You are not Broken. You are wired differently.
Take what helps, skip what doesn’t, and remember you don’t have to do this alone.
Save it to your computer. Print it. Write on it. It’s yours.
Working the Gap
Paired worksheet: Alexithymia and Trauma, Why You Feel Nothing Now and Everything Later
When the material is hard, alexithymia does something specific: nothing lands in the moment, and then everything lands weeks later, usually over something small. This worksheet is built for that delay. It is not the trauma work itself. Trauma processing belongs with a trauma-informed clinician. This is the scaffolding underneath it, the part that makes the work reachable.
If you are in crisis right now, call or text 988. This worksheet is coaching and education, not therapy or medical care.
Tool 1: Which Layer Is Failing?
The Interoception Gap fails at three separate points, and the fix is different at each one. You may fail at different layers for different material. Read all three, then mark the one that sounds most like you when something hard happens.
- Layer 1, Detection. The signal never registers. There is no 2, no 4, no 6. There is nothing, and then there is a nine. Fix: external scaffolding. Scheduled check-ins instead of waiting to feel like it.
- Layer 2, Interpretation. Something lands but you read it wrong. Grief comes out as irritation. Fear comes out as anger. Shame comes out as tiredness. Fix: a translation key. Body first, family second, word third.
- Layer 3, Action. You detect it and you name it and you still cannot make the call, ask for the day, or tell anyone. Fix: pre-decide and pre-stage. Borrow another nervous system for the step.
The layer that fails most often for me:
One time I can point to where that happened:
Tool 2: Your Delay Length
The delay is not random. It tends to run about the same length every time, and once you know your number, the collapse stops being evidence that something is wrong with you and starts being something you can plan around. Fill in two or three hard things from the past few years. Guesses count.
| What happened | How I looked at the time | When it actually landed | What it landed as |
|---|---|---|---|
My delay usually runs about:
Write it down somewhere you will find it later. This is the number that makes the next one survivable.
Tool 3: The Two-Line Log
Your internal alarm is not reliable, so this is the external one. Two lines a day. One body sensation, one guess at the family it belongs to. That is the whole assignment. Fourteen days, because the delay runs in weeks and a seven-day window will miss the climb.
| Day | Body sensation | Family guess (mad, sad, scared, joyful, peaceful, powerful) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 5 | ||
| 6 | ||
| 7 | ||
| 8 | ||
| 9 | ||
| 10 | ||
| 11 | ||
| 12 | ||
| 13 | ||
| 14 |
Tool 4: Scripts and Scheduled Landings
The delay script
One sentence you can hand to a therapist, a doctor, or a partner so the blankness does not get read as resistance. Write it in your own words.
Starter: “I process emotions on a delay. If I go blank when you ask, that is not resistance. Ask me in writing and I will have a real answer in a couple of days.”
The 48-hour landing
After a hard event, fifteen minutes, on the calendar, whether or not you feel like it. Where will it go, and what will you do in it?
The one-week landing
Same fifteen minutes, one week out. This is the one most people skip and most people need.
Who is in the room
Naming alone is where the floor drops for a lot of us. Who is the person, or the session, you can do this near?
Your Next Actions
- Mark which layer fails for you, and read the fix that goes with it.
- Fill in the delay table with two past events and write down your number.
- Start the two-line log tonight. One sensation, one guess. Guesses count.
- Write your delay script and say it to one person this week.
- Put the 48-hour and one-week check-ins on your actual calendar, not in your head.
- If you are carrying active trauma, take this worksheet to a trauma-informed clinician and work it together.
What Surfaced for You?
No right answers. Just notice what came up while you worked through this.
The blankness now and the collapse later are one event, delivered in two parts. You are not failing the first half.
Danielle Ralston
MBA, MSW, ADHD-CCSP, PhD(c), Master ADHD Coach, AuDHD, Founder of ND Hive
Read the full guide: Alexithymia and Trauma →
The Sensation Ladder and the emotions wheel live on the parent page →
© Ralston Collective Holdings LLC. ndhive.com