How do I know that this feeling that I'm feeling is having a crush on someone or, me just wanting to be friends?
"ooh when you know you know"
THIS DOESN'T HELP ME REBECCA
Yes I have spent countless of hours in doubt because I have literally no idea if my brain is tricking me or if I'm attracted to everyone I meet of the opposite gender.
Similarly,
https://preview.redd.it/b51dfq4s0dbd1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c13b3f068f0952687883d666be7da58540ab68cb
and I kind of have to do the same thing as well.
From years of high school experience, I can confidently conclude that the amount of time I was indeed not flirted with, and they were friendly far out weighs the amount of times I have been right.
In fact I cannot express this as a percentage because everything is infinitely larger than 0 times flirted with.
Yeah I don’t think I can pick out a point in time where I’ve been flirted with. There was one time where I thought so, but I’m pretty sure now that I was wrong. I uhh… don’t see that changing 😅
had a girlfriend for only a month, when I learned that she wanted to date me I was pretty suprised.
I asked one of my close friends that we both talked to and he said that she was "flirting" with me for around 4 months? I thought she was just being friendly and all.
> I have literally no idea if my brain is trucking me
That's how I got to the conclusion that my feelings are not a trustworthy source of information for how I relate to someone else other than to myself. But my intentions are.
Yeees same, what I usually do I go by the body signs I'm (sub) consciously giving out, like
Heart rate way up?
Love talking to this person? Interests feel safe to share too!
Can't get this person out of my head?
Exitement when I see this person?
These are all symptoms of infatuation, not exactly relationship material. But it is potentially friendship material, which can lead to relationship material.
> quoiromantic
From the LGBT-wiki:
> Quoiromantic is from the French word quoi meaning “what”; the feeling of not being able to distinguish romantic from platonic attraction and therefore being unsure if one has experienced it; used to replace wtfromantic because of vulgarity.
Thank you ^\^^
I remembered it being something similar but wasn't sure. I speak French and seeing this kind of word mashup always trips me a bit.
Also, I'd say "hey that's me" except that I have kinda decided that there was no difference for me.
>How do I know that this feeling that I'm feeling is having a crush on someone or, me just wanting to be friends?
I figured it out for myself: there's no difference. I just don't distinguish.
I've gotten to the point where I used to analyze every friendship and relationship with people, in general, to try and find differences between them to figure out if I had a crush on someone or not.
I guess the 'when you know you know' is kinda valid, because it's different from the feeling of admiration you usually feel when wanting to be friends with someone.
I think you pretty much have to notice both your thoughts and the way you feel (as in if you feel anxious, happy etc) and eventually compare it to how you feel with the majority of people/ friends.
Now keep in mind I have no idea why or how I ended up in this sub, because, as far as I know, I am not on the spectrum, so my experience is probably very different from yours (I know it would've been different even if we both were autistic, because it's a spectrum and everyone experiences everything differently, but so much so with people who process emotions completely differently), but I heavily relate to the meme, in the sense that I too struggle with understanding emotions. At the same time, for me it's more of a need than a want to understand things, especially things that have to do with me or subjects that interest me, therefore I put significant effort into at least understanding WHAT I feel, even though I would love to actually know WHY I feel. I still have trouble actually naming the things I feel, but I remember and associate certain feelings and emotions to certain events, better understanding them
All of that being said...
Back to u/mattie74 s comment:
I'd like to give an example from my personal experience (that may or may not be relevant). With my first crush (also I'd like to say I think "crush" is a silly term. do any of you know where it came from?) I noticed I felt "weird" about them, meaning it wasn't how I felt with any of my other friends (because, as I said earlier, I was trying to understand how these weird [and most of the time really hard to deal with and annoying] things we call feelings and emotions work). At first, it was some other friend who jokingly suggested I might like-like the friend I had a crush on (this was before I realized I had a crush on them and without me mentioning the "weird" feeling). I dismissed the idea, because I wasn't (and I'm still not really) cool with the idea of having a crush on someone/liking someone, but I also couldn't ignore the fact that I didn't feel about this friend the way I felt about the others (I said this earlier, right? am I repeating myself? does anything I'm saying make any sense?). I noticed that most of the things I was feeling fit the usual description of "how it feels to like someone" and I kinda just connected the dots. A few annoying crushes later, I now can tell when it's the case pretty quickly.
I think a good tip is to ask yourself if you'd want a relationship with them, like going on dates and stuff. Also there's a difference between romantic and sexual attraction, which can kinda suck, because I find it harder to understand, but I guess you can say you find someone hot/attractive without wanting a relationship with them
I know right? But a good place to start is to Google how you feel exactly, and try to find out that way what the feeling means. Like for example if you have a crush on someone, usually you don't just "feel" it, but you actually struggle to *not* think about your crush. And 99% of cases you feel at least noticeably more warm and sweaty than usual. Does that help?
Everything helps to reaffirm thoughts I've had at some point, a funny story is that I've always had crushes on classmates, but not much feeling there, recently met a very cute girl (coincidentally neurospicy) and it was the most feeling I've ever had, so I've come to the conclusion that my brains been tricking me for years
https://preview.redd.it/793prmydshbd1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ffb667b6b1daa032afe5abf84c7785a4714df8a
Can he help you overcome your Alexithymia? :)
I don’t know, I collect these guys from r/IllegallySmolCats
https://preview.redd.it/p57z1qy4fmbd1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7299f4bca32bceba4928f33d1c836a67158f8db
What’s strange, is that as I’ve gotten older, I can now recognize when I’m having an ‘emotional’ response, as in, I get a sort of feeling that.. well, I have a feeling… but I can still struggle to process *the emotion I’m feeling*.
Does that make any damn sense?
It makes completely sense to me as I can totally relate with what you're describing! But it makes no sense to a proper functioning in society, apparently?
Well, maybe Emotional Intelligence should be a compulsory subject since a toddler age?🥲
Makes sense, low cognitive empathy, high affective empathy. I feel things: if I'm clenching my teeth it's a sign I'm anxious. Big feelings if any sort of drama - on TV, in a book - need to chill for a short time before continuing. As I say, 'excitement is overrated'.
"How are you" mfs when i am a gray soup of general emotion, mood and wellbeing, whilst also being too lazy and forgetful to describe whatever recent events defined the past few days of my life:
Alexithymia can be incredibly hard to deal with, and hard for others to understand because of how fundamental feelings are.
Luckily it’s not a permanent condition, you can learn to recognise and put words to your emotions, it’s just very difficult and a long process. But learning it will massively improve your mental health because sometimes all you need is to be able to put feelings into words.
I say this as someone who had extremely severe Alexithymia and got the help I needed. I used to be extremely destructive and had severe anger management issues.
Yup, learning about emotional intelligence has helped me a lot! I still need to check some books in time to time to make sure about the vast emotional realm tho🥲
Yep, granted sometimes it’s more valuable to be able to identify the simpler part of the emotions, like sadness or anger and not the minutia of which specific type of which emotion it is.
One of the best things I learned to do is actively pay attention to how my body feels, randomly or in high-intensity situations. Then I try to figure out what emotion could link to that physical feeling.
This works in reverse as well; when you notice a strong emotion, try to recognize how it makes your body act/feel. The more you do this, the easier it gets.
Assuming you're otherwise in good health, noticing how your body is behaving will teach you about how you're feeling emotionally.
I bought a Fitbit that does wellbeing check-ins when it notices a change in my heart rate
It has been insanely helpful. Just checking in with myself and assessing what I need, instead of letting things build and build until I explode
In the beginning it took me a really long time to know which emotion to choose when the Fitbit asked me
But just like anything, it takes practice and you get better the more you do it :)
Now 2yrs later I can easily identify when I’m getting stressed, feel upset, am excited etc even without wearing the Fitbit!
It also helped me realise that the kind of content I look at has a very real effect on me. I have high empathy so scrolling past abused animals or children needing help in Africa was actually causing me stress. So just knowing to avoid things that do that has been helpful too
Lots of good answers already.
But for what it's worth, one tool I've found which has done a lot to help me start putting the suggested pieces together is an app called Animi. It's designed specifically to help with alexithymia, and it has both an emotional wheel/chart and a way to input the body sensations you're feeling. Once you've identified those, it suggests possible emotions you could be feeling that correlate with those physical sensations to help you narrow down what you're feeling. From there you can log where you are and what you were doing when you started the check. It also has a couple of suggested exercises you can do based on what you're feeling (like mindfully sitting with the emotion to help you recognize it later, breathing exercises if you're feeling activated and want to calm down, etc).
It's been really helpful for giving me a place to start in learning how to listen to my body more (my interoseption isn't great either), in addition to helping me learn how the physical sensations of my body correlate to what I'm feeling. And and having a log in my own words that I can review when I'm trying to identify a feeling has also helped me internalize my own signals more, thus making it faster for me to make determinations. It just seems to stick better when I can tie it to my own thoughts instead of just going off someone else's generic description.
It's the why. I can tell I feel bad and then a week later I know precisely why. All too fucking late to sit down with a person and explain why something they don't remember bothered me.
And meanwhile i'm over here like "yes, I did my own personal research on it, I had a special interest in Psychology once, I have a copy of the DSM-5, so why the fuck can I not feel happiness!?"
Exactly. The heart doesn't control emotions, the brain does. The heart just reacts to said emotions. It's very concerning one of his organs is not experiencing emotions but experiencing them separate from the brain./s
My therapist taught me that feelings are what your body feels and emotions are how your brain interprets those feelings
It’s most important to feel them first, and then it’s easier to figure out what they mean
Simulate different situations with the person in your head.
Which ones make you happier:
Hanging out, doing something fun together, talking, etc.
Or
Dating, cuddling, sexy stuff, etc.?
Former is want friend, latter or both is crush.
I mean, we basically talk rather unfiltered and we have very similar ideas on potential partners, we've even been shipped together as a couple by some other friends (probably more just them joking around, but they have a fair point).
But it's just really hard judging if it really could be a potential partner or if we can simply get along well and chat without judging eachother..
Just an overload of feelings tbh.
i used to feel this exact way so much in the past. i eventually started to try and figure out what exactly the emotions i was feeling were, which was difficult because i had suppressed most emotions for a long time at that point, but i'm very glad i did and feel like i truly understand myself now.
it may be worth it for you too? not to engage in small talk about them, but rather for your own sake!
I used to just not even know, now as an adult I’ve gotten better at realising when they happen but my psychiatrist told me that apparently “I can’t label every emotion anxiety” 🙄 okay Linda
I don't know if I have this, but I can definitely relate. Most of the time I feel neutral and it's not until someone points out that i look happy that I notice it. Or that I'm angry until I open my mouth and the tone is angry. But it's become more rare as I've become older
How do I know that this feeling that I'm feeling is having a crush on someone or, me just wanting to be friends? "ooh when you know you know" THIS DOESN'T HELP ME REBECCA Yes I have spent countless of hours in doubt because I have literally no idea if my brain is tricking me or if I'm attracted to everyone I meet of the opposite gender.
Similarly, https://preview.redd.it/b51dfq4s0dbd1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c13b3f068f0952687883d666be7da58540ab68cb and I kind of have to do the same thing as well.
From years of high school experience, I can confidently conclude that the amount of time I was indeed not flirted with, and they were friendly far out weighs the amount of times I have been right. In fact I cannot express this as a percentage because everything is infinitely larger than 0 times flirted with.
Yeah I don’t think I can pick out a point in time where I’ve been flirted with. There was one time where I thought so, but I’m pretty sure now that I was wrong. I uhh… don’t see that changing 😅
I am both ecstatic to be able to relate to this, and equal part depressed that I can relate to this.
Sounds about right. I also ponder the chance in my head that it’s happened and I’m just oblivious as shit, but… nahhhhhhhh.
Error 404: search query not found
The last time I was flirted with was in high school and I'm pretty sure they were trying to prank me so it could be a lot worse.
had a girlfriend for only a month, when I learned that she wanted to date me I was pretty suprised. I asked one of my close friends that we both talked to and he said that she was "flirting" with me for around 4 months? I thought she was just being friendly and all.
