Theory of Mind (ToM)

“Theory of Mind” is the idea that other people think and feel differently from oneself. Is called a theory because for each of us the best we can hope for is a theory of what another person is thinking of feeling based on our external observations of their facial expression, tone, words, and body language. Our own experience and ability to imagine how another might feel (empathy) further frame or theory of how another person thinks and feels.

An incorrect or absent theory will result in not understanding that another’s thoughts and feelings are different from our own, or calculating the wrong thought-feeling protection onto the other person.

I think that I fall into the camp of having an incorrect theory. It’s not drastically wrong and is good enough in most situations, however it is clearly faulty in some important regards: I cannot predict within any reasonable margin of error what my husband will think of feel about any given subject. I make terrible errors of judgement sometimes when I handle communicating my thoughts with him.

I come back to how badly I handled so many situations in the past, even the recent past – for example, I thought that it would be OK to bring up polyamory as something I would like to try. I completely missed that he would have an immediate negative response to the suggestion: when I think about it now, I can better understand why, but there was no suggestion in my brain before I spoke to him that he would be anything other than fine with it as a discussion point.

Results of a faulty theory

It undermines my confidence and has really upset him on many occasions – resulting in me being asked to move out to give him a safe space, as much as to create space to work myself out.

Alexithymia

Is the ability to be able to put words to one’s feelings. There are three parts to this word (all an ancient Greek): the last part thymia means “state of mind”, the lexi(s) element means “words”, so we have “words for state of mind”. The a prefix negates the meaning, saw we end up with something like “no words for state of mind”.

As I’ve discussed in other posts (citation), I’m not completely blind when it comes to emotions: I can identify and name “primary colour” and many “secondary colour” emotions, however I really struggle with complex “tertiary colour” emotions – both identifying them and managing them in myself, but also identifying them in others.

Fortunately, most human interaction seems to be at the primary level, where simple motivations and feelings are common place. I think it’s rare for complex emotions to present themselves in the workplace or while out shopping. I highlighted the “think” in the last sentence because it occurred to me that I might be completely unaware there there might be more complicated emotions present!

How the two impairments affect my relationships

Where complex emotions are important and frequent is in my relationship with my husband. I established in the section about “Theory of Mind”, that a partially working theory is fine much of the time.

In my marriage, an impairment in emotional intelligence compounds the problems associated with a flawed “Theory of Mind”: I cannot work out how my husband feels/might feel in anything complicated or multilayered because my ability to translate my feelings.

I might hide this for which I think he will have a strong reaction and clumsily communicate things for which he does have a strong reaction.

Such were the issues around how I communicated my gender/body dysphoria and Dark Fantasies. Keeping things secret that I needn’t, and blowing his mind with things that I needed to share.

Coping strategies

Accepting that one has a problem is the first step to dealing with it. I believe that I have a problem with “Theory of Mind” and alexithymia.

Therapy

I need to keep working with my counsellor to further explore my issues with ASD; in particular investigating how ToM and my inability to identify and express some of my emotions. Tomorrow I will chase the autism referral: it will have been two weeks since I spoke to the doctor about it.

Self-help

Journaling in this blog it’s helping me to analyse how my brain works and creates a habit of reflection where I am able to calmly (and at my own pace) work through my thoughts and feelings.

I have a number of trusted friends with whom I can talk about things, however they do struggle when it comes to my marriage.

Support networks

I am not having so much luck with engaging with support networks so far. The Reddit communities I have joined seem to have a fixation on collecting plushies and ignore my questions about my autistic experience.

I need to find further resources to help me understand this and work out how ways to compensate for this disability.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexithymia