How To Live With An Alexithymic Person
Living with an alexithymic person is not easy. Ultimately, not many people get used to living without an “I love you” or a “how are you?”. Because the alexithymic, beyond what we can think, has many feelings, feels emotions, but does not know how to express this internal world of affections, emotions, disconcerting universes which block him and l ‘anguish.
Nick Frye-Cox, a doctor at the University of Missouri, tells us something very important in a study. Part of the emotional ruptures would be due to alexithymia. These are situations in which one member of the couple does not feel validated by the other. Instead of knowing real love, he meets only coldness and even neglect.
Interpersonal emotional communication structures any healthy bond. We need more than one person by our side. We want emotionally active people, receptive and expressive figures who know what reciprocity is, who are able to nurture the relationship, fuel affection, joy and daily commitment.
However, the alexithymic does not always succeed in doing all of this. And it’s not because he doesn’t want to. He lacks mechanisms to express what he feels. It’s what if he tried to speak through a language he didn’t know. Alexithymia is a hazy dimension where the whole emotional side of things moves in an imprecise fog: we don’t see them, we don’t understand them.
We need to understand this personality type a bit more. Living with people with alexithymia can sometimes be painful, but it is always possible to put some strategies into practice.
What is an alexithymic person like?
We must first be aware of one very simple thing: the person with alexithymia is not a psychopath. Furthermore, not all alexithymic profiles present a psychological disorder. In reality, we are dealing with a personality trait identified in 1976 by John Nemiah, a psychoanalyst from Boston.
To identify a person with alexithymia, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) is used. The dimensions evaluated are as follows:
- Difficulty identifying and describing feelings
- Problems interpreting and distinguishing one’s own emotions
- Tendency to social conformity
- They think that no one can understand them and this sometimes generates frustration
- They avoid talking about intimate aspects, what they feel, what they think, what happened to them. Therefore, they prefer aseptic conversations, related to activities, passions, objective aspects
Studies such as the one conducted at the University of the Basque Country estimate that this profile can be associated with 15% of the population.
How to live with an alexithymic person?
We often believe, wrongly, that the person with alexithymia does not fall in love: this is not true. This personality profile also feels needs for affiliation, to create a family, to love and to be loved. As the neurologist Pablo Irimia points out to us, “ the alexithymic feels things but is unable to express these states in agreement with the context in words”.
Now let’s take a look at the strategies for living with someone with alexithymia.
What we do not say in words is expressed through other channels
Love, affection, complicity and admiration can be expressed in many ways, and not just in words. To live with an alexithymic person, we have to understand that they will have great difficulty in verbalizing their feelings. However, we can perceive these in his looks and in his non-verbal language.
In addition, you should know that many alexithymic people use the writing channel. The couple must find a way through which they can express their emotions and feelings.
Physical communication
Collin Hesse, professor of communication at the University of Missouri, performed several therapies that allowed him to detect an interesting aspect. The alexithymic person responds well to physical contact, caresses, hugs, kisses… Adopting this type of language on a daily basis can greatly facilitate things.
When words fail, it is good to resort to these types of highly emotional gestures. By doing this, empathy and connection are strengthened and, most importantly, anxiety is relieved. It is obvious that the alexithymic spouse is in pain, but the person with this personality trait also suffers by not knowing how to communicate.
Three types of therapy to improve cohabitation
We need to understand one thing about alexithymia: it cannot be cured. We are dealing with a personality type, not a clinical disorder. Therefore, to live with a person with alexithymia, we must recommend that they follow different types of therapy to improve the relationship, to offer them mechanisms that will allow them to communicate better.
The three most interesting approaches are:
- Stimulation of emotional intelligence
- Techniques for reducing anxiety and aggression
- Relaxation exercises
Safeguarding emotional integrity: when cohabitation is not possible
Cohabitation with an alexithymic person wears out. And it does for an obvious reason: many people are tired of giving without receiving anything in return and seeing no improvement.
It is important to safeguard your psychological health. As we have noted, living with an alexithymic often involves a great deal of suffering (for both). Sometimes all you can do is think about the relationship and make a decision.
However, you should not give up without having struggled. Many couples have managed to get out of it thanks to mechanisms that allow them to create a specific language, a language that allows them to feel validated, that fills in the gaps and makes cohabitation possible.
Our thoughts Routine, differences of opinion, habits or certain behaviors can spoil the relationship and give rise to relationship crises.
