Autistic empathy

[Fino]

NTs don't show empathy towards us.

I put "agree" because they generally don't, but I know lots who do, and those are the ones I stay in contact with. Maybe it has something to do with living in California, the land of the liberals.

 

[AuBurney Tuckerson]

NTs don't show empathy towards us.

I KNOW RIGHT? For me, it's mostly the problems with sensitive hearing, smell, and vision. I can't stand people shining their bright-lights in my face when driving on the other side of the road. I mean, is it necessary to have your BRIGHTS on during a CLEAR night? They're blinding other people! Then people in class can't even do anything about their breath or armpits! SERIOUSLY, they look at some of us as if we don't take care of ourselves just because we LOOK different, but they can't even take care of their personal hygiene! Then they're way too loud with everything they do. It is highly offensive to us sensitive-eared folk for people to drive by in a loud-motored 4-cylinder truck roaring as they play their music all the way to the max just so people can hear them coming. They think that makes them look cool, but it just terrorizes anyone with sensitive ears! That was just my rant, and its pretty tame compared to most of my rants.

 

[Ginseng]

I couldn't bring myself to hit back. I thought about it, tried to, but I couldn't do it, so I just kept getting hit and did nothing.

Wow!!! There is someone else out there like me? I thought I was the only one. Thanks for sharing.1

 

[Fino]

Wow!!! There is someone else out there like me? I thought I was the only one. Thanks for sharing.1

That is exactly how I felt when I read your postlll

Some of the few people I've confided in asked me why I didn't fight back and for a while I felt guilty and stupid not having done it, wondering what was wrong with me.

But if there's at least two of us then it's okay.

My exclamation point isn't working so pretend those ls near the beginning are exclamation points.

 

[Adora]

I am a extremely empathetic person,even the psychologist who told me that i am on the spectrum also described me as very empathetic,but when I first found out about being on the spectrum I did ask about the whole lack of empathy thing and she told me from her experience from her clients whom I found out were on the spectrum aswell it is definitely not the case and a reason that some people may think those on the spectrum lack empathy could be due to some not making eye contact with others which to another person may appear like that someone on the spectrum doesn’t care or is interested which I did find it to be an interesting reason because I do lack eye contact and I wonder if people thought that I wasn’t interested.

 

[Fino]

I am a extremely empathetic person,even the psychologist who told me that i am on the spectrum also described me as very empathetic,but when I first found out about being on the spectrum I did ask about the whole lack of empathy thing and she told me from her experience from her clients whom I found out were on the spectrum aswell it is definitely not the case and a reason that some people may think those on the spectrum lack empathy could be due to some not making eye contact with others which to another person may appear like that someone on the spectrum doesn’t care or is interested which I did find it to be an interesting reason because I do lack eye contact and I wonder if people thought that I wasn’t interested.

Yes!

I once had a woman I was dealing with at an office for paperwork gradually get angrier and angrier, and I wasn't entirely sure why she was getting angry, and she'd pause often and then I'd start talking and then she'd say to let her finish and finally I said, "but you keep pausing," and she said, "I'm waiting to see if you're listening." I was baffled for a long time afterwards until I realized I didn't know what she looked like, because I never even looked at her! I was fiddling with things on the counter instead. I had no idea at the time! So she probably perceived me as not caring about what she had to say, which wasn't the case at all.

 

[Graphin]

I do feel strongly, but often fail at applying and expressing it, people thought I don't care about others at all sometimes.

What some call "cognitive empathy" might be a common difficulty here.
I have much less empathy with people who I barely understand, and often i percieve strangers robotically, it takes a while to start percieving peoples bodies like people instead of objects without putting effort into it

 

[SusanLR]

Psychologists tend to reason that there are three types of empathy.
Cognitive: Mentally understanding what another is feeling, but, it does not cause a feeling within yourself
when observing. Usually learned from observing others or based on events that have happened to self
so you know how the other feels.
Having this type of empathy is what allows a psychopath or sociopath to be so skilled at manipulating
someone. It allows them to know how to push their buttons, so to speak, and be able to play head games
that manipulates the other's feelings, yet they do not feel anything themselves.
It is an act. A type of mask used for self purposes.
A sociopath may feel emotions when they witness other's distress if it is something they personally have felt themselves. Example: A movie that portrays being hurt by a cheating lover could move them to tears if they have had this same experience and felt trauma from it. Yet they may watch a gruesome murder and feel nothing.

