So i've been reading alot on the forums, and most people who have Alexithymia seem to also have an emotional trauma in their life (such as sexual assault or harassment). I scored 138, strong Alexi traits, but i've never had any sort of emotional problems that could cause a complete burnout of emotion. So is emotional trauma the only way to develop alexi or is it possible to just have it?
It is often considered a personality trait. While emotional trauma might increase incidence, it is not the only cause. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17917473
I personally think emotional and other kinds of abuse amplify what is already there. To a degree, everyone is awkward in social situations, and everyone experiences times where they can't define their feelings. Yet the thing with pain is, humans often ignore it or bottle it up. that's walling up your anger and negativity, but it's all or nothing. every emotion, or none. My home life isn't awful, but it's not the best either. Many people in my situation ended up emotionally fine. Then there's me.
85% of people with autism have the comorbid trait of Alexithymia, but I'm not sure if this answers your question about trauma. If an identical twin has ASD, there is only a 90% chance his/her twin has it too; it's only a 70% chance when referring to classic autism. So there is some environmental cause (like trauma) for autism (though it looks like it's mainly genetic), and maybe that also means for the comorbid trait of Alexithymia.
Psychopaths are born without affective empathy, and as far as I know that doesn't imply a traumatic birth. Psychopaths have very little in the way of emotions, so they fall within that zone you referred to as "complete burnout of emotion".
Schizoids also have problems with emotions; another condition that can be attributed to genetics or a chemical imbalance in the brain (but there could be some type of trauma involved).
Nebruchadnezzer , I'm not saying you are autistic, psychopathic, schizoid, or whatever. However, there are plenty of conditions that are associated with degraded emotions that don't require trauma to explain them.
You can be born with Alexithymia. You can be given Alexithymia in infancy by having a caregiver who lacks empathy. You can be given Alexithymia by experiencing severe child abuse or trauma. I used to believe I had Alexithymia because of my extremely painful childhood, but it turns out the Alexithymia caused my extremely painful childhood.
The emotional Trauma that I experienced was having parents who didn't allow me to have MY feelings, only the feelings they thought I SHOULD have....... So I faked most of my life. From all that faking, I really cannot figure out how I feel. It's taken me awhile to work through that.....
I also had, what I think... maybe an injury. When I was born, the doctor used forceps and I was upside down. Not breech, but..... face up or face down, whatever babies are SUPPOSED to be, I wasn't. So the doctor used forceps to "Turn" me and my mom said my head was SMASHED down to my eyebrows...... IT popped back up in a couple of days....
I made good grades in high school and I'm considered fairly intelligent (not MENSA intelligent, but up there....). So, I didn't suffer there. But I have always had trouble with understanding why everyone else JUST KNEW how they felt and I didn't! All I knew was what I was "told" to feel. TELLING someone how to feel is considered emotional abuse.
