upcoming. :)

This morning after coming from the church to attend the Sunday Mass, my editor in Infopsych texted me that I MUST submit any psych-related article na funny. As in OMG talaga that I rushed to dorm at once to start the an article right away to meet my deadliest deadline which is 1pm.

Sobrang wala akong maisip na topic kasi this is my first writing career sa college. Haha. Kaya dapat kinacareer. Pero feeling ko, naging weak ako pagtapak ko ng college pagdating sa writing. Last time na nagsulat ako eh yung last issue din na nirelease ng school paper namin. Graduating na ako noon. Akala ko aabutan ko yung graduation issue, pero hindi pala. Hindi ko na naisulat yung matagal ko nang dapat isulat... lahat tungkol sa kanya. At kung gusto mong malaman kung sino siya, magPM ka kung tunay kang chismosa. LOL.

Natapos ko naman yung article before 1pm pero hindi siya FUNNY. Corny kasi ako. :D
Kaya namging informative na alng yung article. Share ko na lang sa inyo yung bunga ng pagka-cram ko.

When Feelings Can’t Be Put Down to Words

You see an F remark in your last major exam. You’ve been taking note that it’s a major exam equivalent to failing a MAJOR subject, too. Now, you ended up fighting with your own self of not doing the very best during that time. Feeling betrayed because you never expected that awful outcome. Feeling angry or betrayed by the moment, or whatever your emotion/s that time, you just don’t know. It’s a weird feeling not knowing how you would describe and identify your emotions.

Coming from school, you felt like sulking in your bedroom for the whole day. With your emotion-filled self, you tried to think of any other ways to suppress your feelings. You’ve been opting for a defense mechanism that you use over and over again. But projection and repression never work this time. Turning yourself in front of the computer to put everything that happened today in your blog account, you just can’t find the RIGHT WORDS to fit in with your feelings. Law of Readiness (to put down those disturbances) may be working with or against you and found yourself staring at the blinking cursor... still trying to blog something.

Now trying to write something with your trustworthy diary, you realized it is worse that you still leave it blank when ironically you are bursting with emotions.

Then the better word for it may be alexithymia.

Sounds new to your ears, right? One can be considered as alexithymic when he or she is encountering difficulty in identifying and describing emotions and feelings. This once mistaken mental disorder came from the three Greek words: a=lack; lexis=word and thymos=emotions. The term alexithymia is coined by a psychoanalyst named Peter Sifneos way back in 1973 with its new definition taken from Greek words: literally "without words for emotions”. He discovered that his patients are seeing problems in expressing their feelings with words as he talked to them.

It is a personality trait that varies in severity from person to person and not classified as a mental disorder in the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

Alexithymia is also seen with these signs such as difficulty describing feelings to other people, be perceived by others as excessively logical, or unsentimental without being unfriendly, make personal decisions according to principles rather than feelings, give pedantic and long-winded answers to practical questions and physically, suffer occasional inexplicable physiological disturbances such as palpitations, stomach ache, or hot flushes. Frequently, alexithymic individuals are unaware of what their feelings are.

If you think that you’re still having the hard time to fill your personal journal with words, there’s no other solution for this but personal cure. An alexithymic person must start to read about feelings and emotions and it will start you to gain vocabulary. Another is to take some time to think about how you feel and reflect on them by writing them down. The most helpful is to surround your self with trusty emotionally healthy individuals.

I say that people know they can't handle their real feelings. So they learn not to talk about them. so how could we expect people to learn to?

To have a less, "alexithymic" world, then, will require significant changes, and will surely have fairly dramatic impact on the future of human relationships. I suggest that the time to begin is now, and that the benefits will be worth the difficulties during the transition. I also suggest the place to start is in the schools. Then I suggest we listen ask the students how they feel, and then really listen. And then start to make changes to take their feelings into account.

This is how I see us changing society. If we do this, I predict there will be a noticeable decline in what is called alexithymia. And I guess, it would be easier for you to write and blog your emotions this time... with those right words.

Credits kay Jessica Barnido. If I never visited her Multiply site again, this topic in this whatever article will never come to life. I knew the term ALEXITHYMIA before but when I saw her page, it made me opt to this psych concept. :)

Credits din sa 2008 Disorganizer ko. Kung hindi dahil sa January 24, 2008 diary entry ko, hindi ko maaalala ang alexithymia. Nainspire ako kasi feeling ko I'm alexithymic. :D

Fingers crossed ako ngayon. Sana nga lang maging okay itog article sa editor ko para naman sa wakas may makita akong output ko sa Psych newsletter (Infopsych). PSYCH WEEK na rin next week. Pero kung hindi mapublish, sorry ako. My fault din naman. Hindi ko nainterview si Ma'am Vargas. Bahala na talaga. :-[

Ano sa tingin niyo, okay ba itong article??? :-/