angry. Instead, try talking with that person. For example, if your sister smokes, avoid coughing loudly or making pointed comments about the smell of tobacco. Instead, tell her that cigarette smoke makes you feel sick and you’re concerned for her health. Offer to help her quit or work with her on finding support.
Expose yourself slowly. Some things may turn your stomach no matter what. Maybe you can’t stand any type of creepy-crawly creature but wish you could try gardening. To get over your disgust for worms, you might start by reading about them and looking at pictures of them. If you worry about them getting on your hands, you could try wearing gardening gloves. If you don’t like watching them move, you could try watching short video clips about worms to get used to them before seeing them in real life.

If you feel strong dislike toward a group of people, a specific person, or yourself, consider talking with a therapist about your feelings (noticing a theme here?).

Even if you are not sure exactly what’s behind your disgust, a therapist can help you work through the emotion and explore positive ways of coping with it.

Emotions can be complicated. Some might feel intense, while others seem mild in comparison. You might feel conflicting emotions at any given time.

What is alexithymia and how to understand your feelings? It leads not only to problems in interpersonal relationships, but can also cause psychosomatic illnesses. We talked to people living with alexithymia and learned from experts how to deal with it.

"It's like not feeling the taste and smell"

Tatyana, 21 years old

I have schizoaffective disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Asperger's syndrome - the first signs were in adolescence, the diagnoses were made several years ago. As a child, for the first time, I realized that it was difficult for me to define emotions and feelings. I could cry and didn't realize why. Because of the pain or because I'm sad.

When I realize that I feel something, I try to pay attention to the sensations in my body. If heaviness appears in the chest, most likely, these are negative emotions - sadness, sadness, resentment. If warmth is felt in the body and limbs, then it must be positive.

For a long time I did not understand what love and sympathy are and whether I can experience them. I was able to distinguish them from other feelings when I met my boyfriend at the age of eighteen. This is a completely different level of feelings that I felt physically : my heart beat faster when I thought about him, I wanted to be near him, when talking it became hot, my palms sweated, there was a feeling of intoxication in my head. And somehow I realized that this is something new and that I can love someone.

Fear also manifests itself more physically: lack of air, headache, severe tinnitus, spasm in the intestines, muscle stiffness, coldness in the body, trembling. It looks like the beginning of a cold - I would say so that it was more understandable.

The most difficult thing for me is to tell my relatives how I feel if they ask me about it or wait in a conversation for me to say something about emotions. I just feel like I can't find the words for this, it's like there aren't any, and I don't know what to say. At such moments, people think that I do not feel anything, and my silence confuses them.

Sometimes relatives get angry - apparently, they are waiting for an emotional response in the course of a conversation, and I often don’t know what to do, what emotion to show, squeeze out of myself. But I think that they are not angry on purpose. Once I talked with my mother about further education, I explained where and for whom I want to study, to which she replied that I was speaking without interest and emotions, as if I didn’t care.

You seem to be deprived of the opportunity to fully experience emotions. It’s like they don’t exist, and you don’t know what they are, because anger and joy feel equally insipid. For me, it's like living with a constant runny nose and not feeling the taste and smell.

I didn't tell my parents about alexithymia and Asperger's syndrome. They are of the old school, all people with autism for them are those who cannot speak and are kept in boarding schools. Also, we are not very close, and I don’t even know how to gently talk about my states. I tried to explain my mental disorder to my mother, but for her it’s “you can’t control yourself”, so all my stories and articles shown on this topic are useless. I have a physical disability - my parents treat me the way they treat people with disabilities in Russia: they consider me weak and unable to work. They are aware that I am mentally ill, but if you also tell them about problems with emotions and Asperger's syndrome, they will treat me with even more pity and think that I am not like normal children, and that this is their punishment from God. But my young man is aware of my problems, and after he found out about them, we began to understand each other better.

I am in therapy and it is very difficult for me to talk about how I feel about my emotions. But the more time passes, the more I learn to describe my emotions in images. For example, sadness is a dark and cloudy cloud . It's a strange experience, but I like it.

