I do not feel like crying when I see someone cry. I would certainly feel the desire to comfort them based on my knowledge that crying people are clearly sad. I would not want anyone to be sad.
If I saw someone getting hurt I'd would experience anger and put a stop to it. This has nothing to do with empathy or aspergers.
Couple things: 1) What I am referring to above regarding empathy is the ability for someone to non-verbally express things to me in a way that I would then experience and share the same emotions. That, to me, is something that I was not aware of. 2) Your second example is curious in the sense that it does not really relate to the definition I posted. I am talking about the ability to feel emotions that are conveyed non-verbally. Watching someone get hurt is something completely different and a greatly troubling event for anyone. I don't think there would be any difference between an NT or aspie response to a situation such as that - and that would be to intervene and stop it - anything less is just wrong.
No, that's cool. What I was trying to see if there's a connection between ability to "copy" emotional reactions and experiencing appropriate emotions and empathy.
I only want to cry if a person who cries experience something that I've experienced personally. The weird thing, it's true about people who are on the brink of death... Even though I haven't been dying besides the moment just after I was born, when I almost died. But I did see a lot of dead people... Weird ...
As for people being hurt... So feelings that those situations awaken can't be associated with empathy... I though it was a part if it. It's just we look at it this way: "this is wrong" and other people might look at it this way: "poor kid" or something... But I'm going to read your additional message right now and see if there's anything else in there
Every time I write something attempting to explain my emotions I constantly feel the need to edit, expand, or redact the posting.
So - It just occurred to me. I am an aspie trying to explain my emotional state? Uhhhh. Is that not like waiting for a bus in a town that you're not sure has bus service?
While I have no urge to remove anything I have written I look back on it and realize that I genuinely suck at trying to explain this - by definition. So don't expect anything to be explained too clearly - at least by me. Now I need to find a good concrete discussion on diesel engines, motorcycles or airplanes - where I can write in clear detail for HOURS AND HOURS and hours. .
(Credit where credit is due: The bus analogy is stolen from Roger Ebert (RIP) writing on a completely different subject - a bad movie - but it's fitting here also)
Don't worry. You don't suck at it. You don't have to do it like others, you do it the way you do it.
Like, a therapist asked my one time, how do you feel usually. My son's not answering, looking at her like she's crazy. So she's asking: "do you feel happy, do you feel sad?" And his answer was, "normal. I feel normal". And I was laughing because that's what I would answer. Of course you don't feel happy all the time, or sad, you do feel normal
I also call it... Plain
I feel for people in front of me.
But when they are gone out of my life for a bit, then they are gone. It's as if I am living an immediate life with a very vague past.
And... I don't think I give people what they want from me. I don't know when to hug someone in distress. That I am doing something not welcome. They don't need some big weird crazy guy hugging them and they're got enough problems. I just don't know how to judge it.
And I know that people can't see it in me. I DO care about them. I do. But my care is invisible to them. I appear cold.
I also have no clue, and I almost always do the wrong thing no matter how well I know a person... Or how well I seem to know a person. I usually don't hug people, I don't like unexpected hugs, I need to be ready for them (unless it's a family member, with family it's different)
but I can hug a woman if I can clearly see she's been crying and especially if she was talking about the reason for crying. As for saying anything comforting, I've given up completely. I just know what to say, and that's it. As for my family, it's different. In many cases we don't need to talk.