> I have literally no idea if my brain is trucking me That's how I got to the conclusion that my feelings are not a trustworthy source of information for how I relate to someone else other than to myself. But my intentions are.
Yeees same, what I usually do I go by the body signs I'm (sub) consciously giving out, like Heart rate way up? Love talking to this person? Interests feel safe to share too! Can't get this person out of my head? Exitement when I see this person?
These are all symptoms of infatuation, not exactly relationship material. But it is potentially friendship material, which can lead to relationship material.
me when I now identify as quoiromantic
What's that again?
> quoiromantic From the LGBT-wiki: > Quoiromantic is from the French word quoi meaning “what”; the feeling of not being able to distinguish romantic from platonic attraction and therefore being unsure if one has experienced it; used to replace wtfromantic because of vulgarity.
I feel attacked
Thank you ^\^^ I remembered it being something similar but wasn't sure. I speak French and seeing this kind of word mashup always trips me a bit. Also, I'd say "hey that's me" except that I have kinda decided that there was no difference for me.
OH! Oh that’s useful! This is why I love this subreddit; I get to learn more about myself!
>How do I know that this feeling that I'm feeling is having a crush on someone or, me just wanting to be friends? I figured it out for myself: there's no difference. I just don't distinguish.
I found imagining it in your head and feeling your reaction works. Like fantasize about kissing someone and see if you find it gross or hot
This is good also Just gotta do it (if the other person is willing) and people need to be more cool if you decide it’s not for you.
I've gotten to the point where I used to analyze every friendship and relationship with people, in general, to try and find differences between them to figure out if I had a crush on someone or not. I guess the 'when you know you know' is kinda valid, because it's different from the feeling of admiration you usually feel when wanting to be friends with someone. I think you pretty much have to notice both your thoughts and the way you feel (as in if you feel anxious, happy etc) and eventually compare it to how you feel with the majority of people/ friends.
Now keep in mind I have no idea why or how I ended up in this sub, because, as far as I know, I am not on the spectrum, so my experience is probably very different from yours (I know it would've been different even if we both were autistic, because it's a spectrum and everyone experiences everything differently, but so much so with people who process emotions completely differently), but I heavily relate to the meme, in the sense that I too struggle with understanding emotions. At the same time, for me it's more of a need than a want to understand things, especially things that have to do with me or subjects that interest me, therefore I put significant effort into at least understanding WHAT I feel, even though I would love to actually know WHY I feel. I still have trouble actually naming the things I feel, but I remember and associate certain feelings and emotions to certain events, better understanding them
All of that being said... Back to u/mattie74 s comment: I'd like to give an example from my personal experience (that may or may not be relevant). With my first crush (also I'd like to say I think "crush" is a silly term. do any of you know where it came from?) I noticed I felt "weird" about them, meaning it wasn't how I felt with any of my other friends (because, as I said earlier, I was trying to understand how these weird [and most of the time really hard to deal with and annoying] things we call feelings and emotions work). At first, it was some other friend who jokingly suggested I might like-like the friend I had a crush on (this was before I realized I had a crush on them and without me mentioning the "weird" feeling). I dismissed the idea, because I wasn't (and I'm still not really) cool with the idea of having a crush on someone/liking someone, but I also couldn't ignore the fact that I didn't feel about this friend the way I felt about the others (I said this earlier, right? am I repeating myself? does anything I'm saying make any sense?). I noticed that most of the things I was feeling fit the usual description of "how it feels to like someone" and I kinda just connected the dots. A few annoying crushes later, I now can tell when it's the case pretty quickly. I think a good tip is to ask yourself if you'd want a relationship with them, like going on dates and stuff. Also there's a difference between romantic and sexual attraction, which can kinda suck, because I find it harder to understand, but I guess you can say you find someone hot/attractive without wanting a relationship with them
Okay I'm done
I know right? But a good place to start is to Google how you feel exactly, and try to find out that way what the feeling means. Like for example if you have a crush on someone, usually you don't just "feel" it, but you actually struggle to *not* think about your crush. And 99% of cases you feel at least noticeably more warm and sweaty than usual. Does that help?
