Alexithymia.
Going through the diagnostic assessment for autism and ADHD recently has left me with a lot to sit with and process. In some ways, it feels as though my body has taken a quiet sigh of relief. There is a tension that seems to have dissipated now that I have the results. But at the same time, it has been far more emotionally wearing than I could have anticipated. There have been responses within myself that I did not expect.
While I am still shifting and sorting through all of this information in my head, one thing I feel ready to explore in relation to my art practice is my alexithymia.
Alexithymia is the difficulty in identifying, labelling and describing emotions. There is a higher percentage of alexithymia within the neurodivergent community, but it is not isolated to it. Around one in ten people in the general population are thought to experience it, and that estimate increases to roughly one in five people who have also been diagnosed with autism.
If you are unable to label something, it becomes much harder to regulate it internally or process it in what might be considered a typical way. There is a kind of fog that sits between sensation and articulation.
This feels particularly apt when I think back to what I was drawn to explore as part of my research paper last year, looking at art as an alternative language for pain. I know I have used my practice to process the physical pain often associated with fibromyalgia and scoliosis. But I think for me it goes much further than that. It is also an avenue for processing feelings in a broader sense, and for making sense of the general bombardment of the senses that comes with living in a modern society like ours.
It makes me reflect on the medium and the colours, or perhaps the lack of them, that I am drawn to. Have I been subconsciously drawn to monochrome ink as a way of organising and understanding experiences that feel as though they are coming at me from all angles, in different formats and intensities? Does limiting myself to black ink on white ground create a contained space in which I can both exert control and enter a heightened state of flow?
When I am painting, I can feel untethered from the version of myself that moves through the world each day. In going inward, I am able to find a sense of freedom and exploration that often feels inaccessible to me in public, in unfamiliar environments, or when surrounded by other people.
Through processing my own emotions and experiences in a non verbal format, does that also create space for others in a similar position? A space where they can simply be. A space to breathe. Nothing required of them. No expectations, no need to explain. Just the quiet permission to exist while feeling connected to the work.
I have been trying to find other artists who experience alexithymia, or who might use their art in a similar way, without explanation or pretence. I am curious about whether a sense of language or even community can be developed where there are no words. Where connection is not built through articulation, but through recognition.