"I was considered a callous and unsociable person"

White, age 35

I have Bipolar 2 disorder. I am currently in remission and continue medication. I have long felt that it is difficult for me to describe emotions and feelings, but for the first time I realized this about ten years ago. Then we often played word games in the company, and several times I got questions of the format “what do you feel about ... (a person, phenomenon, event, and so on)?” Such questions plunged me into a stupor, and at the same time I noticed that other people had no problems with answers. I tried to understand how they find words so quickly, for a while I even suspected that they were making them up on the go. Later, I accidentally stumbled upon an article on alexithymia on the Internet and recognized the familiar symptoms.

In my case, alexithymia does not affect creativity and professional tasks: I love fiction based on the problems of human relationships, sometimes I write prose, poetry, songs myself. Feelings are easier to formulate on behalf of a lyrical hero, besides, this is verbalization training.

But in my personal life and communication with friends, alexithymia leads to problems: relatives often noticed that I had difficulties with expressing emotions - before, they were mostly angry and took the position “why can’t I immediately say normal.” For a long time I was considered a callous and unsociable person, because I did not understand how to express various kinds of empathy. Several times I quarreled with my girlfriend almost to the point of breaking up, because my reaction was “wrong”: it did not correspond to the situation and incorrectly displayed my own emotions.

After I started to warn about my problem, there were fewer conflicts, we started talking more about feelings with loved ones.

I also have trouble making decisions because of the inability to understand what feeling guides the opinion, but this is rather good: you have to learn to look at things from a rational position, fixing the pros and cons, instead of succumbing to emotions.

“My feelings are a mystery to myself”

Anton, 30 years old

Until recently, I did not know about such a problem as alexithymia, but I began to notice that I did not understand my emotions and feelings in my youth. I could not understand how to react to the actions of classmates and friends - when to laugh, get angry and upset. I still can't tell a joke from an insult if it's not obvious. For example, I can be offended to tears if they say “fool” to me in a friendly way, and laugh when I hear a mate addressed to me.

Trying to socialize, I repeated after other people, but it looked awkward, I did not catch the norms. I was bullied at school, but I didn’t know how to react: I was silent on insults, and for a slight irony I could get into a fight, then I was ashamed and apologized.

When I started working, I could not settle down in the team, because I did not read other people's attitude towards me and, accordingly, did not know how I should treat people. Many said that I was being arrogant, which surprised and upset me, because I was just silent all the time. My unsociableness leads to the fact that, despite high professional performance, career growth and a leadership position do not shine for me. In the humanitarian field in which I work, relationships with people, the ability to understand and read the emotions of others, are extremely important, especially if you want to manage a team.

Relations with friends and close people do not develop for the same reason - mutual misunderstanding, which even strong romantic or friendly affection could not overcome. I felt the difference in the direction of these attachments only by the presence of sexual desire, which manifests itself in a standard human way. However, his absence did not stop me from rash acts: I confessed my romantic love to my girlfriends and even friends, although I did not think about sexual relations with them, I was simply drawn to them and in their presence it became physically warm and comfortable. People, to put it mildly, were surprised in response to my proposal to meet, and the guys expressed dislike. Relations with many wonderful people were ruined once and for all, even an apology did not help restore friendship.

And after the breakup, I didn't understand what I was feeling - sometimes I was sad, sometimes I was happy, and it drove me crazy. When the ex-girlfriend moved out from me, my breath often took hold in an empty apartment, my pulse quickened, especially when I recalled our life. The reasons are not clear, because there is nothing to be offended and angry at, because we parted on my initiative. And somehow a friend posted a photo from the party, and everything boiled inside me, my breath also caught (it seems that this is my standard reaction to anything), but I did not understand what was happening inside me. I called him and asked why he went there, which sounded very stupid - he did not understand this question, and I no longer understood why I was asking it, and even in a breaking voice. My friends know that I am not a party lover in principle, and I know this about myself, so I did not hold any claims in my mind, but some emotions were overwhelmed, judging by the physical manifestations. I would call them meaningless, phantom.

Trying to explain to people that I have problems with emotions does not help: even those closest to me are sure that this is a whim and I just don't want to control myself and "try to understand others."

When I first went to a psychiatrist, he said that problems with emotions are a neurosis. I was treated with various drugs for a long time, but the situation did not get better, until now my feelings are a mystery to myself. Psychotherapy is weak, but it helps: the doctor taught to determine how feelings differ from emotions, but it is still difficult to recognize them. I learned that emotion is a small, short-term acute sensation, like a flash, lightning, you don’t have time to think about anything. And a feeling is a long-term state accompanied by a bunch of thoughts. For example, I hit a chair and screamed, my hands clenched, instinctively hit the chair in response - it means that the emotion of anger arose. But I had a colleague at a former job who set me up, and if we went on the same shift, then I felt muscle tension, heart palpitations and often thought about how he could be such a lousy person.