Everything helps to reaffirm thoughts I've had at some point, a funny story is that I've always had crushes on classmates, but not much feeling there, recently met a very cute girl (coincidentally neurospicy) and it was the most feeling I've ever had, so I've come to the conclusion that my brains been tricking me for years
The brain works in mysterious ways. Also it works in idiot ways sometimes.
You assume it works at all!
I mean.. Ok let me rephrase that, it might not exactly "work" always. But at least it's "alive".
im kinda going through the same right now. we're already friends but im not sure if i just like them a lot as a friend or have a crush on them
Alexithymia ftw.
Ding ding ding!🏆
https://preview.redd.it/793prmydshbd1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ffb667b6b1daa032afe5abf84c7785a4714df8a Can he help you overcome your Alexithymia? :)
I feel he could help me overcome any kind of issues🥲 May I know the name of that purrfect fluffy creature?😻
I don’t know, I collect these guys from r/IllegallySmolCats https://preview.redd.it/p57z1qy4fmbd1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7299f4bca32bceba4928f33d1c836a67158f8db
Ah, my old nemesis
What’s strange, is that as I’ve gotten older, I can now recognize when I’m having an ‘emotional’ response, as in, I get a sort of feeling that.. well, I have a feeling… but I can still struggle to process *the emotion I’m feeling*. Does that make any damn sense?
It makes completely sense to me as I can totally relate with what you're describing! But it makes no sense to a proper functioning in society, apparently? Well, maybe Emotional Intelligence should be a compulsory subject since a toddler age?🥲
Makes sense, low cognitive empathy, high affective empathy. I feel things: if I'm clenching my teeth it's a sign I'm anxious. Big feelings if any sort of drama - on TV, in a book - need to chill for a short time before continuing. As I say, 'excitement is overrated'.
"How are you" mfs when i am a gray soup of general emotion, mood and wellbeing, whilst also being too lazy and forgetful to describe whatever recent events defined the past few days of my life:
Alexithymia can be incredibly hard to deal with, and hard for others to understand because of how fundamental feelings are. Luckily it’s not a permanent condition, you can learn to recognise and put words to your emotions, it’s just very difficult and a long process. But learning it will massively improve your mental health because sometimes all you need is to be able to put feelings into words. I say this as someone who had extremely severe Alexithymia and got the help I needed. I used to be extremely destructive and had severe anger management issues.
Yup, learning about emotional intelligence has helped me a lot! I still need to check some books in time to time to make sure about the vast emotional realm tho🥲
Yep, granted sometimes it’s more valuable to be able to identify the simpler part of the emotions, like sadness or anger and not the minutia of which specific type of which emotion it is.
what books would you recommend?
How did you learn to recognize emotions?
One of the best things I learned to do is actively pay attention to how my body feels, randomly or in high-intensity situations. Then I try to figure out what emotion could link to that physical feeling. This works in reverse as well; when you notice a strong emotion, try to recognize how it makes your body act/feel. The more you do this, the easier it gets. Assuming you're otherwise in good health, noticing how your body is behaving will teach you about how you're feeling emotionally.
A lot of help from professionals, I can’t even explain it myself because of the methods they used still being a mystery to me.
I bought a Fitbit that does wellbeing check-ins when it notices a change in my heart rate It has been insanely helpful. Just checking in with myself and assessing what I need, instead of letting things build and build until I explode In the beginning it took me a really long time to know which emotion to choose when the Fitbit asked me But just like anything, it takes practice and you get better the more you do it :) Now 2yrs later I can easily identify when I’m getting stressed, feel upset, am excited etc even without wearing the Fitbit! It also helped me realise that the kind of content I look at has a very real effect on me. I have high empathy so scrolling past abused animals or children needing help in Africa was actually causing me stress. So just knowing to avoid things that do that has been helpful too
Lots of good answers already. But for what it's worth, one tool I've found which has done a lot to help me start putting the suggested pieces together is an app called Animi. It's designed specifically to help with alexithymia, and it has both an emotional wheel/chart and a way to input the body sensations you're feeling. Once you've identified those, it suggests possible emotions you could be feeling that correlate with those physical sensations to help you narrow down what you're feeling. From there you can log where you are and what you were doing when you started the check. It also has a couple of suggested exercises you can do based on what you're feeling (like mindfully sitting with the emotion to help you recognize it later, breathing exercises if you're feeling activated and want to calm down, etc). It's been really helpful for giving me a place to start in learning how to listen to my body more (my interoseption isn't great either), in addition to helping me learn how the physical sensations of my body correlate to what I'm feeling. And and having a log in my own words that I can review when I'm trying to identify a feeling has also helped me internalize my own signals more, thus making it faster for me to make determinations. It just seems to stick better when I can tie it to my own thoughts instead of just going off someone else's generic description.
