“One in ten people struggle to recognise their emotions. New research suggests a vital link between our ability to sense our physical bodies and knowing how we feel.”
This article in Mosaic has been written by Emma Young:
“Stephen has been married twice. Two wedding days. Two ‘I do’s. Yet Stephen has no happy memories from either – or, in fact, from the marriages or any of his relationships.
He met his first wife on a pre-nursing course when he was just 16. Six years later, they were married. Three years after that, they got divorced; she was never really the right one for him, he says. Almost two decades on, in 2009, he met his second wife through a dating site. He threw himself into the relationship and, the following year, with his father and her two adult siblings present, they married at the registrar’s office in Sheffield, where they both live.
He put on smiles for the wedding photos because he recognised that they were expected but, as he explains: ‘From an inner feeling point of view, anything I do that requires an emotional response feels like a fake. Most of my responses are learned responses. In an environment where everyone is being jolly and happy, it feels like I’m lying. Acting. Which I am. So it is a lie.’
Happiness isn’t the only emotion that Stephen struggles with. Excitement, shame, disgust, anticipation, even love… he doesn’t feel these, either. ‘I feel something but I’m unable to distinguish in any real way what that feeling is.’ The only emotions he is familiar with are fear and anger …”
You can read more from here.