The hardest thing for me is to tell the doctors what I'm experiencing: no matter what words I choose, everything seems like a lie or a fantasy. This applies to both mental and physical sensations. As soon as I go into the office of a gastroenterologist or a therapist and start complaining, I listen to myself more carefully and start thinking that I dreamed the sensations. It’s the same with a psychotherapist and a psychiatrist: it seems that I’m actually a healthy dreamer, because I can’t convey exactly how I feel, and specialists are not telepaths and cannot understand.

"I can't put my feelings into human language"

Kristina, 28 years old

I went to a psychologist with borderline and depression issues, one day he asked me to describe myself and I felt confused because I didn't know Who am I. I told him that I consist of layers: on the outside there is a polite shell, under it is an evil gopnik, and under it is a kind soul that saves everyone, and it is she who is protected by the gopnik. Then again something dark that I do not understand and am afraid to analyze, and so on ad infinitum. Later, these layers emerged into some subpersonalities, and their emotions were perceived as alien, which I cannot understand or control. I gave them names, and they speak in my head like separate parts of me: kind, aggressive, overly emotional, my ordinary.

I can describe my feelings with the help of a table of feelings, in psychotherapy pairs (I studied as a doctor) we were offered to use it to tell others about our feelings. But sometimes I experience things that are not in this table or there is no name for these feelings.

I have developed empathy, I easily understand others, but inside of me is either a mixture [of feelings], or nothing at all. This does not affect my hobby: I draw the necessary emotions for my characters, sometimes the drawing helps me figure out what I feel, or others begin to understand it - sometimes they are horrified. Due to alexithymia, I do not communicate with people much, because I cannot respond with the emotional reactions they need.

For example, if a person raised their voice at me, I may cry, even if I just feel like I'm being pressured, or I get too angry and yell. There is no average response to pressure. If they regret it, I roar.

The most difficult thing is to tell those who expect warmth from me that I experience this warmth, but I don’t show it, because I don’t know how. This feeling is blurred, it is impossible to concretize it in words. Also, I can’t tell people what specifically offended me, because words get stuck or I can’t put feelings into human language. It's hard to be locked up and not understand how I really feel . I ignore my feelings more often than I track.

Alexithymia often leads to psychosomatic manifestations: when I am nervous, the temperature rises to 37–37.5 degrees, pains in the abdomen, heart, head, teeth ache, allergies begin (I itch, I get covered with a rash), breathing problems (I can’t do breath or I don’t feel oxygen in the air), anything can hurt at all, regardless of the absence of physical pathology.

Why does alexithymia occur and how can it be dealt with?

Alexithymia is most characteristic of autism spectrum disorders, but can accompany any mental disorder (depression, personality disorders, etc.). It is associated with the mechanism of formation and maintenance of a psychosomatic symptom, but not the only reason for its occurrence. Clients with alexithymia, as a rule, first of all turn to somatic doctors with physical discomfort.

According to the results of some studies, difficulties with the expression of emotions are more common in men than in women, alexithymia is practically not studied in people of a different gender identity. However, the quality of most research on alexithymia is quite low.

The exact causes of this condition have not yet been identified. There is evidence that mirror neurons are involved in the occurrence of alexithymia, structures such as the amygdala, insula and cerebellum are involved. Violation of dopaminergic metabolism in these structures is associated with manifestations of alexithymia.

Nevertheless, the environment plays a significant role in the development of difficulties with understanding one's emotions: whether the child sees the expression of emotions, hears their names, whether they tell him what emotions are, how they manifest themselves.

Alexithymia can lead to difficulties in building or maintaining interpersonal relationships - in these cases, I would recommend contacting a specialist. If you notice that it is difficult for you to interact with people, there is a feeling that no one understands your goals, motives, and it is often difficult for you to understand people when they talk about their emotions, you can independently study materials about emotions, gradually learn to notice them from yourself and other people, observe them and express.

By itself, this problem does not require medical treatment. A psychotherapist works with alexithymia at the beginning of any psychotherapy, since it is important for a specialist to understand how the client feels in problem situations.

