TV as a guide for interaction
02.04.2017 by Melmoth90Even as a child I felt I did not experience emotions as other people and interactions with other people often seemed odd or pointless.
I remember as a child I began to watch a lot of TV as a tool for understanding human emotion and interaction, as in what to do in social situations - children's TV I guess is designed in this way regardless as it if used to teach morals etc but I would also watch for specific social interactions that I may of come across in the past or may do in the future to see what each character said or what moral role each played so I could adopt the speech or if not the direct speech the idea behind so I would know what to say in that situation.
As I got older I realised that the emotions and people on TV can be and often are exaggerated so it became apparent it was unreliable, I guess around that time I stopped watching much TV. Nowadays I hardly watch TV, I enjoy films and anime and do watch the odd series but thats all.
I also feel the saying art imitates life imitates art explains this situation although I have never actually investigated the origins of that saying so may be off in how I've connected it to what I've experienced - TV and film begin by imitating people and life situations before exaggerating them after which people start to imitate what they see on TV and film, I can see this in a lot of people similar to my age (20s) in how they act in taking on stereotypes displayed on TV and film.
I've only just today come across this term Alexithymia but a lot of it rings true for me, it has also bought up a memory from my childhood and my internal musings that I have included above. I guess I would be most interested to see if anyone else had a similar experience as a child.
Probably useless
02.05.2017 by CV
I had someone suggest this to me recently. I was attempting to try and be more human, as my atypical responses were causing drama, so I asked the question regarding how emotionally typical people want to be treated or responded to when they are experiencing emotional difficulties, in order to better shape my own response to them.
Someone suggested I watch TV or movies and emulate how people responded on those.
I didn't take that advice for the same reasons - it's over-exaggerated for the purposes of art. Acting after all is an artform. Responding that way in real life would likely be just as inappropriate as my lack of response.
It also carries the risk of being perceived as false or not genuine. Like the scripted response of "I'm sorry" when someone tells you of a death. It sounds wooden.
Copying TV in my opinion is probably useless. I determined that a personally unique approach must be deliberately crafted, one in which my own alexithymic interpretation can meet in some way with my counterpart's emotionally-driven need, in order to be both genuine and acceptable.
Well
07.05.2017 by tiger91
Just find a person who's willing to tell you how emotionally typical people respond/what they need. A good friend or a therapist possibly.
Melmoth90 also sounds like they may have schizoid personality disorder and/or asperger.
Thanks
07.05.2017 by Melmoth90
CV - Thank you for your response, I'm glad to read someone else has had a similar experience.
tiger91 - Thank you very much for mentioning Schizoid Personality Disorder, I've spent some time this evening reading up on it and a lot of it rings very true for me. I will continue to do further research and may even potentially look for outside help as I often try to tackle everything internally.
I do feel like I've come across the term before but it can take a couple of times to read about something before it properly takes hold in your mind, I had a similar experience with asexuality. I discovered the term online but was too afraid to investigate further at the time, re-encountered it awhile later and was able to take it on board, I feel it may of been a similar situation with this.
The journey of trying to under myself continues :)
