Alexithymia, Neurodivergence, and the Different Ways we Feel and Heal

Apparently, today should have been a day of big feelings. My best friend and I finally launched the Neurospice & Life podcast — a dream that has lived in my head, my heart, and my laptop for months. Apparently, I should have felt excitement, pride, joy… something that matched the size of the moment.

But instead? Nothing. Just a quiet internal, “Okay, next step complete.” No fizz, no butterflies, no wave of emotion washing over me.

And here’s the important part: it’s not because I don’t care. It’s not because the podcast isn’t meaningful. It’s simply because my feelings often don’t show up where society expects them to. This is alexithymia — and it’s far more common in neurodivergent people than most people realise.

Alexithymia literally means “no words for feelings,” but that definition barely scratches the surface. It isn’t the absence of emotion. It’s the difficulty identifying what you’re feeling, naming it, or even recognising it until long after the moment has passed. Many autistic and ADHD people experience this to some degree, often linked with something called interoception — the internal sense that helps us detect things like heart rate, tightness, warmth, or that classic flutter of excitement. When interoception is faint or inconsistent, emotional signals can feel faint or inconsistent too.

In real life, alexithymia looks like feeling “blank” during big moments, having delayed emotional reactions, struggling to put feelings into words, or being misinterpreted as distant or cold. Sometimes it leads to overthinking, sometimes to shutting down, and often to people assuming you don’t care — when inside, nothing could be further from the truth.

I’ve lived this my whole life. When my daughter was born, everyone waited for that huge movie-moment: tears, overwhelming love, the “magical rush.” But for me, it didn’t arrive like that. Not because I didn’t love her — I already did. I fell in love with her while she was still in my tummy. When she arrived earthside, it didn’t feel like something new had begun. It felt like she’d simply walked from one room to another. And I don’t love someone more in the lounge than I do in the kitchen.

But people judged me. They whispered. They wondered why I wasn’t reacting “properly.” They misread me as cold or disconnected. I wasn’t. I was just wired differently.

And today, when the podcast launched, the same thing happened. I loved creating it. I loved the conversations, the ideas, the messy laughter, the depth. The love happened then. When it went public, the emotional moment didn’t change — the location did. And that’s the part of alexithymia people never talk about: the quiet ways we love, often long before (or long after) anyone else sees it.

Every week in counselling, I hear stories from clients who think there’s something wrong with them because their emotions don’t behave the way they “should.” So many neurodivergent mums have been told their feelings are wrong, too late, too muted, too much, or simply missing. But nothing is missing — the signals simply run differently.

And when they seek help with difficult emotions they often do a session or two and stop, because the tools and techniques don't actually work for them and how their brain works. They know the feeling - they want practical help to support them to shift it.

This is where ND-affirming therapy actually helps. Not the kind where you’re expected to sit in a room and talk about feelings for 50 minutes while your brain goes completely blank. But the practical kind. The grounded kind. The kind that helps you understand the why behind your emotions so you can focus on the what now.

In therapy, we build interoception — the ability to notice body cues and link them to possible emotional states. We explore what triggered a feeling, what story your brain told, what need wasn’t met. We work on identifying the body queues earlier so we can interpret feelings sooner.

We gently unpack the context behind the emotion — not to analyse you endlessly, but to understand how your nervous system is responding, self-protecting, or signalling a need.

And most importantly, we work on the part neurodivergent clients love most: what to do next.
How to soothe.
How to shift.
How to support yourself.
How to meet the emotional need without judgement or pressure.

We don’t force you to “feel more.” We help you understand your emotional landscape in the way your brain actually works.

Alexithymia doesn’t mean you don’t feel. It means you feel differently. And your quiet, non-Hollywood version of love and joy is still love and joy. It’s still real. It’s still valid.

If you’ve ever been told your feelings were strange, delayed, wrong, or absent — I want you to know you’re not alone. You’re not broken. You’re simply wired in a way the world doesn’t always understand.

And that’s exactly why I do this work.

If you want to see how counselling might be able to support you drop me a line and I am happy to book a free 20 minute discovery session to talk about HOW you feel and how you want to feel.