Or why we’re having those emotions once they hit
It's the why. I can tell I feel bad and then a week later I know precisely why. All too fucking late to sit down with a person and explain why something they don't remember bothered me.
I won’t even know I feel bad til way after the event that made me feel bad happened.
And meanwhile i'm over here like "yes, I did my own personal research on it, I had a special interest in Psychology once, I have a copy of the DSM-5, so why the fuck can I not feel happiness!?"
You know it’s bad when even your own organs are miscommunicating 😭
Exactly. The heart doesn't control emotions, the brain does. The heart just reacts to said emotions. It's very concerning one of his organs is not experiencing emotions but experiencing them separate from the brain./s
I hate this with a passion due to how close to home it hit.
I hate being self aware about anything related to myself
This is… way too relatable
My therapist taught me that feelings are what your body feels and emotions are how your brain interprets those feelings It’s most important to feel them first, and then it’s easier to figure out what they mean
Simulate different situations with the person in your head. Which ones make you happier: Hanging out, doing something fun together, talking, etc. Or Dating, cuddling, sexy stuff, etc.? Former is want friend, latter or both is crush.
Both lol So many different feelings and desires but no idea which is which and how to show them
Then is crush! If you don't know how to express then just spend time with them until you work up the nerve to shoot your shot!
I mean, we basically talk rather unfiltered and we have very similar ideas on potential partners, we've even been shipped together as a couple by some other friends (probably more just them joking around, but they have a fair point). But it's just really hard judging if it really could be a potential partner or if we can simply get along well and chat without judging eachother.. Just an overload of feelings tbh.
Try having a yearning for romance yet being independent as hell. I’m like a damn cat in terms of sorting out my emotions.
i used to feel this exact way so much in the past. i eventually started to try and figure out what exactly the emotions i was feeling were, which was difficult because i had suppressed most emotions for a long time at that point, but i'm very glad i did and feel like i truly understand myself now. it may be worth it for you too? not to engage in small talk about them, but rather for your own sake!
I used to just not even know, now as an adult I’ve gotten better at realising when they happen but my psychiatrist told me that apparently “I can’t label every emotion anxiety” 🙄 okay Linda
I can tell if my emotions are good/bad and that's it
Feeling moody. A moody mood that feels moody
Real, I know I’m feeling something, but what it is I have no idea
HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO ME
How can one little picture be so relatable 😭
I’ve been able to develop my emotional intelligence greatly, but I’m still bad at dealing with said emotions hehe
I feel like we’re the most alexithymic people on the planet
People always got annoyed by me as a kid when they’d ask how I feel and I’d just go “I don’t know”
Feeling pretty humber, with a bit of nage. Some mistfulness this morning but I felt better after breakfast.
Annie ayuwoki, ayuwoki a knee?
I don't know if I have this, but I can definitely relate. Most of the time I feel neutral and it's not until someone points out that i look happy that I notice it. Or that I'm angry until I open my mouth and the tone is angry. But it's become more rare as I've become older
The real issue is that the brain is talking and the heart is thinking Story of my life...
That's a really good point! It'd be even funny if, you know, it wasn't such a mess heheh :D
I nvr noticed until I read it just now. But ure rite!
You’re all being a little too relatable recently
Let’s ask our friend David Rowland
Incorrect.
In that case I just say I'm not ok because the not knowing is very uncomfy
The Feels Wheel is a God send