Relatives can help a person by talking about their emotions and thereby showing the experience of living them, and also by asking about the person's experiences, thereby drawing his attention to the emotional sphere.

Alexithymia is indeed common among my clients and makes interaction in the first meetings much more difficult. At the beginning of the work, the specialist collects information about what is happening with the client (about his behavior, thinking, emotions), of course, alexithymia hinders this process. In such cases, we dedicate several meetings to the client to find out what emotions are, how they manifest themselves, how they feel, learn to notice them in themselves, name them, observe them. The most difficult for me case of alexithymia in a client required eight meetings of work on the identification, observation, description and expression of emotions.

How does alexithymia affect physical health?

Alexithymia can lead to the occurrence of psychosomatic symptoms - pain, squeezing, bursting, tingling and others, but at the same time, according to tests and studies, doctors do not find anything.

There is evidence that patients with higher levels of alexithymia suffering from bronchial asthma require longer hospital stays. In patients with primary arterial hypertension, with the severity of alexithymia, higher blood pressure numbers are noted, and hypertension may be resistant to drug therapy. There is a relationship between the severity of alexithymia and the blood levels of cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone and norepinephrine. In patients who have difficulty with the perception of emotions, there is a decrease in immunity . Higher levels of alexithymia in studies have been shown by patients with medically unexplained symptoms.

People suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson's disease, chronic pain syndrome, skin diseases, bronchial asthma, coronary heart disease, gastric and/or duodenal ulcer, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease also showed a higher level of alexithymia than in the rest of the population.

Alexithymia: an emotional gap hiding under the mask of normality

Alexithymia is a psychological state of a person, in which a person, having lost the ability to determine and display his own emotions, is forced to try to look normal in the eyes of others. The psychiatrist Saito Satoru talks about this disorder using examples from his own practice, as well as on the example of the characters of the story "Man of the convenience store" ( Kombini ningen , by Murata Sayaka), awarded the Akutagawa Prize for 2016.

In psychiatry there is a term "alexithymia". It consists of the negative prefix "ἀ" and two stems: "λέξις" (word) and "θυμός" (feelings, emotions). This term describes a psychological state where a person is unable to evaluate and describe their own emotions. In order to have a holistic view of one's own life, the individual must be aware of and distinguish what he feels. However, there are people who are incapable of this - they do not understand in what situations this or that emotion arises in them. Features of alexithymia appear in such people in those moments when they are overcome by anger, sadness, or any other strong feeling that they are not able to define and express.

In fact, with the exception of babies, there are practically no people in modern society who would cry or scream, completely without restraint. It is understood that an adult member of society should control himself and not show such primitive emotions outwardly. And if he is not able to restrain himself, then he needs treatment.

Young people striving to conform to the notions of "normality" learn from the older generation to suppress the expression of emotions. Over time, some of them lose the ability to recognize their own feelings. Suppressed anger, sadness become the cause of psychosomatic diseases and hypochondriacal disorder. Hypochondriacs are characterized by a clear manifestation of somatic symptoms in the absence of any significant pathological abnormalities. As a result of an anxious set and constant concern about health, the functions of the heart, gastrointestinal tract and other autonomically innervated systems can be disturbed. And this, in turn, leads to the development of arterial hypertension, peptic ulcer, etc. That is why hypochondria is considered a psychosomatic disease.

However, with alexithymia, not only negative emotions are blurred, but also positive ones - a person is not able to experience such feelings as joy or inspiration. The loss of the ability to experience pleasure is called anhedonia. This disorder is characterized by a loss of motivation for activities that the individual enjoyed in the past. The development of anhedonia is an important indicator in the diagnosis of pathological depression.

Under the guise of normality

I have my own psychiatric practice in Tokyo, and I encounter people suffering from depression and hypochondria on a daily basis at work. During the first meeting, most of them show no signs of suffering or despair. And I have to pull off their mask of normality, under which they hide their illness, which needs treatment.

