One of the most troubling aspects of my autism is my inability to name or describe emotions - a condition called "alexithymia". Some years ago, a friend expressed astonishment that I couldn't name emotions. I was equally astonished that she could. But she wasn't the only one. Almost everyone I encountered could name, describe and express emotions in ways that other people found acceptable. It seemed to come naturally to them. But it didn't to me.
Wordsmith that I am, I know hundreds of words describing emotions. They buzz around in my head like a swarm of bees, inviting me to pick one. But I don't understand them. They are just words. They don't meaningfully link to what I am feeling. I don't know which one to choose, and I end up confused and overwhelmed (yes, I know these are emotional words, but they are for you, they don't describe what I actually feel).
For some reason, my friends had learned to name and describe emotions in childhood, but I had not. Why, I did not know. I had learned the words, but never connected them to feelings. My non-verbal expression of emotions upset people, but I had no other means of expressing what I felt. And I still don't.
My therapist gave me a framework that he thought would help resolve my confusion and make it easier for me to express emotions verbally. He restricted emotions to four: grief, anger, fear, happiness. Pick the one that best represents what you are feeling. The restricted list does help in one respect: it reduces the clamour from all those words demanding that I pick them, which helps me to remain calmer - if I remember to use the list. But it's still just a list. I do not know whether the words I choose actually represent what I feel. And sometimes the words are simply inadequate. A restricted list doesn't help when you are being asked detailed questions about how you handle emotions in yourself and others.
During my autism assessment, there was one particular question, which I think was about fear, that I could not find words to answer. Overwhelmed with a ghastly feeling which I could not begin to describe, I fell silent.
But although I could not find words to describe it, I could see what I was feeling. I looked deep into myself and contemplated it. It had colours, and a shape, and texture. I could not tell my assessor - or you - what that emotion was, but it was a swirly elliptical shape, oriented northeast - southwest with a depression in the middle, made up of an unpleasant mixture of dark browns and dark blues with a lacy tracing of white.
I don't know why I never realised before that I see emotions in colour. After all, I see so many other things in colour. Maybe I was so desperate to find the words to describe them - to be normal - that I ignored my own, highly visual experience. Or maybe I was too busy trying to run away from them. In that psychologist's room, I couldn't run away. I had to stop and look. And for the first time, I let myself see.
I've since realised that other emotions also have colour, and texture, and shape. Mostly, I don't know what the emotion is, I only know what it looks like. So I can't tell you what I am feeling. Maybe I should paint it.
But there are signs that now I am finally recognising emotions as visual objects, I am beginning to connect what I see with some of the words that buzz around in my head.
Recently, it dawned on me that my autism is sufficiently severe to be a serious disability in the workplace, and that this may make the safe, well-paid employment for which I long impossible.
As I contemplated this reality, I was overwhelmed with - orange. My head filled with various shades of orange, in a geometric shape which was almost a square but with the two top corners cut off, with lines running horizontally and vertically through it. The orange shades had a texture almost like muslin: diaphanous, and with visible threads. And where the corner was cut off at the top left, there was a dark green spike, like broken glass, against a brightly lit, faintly blue background.
And two words came to me. Grief, and loss. Not the grief of bereavement, but grief for the person I might have been, and for the loss of hope. I hoped I could change. Indeed I clung to the belief that if only I tried hard enough I could change, that I could learn to name and express emotions in a socially acceptable way, to handle social interactions better, to cope with uncertainty and change. To do jobs that involve dealing with people. To be a good "team player", since that seems to be expected of women in employment. But autism is permanent. There is no cure. That is my loss, and my grief. It is orange, and green, and the light shines through it.
I also discovered that music, which as you know I hear in colour, can change the colour of emotion. I was sitting in the car listening to Brahms's first symphony. At first it had no effect - but then the key changed, and the orange in my head gave way to a deep calming purple. And I immediately felt better.
You'd think that orange would be a happy colour. But not in my world. Grief is orange.
