Topic: Alexithymia and Anxiety Disorders

I can tell when others are feeling certain ways but I have trouble distiquishing between anxious and depressed.

I also have anxiety and depression issues with a lot of difficulty separating the two. In my case, diagnosis went depression --> anxiety, but I'm not sure which really came first.
Re: getting help on emotional issues. I actually found group therapy surprisingly helpful, because people explain what is going on inside their heads and I don't have to guess. It brought up possibilities I hadn't considered before about myself.

Do you know any good online course for increasing ones emotional IQ or managing emotions.

that I could find a good therapist that can help me INSTANTLY know how I "feel." So I can respond appropriately when someone upsets me instead of it taking me two weeks to process it, then the person doesn't remember what they said two weeks ago. I'm sick of this! My family doesn't understand it and refuses to help me on it.

Hi all. I feel a lot of sympathy for the above.

First of all on the on-line course: I tried the emotional awareness exercises at helpguide.org. It is a kind of mindfulness meditation, concentrating on the bodily feelings associated with your emotions. For me it opened Pandora's box. I now have goose pimples all the time, without knowing which feelings they relate to, of course :-(
These goose pimples scare me when they don't go away after two-three hours. I cannot help being fully aware of them, making it impossible to concentrate on something else. Apparently this is feeding the (unknown) emotion, which turns into a panic. I have been wondering whether the feeling could be anxiety or stress. Anyway, the panic puts me into (probably) a depressive state of hopelessness for several hours. I managed to see a psychologist in this state. I burst into tears, without knowing why I cried... She said it was stress. That at least explains why the anxiety pills don't work. More importantly, I discovered that slowing down in my work when I feel the goose pimples helps me avoid the panic. At least this helps me getting out of the Pavlov chain goose pimples => panic.

By the way, the above mindfulness meditation helped me a lot in improving my social contacts. I thus do recommend it.

Slightly off-topic, I noticed quite some difficulties interacting with psychologists. Some don't grasp that alexithymia means that my perception of the situation is not the objective truth. Others think they know alexithymia and start to question everything I report about my feelings. The catch is that my relationship with my psychologist itself is ruled by emotions. If I matter-of-factly state that I am in love (or all excited that I am not - both situations actually occured), then she will seriously doubt whether it is true... It is easy to find an empathic psychologist, but difficult one who grasps the problems.

I also was diagnosed with anxiety disorder at a young age, i actually was on medication for a while and it helped me a lot. But a couple of years i kinda relapsed but now it was more of a depression, more medication and now im feeling a lot better. I have a very stressful job, i sometimes cant figure out if im anxious about my work or if im depressed because i feel kinda empty inside. Like most alexis i try not to think too much which obviously is a mistake but i cant really help it.