Two settings: good and bad

What this means

All three parts are raised in your answers. Bad moods arrive as one lump, good moods all register as fine, and even when you do know the exact word, it rarely changes what you do or say. Put together, your feelings come in roughly two settings: good and bad. Everything in between gets sorted into one or the other.

That is a description of how your emotional map works at the moment, not a judgment about how deep you are. People with coarse maps can feel a great deal. They just experience it in large blocks rather than fine detail.

What it can feel like

It can feel as if moods happen to you. A bad day is just bad, without a clear reason, and so without a clear fix. A good day is fine, and it is hard to say why or how to repeat it. Other people's emotional conversations can feel overcomplicated, or like a language you were never taught. When a partner asks how you feel, "fine" or "not great" may be honest, not evasive.

Why it matters

Coarse maps limit options. If the only settings are good and bad, the only strategies are to enjoy one and get rid of the other, often with the same few fixes every time. Finer distinctions give you more choices: lonely and overloaded are both bad, and they need opposite things.

In relationships, coarse maps can keep arguments general. "You upset me" invites "I didn't mean to", and the specific thing never gets addressed.

How this differs from nearby tests

If it is hard to identify any feeling at all, or feelings show up mostly in your body, the alexithymia test looks at that. If the bigger issue is reading other people's feelings, the emotion recognition test is the closer fit. This result is about the resolution of your own feelings once they are there.

What to do next

Start small and start with words. Pick six feelings to learn this month, three unpleasant (worried, hurt, overloaded) and three pleasant (relieved, proud, content). Once a day, ask which of the six is closest, even if none fits perfectly.

Then pair two of them with a response. When you notice overloaded, cut one thing from tomorrow. When you notice hurt, say so to the person within a day.

For most people the map can be added to, the way vocabulary grows in any language: slowly at first, then faster once the first few words are in use.

If you want somewhere to practice putting feelings into words without anyone waiting for an answer, Lovon is built for that.