Cover of "Convenience Store Man" (illustration courtesy of Bungei Shunju)

I thought about this when I read the novel "Convenience Store Man" for which Murata Sayaka recently won the Akutagawa Prize. Indeed, in this story we are talking about a person suffering from alexithymia. The heroine, a woman named Kokura Keiko, worked for 18 years as a saleswoman in the same minimarket ( combi) - it is on her behalf that the story is being told. She made it a rule never to show her feelings or express judgment. Instead, she has created a "patchwork personality" by copying the behavior and adopting the habits and mannerisms of the women around her (mostly work colleagues), whom she considers correct and admires for their style. This effective and convenient strategy allows it to adapt to its own environment. The moment she arrives at work shortly before the start of her shift and changes into her work uniform, Keiko becomes a function, a convenience store man. Now all that is required of her is to perform the prescribed duties for the appointed time, using the skills she has learned and the judgments she has borrowed appropriate to the occasion. The school years of the heroine passed under the endless complaints of parents who were dissatisfied with their individualistic daughter, and constant pressure from school teachers. As an adult, she is grateful for the opportunity to hide her identity under a faceless uniform.

However, when Keiko suddenly realizes that people around her feel sorry for her - a single woman who worked as a saleswoman in a minimarket for 18 consecutive years - she becomes extremely worried. At this moment, she meets a new minimarket employee, a man who is the complete opposite of her. He is convinced that society has turned its back on him and that everyone is hounding and persecuting him. So he doesn't even try to appear normal, and very soon he is fired from the convenience store. Keiko invites him to stay with her. At first glance, it seems that they are a very harmonious couple, but their relationship is built on a cold calculation. For a workaholic Keiko, this is an opportunity to create the appearance of a romantic relationship; for a lazy man, life with Keiko is an excellent hiding place from the injustice of a cruel world. But their life together upsets the fragile mental balance that Keiko has maintained and strengthened in herself throughout all these eighteen years.

The caustic remarks of her roommate expose her spiritual emptiness, the gaping emptiness of her personal space, which Keiko had refused to notice for so many years. Refusal, denial is a primitive psychological defense mechanism, a subconscious attempt to ignore the problem, the existence of which is obvious to any outside observer. And the one who denies the obvious looks infantile and eccentric in the eyes of others.

Realizing the hopelessness of his situation, Keiko quits his job and ceases to be a "man of the convenience store." She has no choice but to lie all day under the covers, on the futon, which she spread out inside the closet. I call this phase "bed addiction" and I believe that it is the starting point for the development of other types of addiction: from drug or alcohol addiction to sexual addiction. In fact, both addictive behavior and "show normality" are desperate attempts to get out of the quicksands of the emotional vacuum.

This story has a somewhat happy ending - Keiko starts working at the convenience store again. But I do not think that this will make many readers laugh too much, as they notice the connection between excessive obsession with work and the meaninglessness of the heroine's personal space.

Refusal to feel

"Bed addiction" is essentially a regression to the so-called "primal sleep" - a dream-like state characteristic of infants. This is exactly the state that heroin addicts so passionately desire to achieve. A similar process of regression is also experienced by recluses.0129 hikikomori . Every day this quagmire sucks in hikikomori more and more, and getting them out of it is not an easy task.

Here it is important to pay attention to one point. A baby who falls asleep while nursing and wakes up to find that he has been taken from his mother's breast will feel restless, angry, flushed and crying.

Older babies (between a year and a half) also live in a world of basic emotions such as anger, anxiety, depression, or sadness. But adults hikikomori are deaf to these emotions. At first they themselves refuse to feel anything, and then they simply lose this ability and fall into a state of alexithymia.

Break free from the spell of "normality"

Such people sometimes come to my clinic for help, mistaking their condition for depression. For example, a housewife came to me who told me that after graduating from university she got a job at a firm right away, but worked for only a year, because office work seemed boring to her. She then found a part-time job at a sadomasochistic (SM) club, a place she liked so much that she worked there for four years. Shortly before she turned thirty, she resigned from the club, judging that sooner or later she would have to do it anyway. Some time later, after an active search for a suitable party ( konkatsu ) she got married, had a baby, and began to lead a "normal" life as a housewife. And then she suddenly found that she spends most of the day in bed or in close proximity to it.

Her husband - a typical sissy, who also suffers from atopic dermatitis - quickly realized that his wife would not take care of him to the same extent as his mother did, and divorced her. At the time of her visit to me, about a month had passed since the divorce.

I think some of my colleagues would have diagnosed this patient with depression or adjustment disorder and would have given her antidepressants. But I noticed how strong her desire to be, or at least seem normal.

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