I Can't Express My Feelings: Understanding Alexithymia and Emotional Blindness

If you often think I can't express my feelings, there may be a name for it: alexithymia. Learn the signs, the causes and practical ways to name your emotions.

Picture a forty-two-year-old man three weeks after his father's funeral. Every evening his wife asks: "How are you, what's going on inside?" The answer is always the same: "I'm fine, nothing's wrong." Yet in recent weeks his stomach has been cramping, he wakes at three in the morning, and at work he bangs the desk at the smallest setback. When you ask him what he feels, he genuinely does not know; he is not hiding it, he simply cannot find it. The sentence "I can't express my feelings" often describes exactly this: the emotion is there, but the words to reach it, and even the inner compass to recognise it, are missing. Psychology has a name for this difficulty: alexithymia. In this article we look at what it means to struggle to name your feelings, where this comes from, how it shows up in the body and in relationships, and how the skill can still be developed in adulthood.

What Is Alexithymia? Recognising Emotional Blindness

Alexithymia is a word of Greek origin that roughly means "no words for emotions". The concept was described in the 1970s by clinicians working with patients who came with physical complaints but could not describe their feelings at all. Today it is not treated as a psychiatric diagnosis but as a personality trait that varies in degree from person to person. In other words, everyone sits somewhere on this spectrum; some of us can describe our feelings in fine detail, while others struggle to get beyond the word "bad".

Alexithymia is usually described through four components:

• Difficulty identifying feelings: Noticing that something has shifted inside, but being unable to tell whether it is anger, fear or sadness.
• Difficulty describing feelings to others: Finding it almost impossible to put what you feel into words.
• An externally oriented thinking style: Focusing on the concrete details of events rather than their echo in your inner world; giving long answers to "what happened?" and short ones to "how did you feel?"
• Limited imagination: A restricted capacity for picturing, daydreaming and symbolic thinking in the inner world.

The point most often confused is this: alexithymia is not the absence of emotion. Many people who live with this difficulty actually experience intense feelings; but they experience them not as emotions but as physical tension, restlessness or a vague sense of "something being off". Emotional numbness, in which feelings generally fade during depression, is a different picture; there the problem is not naming the emotion but the emotion itself diminishing.

I Can't Express My Feelings: What Signs Do People Notice?

Someone who struggles to name their feelings often does not notice it themselves; they learn about it through feedback from the people around them. The following signs are some of the everyday faces of this difficulty:

• Almost always answering "How do you feel?" with "I don't know", "Normal" or "Fine, I suppose"
• Describing emotion through the body: "My stomach is churning", "My chest feels tight", "My head is full"
• Describing different feelings such as hurt, disappointment, jealousy and anxiety with a single word, usually "annoyed" or "stressed"
• Showing nothing for a long time and then having an unexpected outburst of anger
• Struggling to understand other people's emotional reactions; not grasping what is happening in a film scene that makes everyone else cry
• Recounting an event hour by hour, in detail but stripped of feeling
• Frequently hearing from a partner: "I can't talk to you" or "It's like talking to a wall"
• Changing the subject, turning things into a joke or leaving the room when an emotional conversation begins

Seeing a few of these signs in yourself does not, on its own, mean there is a problem or a diagnosis. But if they have been repeating for a long time across many areas of your life, this may be a pattern worth reflecting on.

Why Does Difficulty Naming Feelings Develop?

Recognising and naming emotions is a skill that is learned far more than most of us assume. When a small child cries and the parent says, "Your toy broke, you're very upset", the child learns both the complex sensation in their body and its name at the same time. When there is not enough of this mirroring, the emotional vocabulary remains incomplete too.

In Turkey, the sentences many adults heard in childhood are familiar in this respect: "Don't cry, you're a big man now", "What is there to be upset about?", "Girls don't shout like that", "What will people say?" These sentences are usually said not with ill intent but out of a wish to prepare the child for life. Even so, the message they give the child is clear: some feelings are not wanted. The child learns to suppress these feelings and, over time, to stop noticing them. Patterns that teach boys in particular to "grit your teeth" and girls to be agreeable rather than angry can leave the emotional vocabulary incomplete in different places depending on gender.

