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Kuro,
You remind me of something from 1973 when I was 20, that happened to
me, which confirms the Alexithymia I had even then. Id been up in my
own room studying organic chemistry, when I heard thru the window 3 of
my friends yelling for me to come down and go joy-riding with them,
but I said no, I had to study, which I did. But next comes the really
strange parts: in the middle of the night maybe 3 AM my mother burst
into my room asking me, was I there, in bed. I sat up, answered her
yes, I am here. With that she said she had just gotten a phone call
that 4 of all of us boys had been killed in an auto accident, that
they were going 80 mph down a steep hill with a big bump which made
the car "jump up," but instead lost control and hit a telephone poll.
It wasnt me in the car, but the caller did not know, so had called to
find out was I at home. Later I went to the funeral homes (there were
two different ones) and saw my friends laid out in their caskets. and
remembering it just now, while reading your post, Kuro, I remember
clearly that when I saw my friends like that, I felt nothing, I was
totally feelings numbed, but did not know any better, as I do now,
recalling the experience, that that in fact was something I
experienced in which my awareness was completely without any
subjective feelings, so this confirms my Alex goes back before age 20,
as I have long recalled in other such memories, but this one just
popped up, I was reminded of it from your comments, especially since I
should have had intense emotions of sadness and grief then.but did
not. These guys were my very best friends, who I grew up with, and
suddenly they were all gone. But my Alex predates this traumatic
experience, goes back to before age 5, from earliest development.
This is why I placed such great emphasis on those research articles
about traumatic events during early childhood development, especially
before age 5, while the brain is still wiring, and during which, if
there is trauma of a major sort, the brain "rewires" to an Alex trait/
state condition, and I had already found research articles describing
how the Alex person uses differing areas of the cortex when processing
emotionally salient stimuli. This would result, most likely, from
such "rewiring," during early development. This does not mean that
the mirror neurons are damaged, but that the normal ACC pathway for
signal transmission of limbic information gets turned off, due to the
Alex MU morphology, with the result there is feelings numbing as a
constant steady state, which becomes the "normal" state for the Alex
person, who knows no different, as he/she does not recall much
subjective feelings in relationships with others. Actually, I did
experience subjective feelings states around age 12, I definately
recall, and I think the fact I remember these vivid emotional memories
with subjective feelings included, in such stark contrast to now with
total feelings numbing, has made me so highly motivated seeking to
find a way back to what I had had access to before, at an earlier age
and time. This is similar to the movie called "At First Sight," in
which Val Kilmer plays a man who actually gains visual sight for a
short time, learns to see properly, but then ends up returning to the
state of total blindness again. What was unique here was Val Kilmer
describes how rich an experience it was to have been able to actually
"see" the world around him, compared with not being able to do so.
Same applies with once having been a feeler, only then becoming
Alexithymic. I know the difference between these two conditions, how
much richer a human experience was for me when I had access to my
subjective feelings within my perceptual awareness, and I long for
being able to regain access to my subjective feelings, even though
this may never happen. The result has been that I have spent the last
5 years digging very deep, trolling the internet using google, and
have pieced together all these related articles on Alexithymia, to the
extent that I now have a much more precise picture of the actual
process of neurological events which happens when Alexithymia becomes
the steady state condition. This is alot of rehash, but is worth it,
just to bring it all together.
Cheers,
A4M
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