Alexithymia Question

[Rasputin]

Thirty-nine years ago today, Pan Am Flight 759 crashed in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans. My half brother who lived in Kenner at the time has had recurring nightmares about the crash which killed all 145 passengers, the flight crew, and several people on the ground. I was 23 at the time, and lived 50 miles away in Hammond, Louisiana. I have no recollection of the plane crash.

I previously posted about my limited emotional responses. Does my having no recollection of a nearby plane crash sound like Alexithymia? Or, is it normal to not have any emotional response to a plane crash that occurred 50 miles away.

 

[Skittlebisquit]

Some of us are so self absorbed that we really dont notice the world around us. Then too memory is a funny thing. It seems much like a tape recording that the tape gets reused alot.

I try not worry so much about big words and if i am like these things or that one and all that. Maybe the so called average person has been conditioned to be more emo reactive than a non conditioned person will exhibit? If you could shorten the attention span, while promoting insecurity at the same time as altering the emotional matrix, would someone so conditioned be a better consumer?

That is, if you were more emotional, then would you be more likely to buy things you do not really need?

Is the alexithymia the one where, the joy is lost, he forgets what he used to like or take pleasure in?

 

[Rasputin]

Some of us are so self absorbed that we really dont notice the world around us. Then too memory is a funny thing. It seems much like a tape recording that the tape gets reused alot.

I try not worry so much about big words and if i am like these things or that one and all that. Maybe the so called average person has been conditioned to be more emo reactive than a non conditioned person will exhibit? If you could shorten the attention span, while promoting insecurity at the same time as altering the emotional matrix, would someone so conditioned be a better consumer?

That is, if you were more emotional, then would you be more likely to buy things you do not really need?

Is the alexithymia the one where, the joy is lost, he forgets what he used to like or take pleasure in?

Alexithymia is a condition in which one is unable to describe their emotion or is unaware of any experienced emotion.

Being an emotional consumer would be a bad thing, as one would almost certainly buy things they do not need.

 

[Alexej]

Is the alexithymia the one where, the joy is lost, he forgets what he used to like or take pleasure in?

I think that is anhedonia

 

[Alexej]

I previously posted about my limited emotional responses. Does my having no recollection of a nearby plane crash sound like Alexithymia? Or, is it normal to not have any emotional response to a plane crash that occurred 50 miles away.

No, personally I would not go to alexithymia on the basis of that. Alexithymia is a more pervasive lack of feelings IMHO

 

[Progster]

Does my having no recollection of a nearby plane crash sound like Alexithymia?

No, alexithymia is an impairment or difference in the way you process and experience emotions, it doesn't affect your memory as far as I know.

Your brother was at the site of the crash as experienced it close up. He probably heard it and saw it, plus all the sirens and commotion that must have followed it if it crashed in a populated area, and that can really affect a person. If you were 50 miles away, then you experienced it at a distance and it wouldn't have had such an emotional impact. You probably didn't see it or didn't hear it except for news coverage. Just like the Lockerbie crash was for me, where I lived about 200 miles away. I heard it on the news, remember the incident, but it didn't impact me emotionally other than my thinking that to blow up a plane is a terrible, terrible thing to do.

With things like natural disasters or plane crashes, where they happen at a distance and don't involve my family, I think they are terrible, but that's an opinion rather than an emotion - I don't really react emotionally to such events like others seem to.

 

[Streetwise]

If you are not psychic or have supernatural hearing, how would you know an aeroplane had crashed 50 miles away ?,I can't hear a car crash a mile away,I only know about 99% of crashes because of journalism ,I've actually only ever been in one large one in 51 years, that's not a lot
what you have is a different sense of responsibility ,your conscience is different to a neurotypicals ,research autistic neurology it will help reduce your stress

 

[Judge]

Interesting question. I think not, because in general we cannot expect everyone to have a reaction to much of anything that happened 39 years ago to begin with. Particularly if you were distanced from it, and had no personal connection to the event. Granted on rare occasion there are events that draw many people together, such as 9/11 or assassinations that took place in the 60s.

Maybe you're just being a bit too hard on yourself. Though in the case of your brother I could see how such a memory might linger.

Perhaps a better question would be to consider an event in the past that involved you personally, which may make a difference. I know in my own case, 39 years ago was quite a traumatic time for me personally.

 

[Rasputin]

If you are not psychic or have supernatural hearing, how would you know an aeroplane had crashed 50 miles away ?,I can't hear a car crash a mile away,I only know about 99% of crashes because of journalism ,I've actually only ever been in one large one in 51 years, that's not a lot
what you have is a different sense of responsibility ,your conscience is different to a neurotypicals ,research autistic neurology it will help reduce your stress

I did have a television. How about you?

