The Dimensions of Emotions
In my autistic diagnosis assessment I was described as having ‘difficulties in understanding others emotions’, it was described as a ‘deficit’. I know, doesn’t sound great for a therapist does it?
“Explain what the feeling angry is?” asked the psychologist in my assessment.
“Well, what is the context? Is it me who is angry or someone else? Do you know why they are angry? Are they angry with someone else or about something? Can you give me some more information?” I responded.
“Just think of a time you were angry and explain what that emotion is” the psychologist said with a perplexed look on her face.
And so, still confused by the question but now panicking I needed an answer, I reeled off an example about an injustice I had experienced which left me feeling angry. Only, I wasn’t just angry. I felt fearful, sad, judged, rejected, tearful, and many more emotions. I described it as a tundra of hail but surrounded by concerned faces.
For the psychologist, this explanation seemed alarming, giving the impression that I didn’t know what anger was. They perceived me to have a ‘difficulty’ or ‘deficit’ in recognising and understanding emotions, because I hadn’t given them a one liner out of a dictionary on what anger is.
The problem here, is that I don’t have a two-dimensional landscape of emotions. I don’t just see a flat 2D colour wheel individualising and separating emotions. With synaesthesia and with a hyper-empathy gauge I don’t just feel an emotion either. I see it, I sense it, I can feel it in every part of my body, I can see various images or colours with it and it’s not just one emotion. It is a deep mix of mind-body feelings. It is hugely complex experience and yes, sometimes too complex to give a one liner about.
The description of Alexithymia is ‘the inability to recognise or describe one’s own emotions’. I am not saying this statement isn’t true for some. I am questioning whether we are looking at this with a neurotypical lens, a two-dimensional perhaps narrow view of a really rather complex subject.
Sometimes for me and my clients, an emotion isn’t a word. It’s a sound, an image, a mix! Sometimes, the words just haven’t been invented yet for the feelings that we have. They don’t fall into a category yet on the 2D colour wheel! There isn’t a colour for them, its a deluge of colours and textures.
Our environment has a huge impact on our mind’s ability to access, process, and then communicate. Being in an environment that feels calm for us can hugely enable the ability to access emotions and untangle their variety and depth. Our interception senses can get totally lost, especially when in an environment which doesn’t suit our way of being. How can we even begin to process how we are feeling, or what our bodily senses are doing when in a stressful environment with neurotypical expectations of what that emotion should look like?
I like to think I don’t have a deficit in understanding emotions either in myself, or others. I hope and I believe that my detailed mind and my ability to take in huge amounts of information from just an expression my client may have, just from a sigh or the look in their eyes is not a deficit. I don’t think being able to deeply feel the emotions of others is a deficit. I also love that can give the validating time and space to express and allow my clients to express their emotions by whatever means feels right. A beat of a drum, a description of an image, colours, a song.
I find the explanation of feelings from my clients absolutely amazing and it’s not always in the form of mouth words. It is at such a greater depth and breadth. It is 3D, heck, it is 4D!