Crowded and busy family environments can also play a part. Parents struggling to make ends meet and carrying the burden of the extended family may find it hard to make room for a child's inner world. At home the language spoken is not "feeling" but "duty", "shame" and "responsibility". Someone who grows up in such a home may become a very hard-working, reliable and responsible adult; yet when faced with the question "What do you want, what do you feel?", they fall into a void.

There are other causes as well:

• Trauma and prolonged stress: In unbearable situations, shutting feelings down was once a protective strategy. The numbness that follows collective disasters such as earthquakes is an example. After the danger has passed, this shutting down sometimes turns into a habit.
• Co-occurring conditions: Difficulty identifying feelings can be seen more often alongside depression, anxiety disorders and addictions. It is also known to be more common in some neurodevelopmental differences.
• Temperament: Some people are by nature more oriented towards the outer world than their inner world; this can contribute to less developed attention to emotions.

I Can't Express My Feelings: Effects on the Body and Relationships

A feeling that is not put into words shows itself somewhere. Very often that place is the body. Tension can turn into headaches, worry into heartburn, and suppressed anger into tightness in the jaw muscles. Among people who go from doctor to doctor and hear from their test results that "there is nothing wrong with you", some carry a burden in the body that has an emotional source. Psychosomatic symptoms are therefore not "made up"; they are real, felt symptoms whose roots lie not in the body but in experiences that cannot be put into words.

Relationships also take their share of this difficulty. When one partner talks about their feelings easily and the other stays silent, the one who talks feels alone and unseen. A common cycle goes like this: one partner insists, "Just tell me, what are you feeling?", the other closes down even further under this pressure, and the insisting partner concludes, "You don't care about me." Yet very often the problem is not indifference but the fact that the answer being sought is blurred for the person themselves too.

A similar difficulty can arise in parenting. A mother or father who struggles to recognise their own feelings may also struggle to put names to their child's feelings. In this way, the sentence "Don't cry, it's over" is passed from one generation to the next. In working life, burnout is often noticed late: the person realises how tired they are, and that their limits have been crossed, only when their body gives out.

Another consequence is impulsive ways of coping. An unnamed restlessness may be silenced with food, with alcohol, with hours spent looking at a phone or with non-stop work. Although these behaviours bring relief in the short term, they delay seeing what the real need is.

An emotion that has not been named does not disappear; it usually looks for a place for itself in the body, in behaviour or in the silence of a relationship.

How Can You Learn to Notice and Express Your Feelings?

The good news is this: emotional awareness is a skill that can be developed in adulthood too. It is rather like learning a foreign language; first come a few basic words, then sentences, and finally fluency. The following steps offer concrete ideas for starting this journey:

1. Start with the body. If naming the emotion feels hard, first notice the body. Three times a day, stop for thirty seconds and check your jaw, your shoulders, your stomach and your breathing. Even saying "My shoulders are raised, my breathing is shallow" is a valuable start.
2. Expand your emotional vocabulary. Begin with four basic emotions: sadness, anger, fear and joy. Then add their shades: hurt, wistfulness, embarrassment, unease, disappointment, longing, pride, relief. You can keep this list in the notes on your phone or stick it on the fridge door.
3. Set aside five minutes in the evening. Choose a single moment from the day and answer three questions: What happened? What did I notice in my body? Which feeling might this resemble?
4. Allow yourself approximate expressions. Saying "I think I was a bit hurt" or "I seem to be sort of anxious" is enough. The word "think" eases the pressure to find the right answer.
5. Use indirect channels. Some people reach their feelings more easily while writing, listening to music or walking. Asking "What did this scene touch in me?" when your throat tightens during a film is also an exercise.
6. Take small steps with someone you trust. Saying "I don't quite know what I'm feeling right now, but something is going on inside, let's talk a bit later" is also a form of expression. You do not need to have worked the feeling out; even naming its presence opens a door in the relationship.

Let us return to the man at the beginning of the article. On his evening walks, as he passes the coffee house his father used to visit, he begins to notice his stomach tightening. One day he simply says to his wife, "When I walk past that coffee house, my stomach knots up." Instead of showering him with questions, his wife sits down next to him and says, "I think you miss him." The man is silent for a while, then nods. This small moment gives a name, for the first time, to what he has been carrying in his body for weeks.

This example also holds a tip for partners. Rather than asking someone who struggles to talk about feelings an open-ended "What are you feeling?", offering options is more helpful: "Are you tired, or are you feeling down?" Choosing between options is far less demanding than writing an answer on a blank page.

When Should You Seek Professional Support?

Finding it hard to talk about your feelings is not a problem in itself; many people live with a quieter temperament in this respect. However, in the following situations it may be helpful to speak to a professional:

• If you have had physical complaints with no medical explanation for a long time
• If the same disconnection and "you don't understand me" arguments keep repeating in your relationship
• If, after long silences, you have outbursts of anger that you find hard to control
• If you notice that you suppress a vague restlessness with alcohol, food or other behaviours
• If, after a loss or a shocking event, a state of "I don't feel anything" has lasted for weeks
• If depressive symptoms such as lack of motivation, hopelessness and changes in sleep are also present

If co-occurring symptoms of depression or anxiety are intense, an assessment by a psychiatrist can also contribute to the process.

How Is "I Can't Express My Feelings" Addressed in Therapy?

For someone who comes with this difficulty, the first sessions of therapy may seem challenging; from the outside, therapy looks like exactly the place where feelings are talked about. Yet a good process does not begin by expecting ready-made sentences about emotions. The therapist first works with what is concrete: What happened, what did you notice in your body, what did you do next? Observations can also be shared in the moment during a session: "You clenched your fists while you were telling me this; what is happening inside you right now?" Moments like these help the link between emotion and body to be built in a live way.

In cognitive behavioural therapy, emotion, thought and behaviour are separated from one another, and emotions are rated on a scale from 0 to 100. Although this distinction may feel difficult at first, the emotional vocabulary grows with regular practice. From a schema therapy perspective, the traces left by family environments in which feelings were suppressed or ignored, and themes such as "emotional deprivation", can be explored. Short notes about feelings kept between sessions enrich the material to be discussed in therapy.

The process usually moves slowly but concretely: first the word "bad" splits into "hurt" and "anxious", and then the person notices that they are able to say this to someone close to them. It is possible to carry out this kind of work within individual therapy, either face to face or online.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is alexithymia an illness?

No, alexithymia is not a psychiatric diagnosis in its own right. It is regarded as a trait that varies in degree between people. However, because it can occur alongside depression, anxiety and physical complaints, it makes sense to have it assessed by a professional if it is making your life harder.

If I can't talk about my feelings, does that make me a cold person?

Most probably not. Many people who struggle to name their feelings actually feel intensely; they simply have not had enough chance to learn the tools needed to recognise these feelings and put them into words. What is at stake is not coldness but a language that has remained incomplete.

My partner never talks about their feelings; how can I help?

Rather than insisting, try to create safe, pressure-free moments. Offer options instead of open-ended questions, gently reflect physical cues ("You're very quiet today, are you tired?") and meet small disclosures without criticism. If the cycle is wearing the relationship down a great deal, seeking support together is also an option.

Can alexithymia change over time?

Yes, emotional awareness is a skill that can develop with practice. Body awareness exercises, expanding your emotional vocabulary and making small disclosures in safe relationships can make a difference over time. The pace of change differs from person to person; patience is an important part of this process.

• #alexithymia
• #emotional awareness
• #emotional expression
• #psychosomatic symptoms

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Eda Erkan Alapala

Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.

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