Why are there people who do not know how to express love?

The world of love and relationships is already complicated, but there are times when dealing with it becomes even more difficult because of expression and communication problems.

In fact, for some people something as simple (theoretically) as saying "I love you" can become quite a challenge. In part, this may be due to fear of commitment, but it may also have to do with difficulties expressing feelings in general. Next we will see what happens when love life encounters this second obstacle.

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When love is a hollow word

Imagine that the word love means nothing to you, and the same thing happens to you with hatred, fear, guilt, or happiness. When you listen to them they sound empty, devoid of the emotional tinge that characterizes them. Feelings are just other words to add to the dictionary, hollow words, you know what they mean because you've learned it, but they don't tell you anything.

You do not know how to interpret emotions, perhaps you know that you feel bad in general, but you cannot specify if you are sad, angry, scared, etc. You do not know if you are in love or have you ever been,

You were never born to say "I love you". You do not understand the looks, the gestures, the silences, the non-verbal language is another puzzle that you cannot decipher.

Although it seems a curious and rare phenomenon, the Spanish Neurology Society estimates that, At least and according to prevalence studies, 10% of the world population suffers from this situation, it is say, one in 10 people has a psychological condition called alexithymia.

Characteristics of alexithymia

The term alexithymia which literally means "lack of words for feelings" and denotes a Difficulty verbally identifying and describing emotions and feelings in oneself and in the rest. This limitation is also observed in non-verbal language.

Some of the symptoms or characteristics of alexithymia are:

• Difficulty identifying the different types of emotions and feelings.
• Difficulty connecting emotions with physical or bodily sensations and expressing one's own affections.
• Constrained or restricted style of thinking.
• Difficulty detecting emotions in others and recognizing their facial or gestural signals.
• Little or no fantasy, daydreams and imaginative activity.
• Rigid communication style, limited posture and body expressions, no gestures, monotonous tone of voice and no intonation.

Too cold people in relationships?

People with alexithymia are often described by others as cold and distant. They lack empathy and often experience problems recognizing and responding appropriately to moods and feelings of the people around them, so family, couple and social relationships tend to look very affected.

In addition, they present a very pragmatic way of thinking, based on logic, where affective aspects have no place. They have a reduced capacity for enjoyment and it is almost impossible for them to experience fantasies and dreams or to think imaginatively.

It is not the alexithymics do not have emotions; they have them, their difficulty is that they do not know how to recognize and express them with words or gestures. The inability to express affections causes them to somatize, presenting headaches, stomach pains, tachycardia, muscle tension, etc. They reflect in their physical state what they cannot say with words or gestures. For this reason, alexithymic people find it very difficult to differentiate what emotions are from what bodily sensations are.

• Related article: "Alexithymia: the inability to say "I love you""

Types of difficulties talking about feelings

Alexithymia can be divided into two categories-

1. Primary alexithymia

It is related to organic factors. This is where patients with Autism Spectrum Disorders. In fact, a high percentage of patients with autism spectrum disorders (between 80% and 90%) show features of alexithymia. It is also related to neurological injuries or diseases, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, etc.

In neurological terms, it may be due to a dysfunction in communication between the limbic system (in charge of regulating emotions) and the neocortex (regulating abstract intelligence, reasoning and logic), or between the left hemisphere (takes care of language, reasoning logical, etc. ) and law (deals with emotions, creativity, art, etc).

2. Secondary alexithymia

Related to purely psychological factors, seen in people who have suffered emotional trauma, such as abuse in childhood, post-traumatic stress situations (war, sexual abuse, maltreatment, etc.), or simply that they have not had adequate emotional learning in childhood (children who have not been adequately taught to label and identify their emotions).

It is also common in patients with depression, cyclothymia, eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, or people with addictions. Secondary alexithymia, unlike primary, can be reversible through psychotherapy, and sometimes with the help of antidepressant drugs.

Treatment

Although people with alexithymia do not usually go to therapy, and if they do, it is because of the insistence of their environment Next, cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy can help them develop their awareness emotional.

The main goal of psychological treatment It will help the patient to properly identify, label and understand emotions. It is important that they know how to give emotions meaning, verbalize them and identify the sensations associated with them.

It will also be necessary to compensate for the poor capacity for emotional regulation by teaching the person to emotionally self-regulate, and adequately express affections.