 

[Rasputin]

Interesting question. I think not, because in general we cannot expect everyone to have a reaction to much of anything that happened 39 years ago to begin with. Particularly if you were distanced from it, and had no personal connection to the event. Granted on rare occasion there are events that draw many people together, such as 9/11 or assassinations that took place in the 60s.

Maybe you're just being a bit too hard on yourself. Though in the case of your brother I could see how such a memory might linger.

Perhaps a better question would be to consider an event in the past that involved you personally, which may make a difference. I know in my own case, 39 years ago was quite a traumatic time for me personally.

The events in the past that were traumatic were (1) my father abandoning my mother when I was four and him striking her and knocking her down the concrete steps in front of her father’s house.
(2) my aunt grabbing me and throwing me in her car and flying down a gravel road to keep my father from abducting me.
(3) my mother attempting a narcotics overdose when I was nine.
(4) my mother being committed and driven away in a sheriff’s car.
(5) my mother passing away in 2009 after a massive heart attack.
(6) my father passing away in 2014 following major back surgery.

I never experienced any emotion after my parents passed away, even to this day. I withdrew and blocked everyone I went to school with from knowing me; also blocked most childhood memories until recently (within the last two years).

 

[Judge]

The events in the past that were traumatic were (1) my father abandoning my mother when I was four and him striking her and knocking her down the concrete steps in front of her father’s house.
(2) my aunt grabbing me and throwing me in her car and flying down a gravel road to keep my father from abducting me.
(3) my mother attempting a narcotics overdose when I was nine.
(4) my mother being committed and driven away in a sheriff’s car.
(5) my mother passing away in 2009 after a massive heart attack.
(6) my father passing away in 2014 following major back surgery.

I never experienced any emotion after my parents passed away, even to this day. I withdrew and blocked everyone I went to school with from knowing me; also blocked most childhood memories until recently (within the last two years).

Under the circumstances I could see why an airplane crash that didn't involve you personally would not be so significant in comparison. Though I might say the same about myself considering what happened to me those 39 years ago in comparison as well.

And then there's life in the present era to consider. Where we're bombarded by tragedy every day we turn on a television. Making everyone just a little bit less sensitive to things that may not impact us directly. And at our age we've both heard about so many aircraft crashes, whether close or far away.

 

[Varzar]

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this myself, as I also have the poor memory for emotionally charged events, sometimes not recalling them at all.

In various documentaries I've watched about the brain, they highlighted the fact that emotion is a key facet in how we determine which memories are worth storing, and which are just hum-drum day-to-day stuff that we don't bother remembering much of at all.
I suspect that the disconnect that Alexithymia creates between events and emotions results in memories of those events also not being stored in the way they would be otherwise. Basically, all events are hum-drum, and filed in with all the other crap that happens in a given day.

 

[Barymore]

I am no therapist,my experience is that things affect individuals differently - I know someone who also responded traumatically to a plane crash, this took place 1000's of miles away. I remember that crash only as a fact. However, not feeling much in response to something / not remembering something can itself be a sign of trauma. Something happened to me as a child that I had no recollection of for decades after. Then, I recalled it with absolutely no emotion attached. Only after a long time did the associated negative emotions (which I could not individually identify, having a degree of alexithymia myself) appear and I was able to start processing. I would say this is similar to what @Varzar and @Rasputin wrote although I feel it is more an aspect of trauma than alexithymia in the examples I and Rasputin describe.
My point: its complicated

 

[Rasputin]

I am no therapist,my experience is that things affect individuals differently - I know someone who also responded traumatically to a plane crash, this took place 1000's of miles away. I remember that crash only as a fact. However, not feeling much in response to something / not remembering something can itself be a sign of trauma. Something happened to me as a child that I had no recollection of for decades after. Then, I recalled it with absolutely no emotion attached. Only after a long time did the associated negative emotions (which I could not individually identify, having a degree of alexithymia myself) appear and I was able to start processing. I would say this is similar to what @Varzar and @Rasputin wrote although I feel it is more an aspect of trauma than alexithymia in the examples I and Rasputin describe.
My point: its complicated

I think you may be right about the trauma.

 

[Streetwise]

I did have a television. How about you?

Yep still have it ,but don't watch most news channels so I wouldn't know just look at Facebook and YouTube

 

[Thinx]

I can't recall much about events beyond my own life 40 years ago, I was trying to find an interesting job/career, living on my own, having a long break up with someone I loved who didn't love me unfortunately.

I remember my workplaces, the clients there, colleagues, friends and family issues, riding my bike, things I wore, where I lived and so on. 1981, I was 23. No idea what was happening in the world or UK. Nope.