Emotional: The abiltity to react to what you see in other's situations. Neuroscience mainly attributes this
to the mirror neuron effect. This is what I've seen many describe in this thread. Feeling hurt when they see someone else get hurt physically for example. Can't stand depressing news on TV. etc. It actually causes physical and emotional distress within from seeing or hearing about someone else's suffering.
Those who see something like a person physically or emotionally hurt or hearing of bad news like a mass
shooting or disaster and feels nothing lacks emotional empathy.

Compassionate empathy: The deepest of all empathy. Both of the above are felt plus these empaths
are so moved they are compelled to jump in and help even if it may mean being hurt themselves.
Example: This type sees an animal run over by a car and it is hurt but still alive.
Without thinking they will run out to try to save the animal not thinking they may be putting themselves
in harms way from other cars. It is spontaneous.

I think knowing there are three types of empathy is important.
I agree it isn't so much a lack of feeling empathy as not expressing it in the way most socially think
it should be expressed.
A lot of autistics have a low score on their EQ tests.
Not sure why so low on the test score.

 

[Suzanne]

I feel that empathy and sympathy are pretty mixed up!

I lack sympathy and have to really force myself to be that way, simply because I would not like it if someone showed no feelings for my feelings. But it is very hard to achieve and I inevitably say something that does not go down well.

I suffer from what I refer to as: misplaced empathy. An example of this. My brother is currently staying with us for a week, but to get here, he had to go on a ferry and I could feel my heart pumping at the idea of him on there and worse, eating there! Having chronic social phobia, means that I could not do that, but he had no trouble at all, so I had to swallow down the feeling of: my poor brother.

 

[Monachopia]

As others have stated, I think as a general whole we have empathy, but less sympathy as we tend to view conversations as logical structures that have patterns that need to be followed, so we can come across a bit cold. Numerous times my partner has said something and I asked why he'd shared it and he'd just say "I just want some sympathy!". WHEN to give sympathy and how much (whether it's put on or not) is a little bit of a mystery as I don't know if someone is asking for advice or just wants someone to say "Poor you!"

Happy emotions I struggle with far more - I don't know how to express those. Sometimes I struggle to see why someone would be happy in a certain situation or why they're acting the way they are. It's more confusing.

Now, whether we learned empathy as we went along navigating the NT world is another question. Personally, maybe I have - I know how I felt in a whole range of negative situations, so it's easier to empathise. Happy ones, not so much, I really struggle to feel happiness, excitement or contentment. It's difficult to give praise, I always feel fake. I cannot act excited or happy around people.

So maybe it comes down to two elements - that it may be down to just personality and ability to express and feel (as we're all individuals just like NTs), and maybe some of it has to be self-learned/self-felt to be projected outwards.

 

[Progster]

Of course autistic people have empathy! People just think we don't have empathy for the same reason they think that we lack theory of mind: in your previous video you say that neurotypicals react instantly to whatever is going on around them, and that they rely on emotional feedback or colour to convey their point, but because we process information in a different way and don't automatically produce the expected reaction, they wrongly interpret this as a lack of emotion on our behalf.

Before I was diagnosed, I used to call this 'watching TV', because I felt I was missing something and not not getting what other people are getting and it felt like watching TV - watching and listening to others talk but not able to react and think and respond in real time, like it's behind a screen and never able to join in conversations.

As others have said, we also tend not to be able to express our emotions to others in the socially accepted and expected manner, and as @Adora says, a lack of eye contact may be interpreted as indifference and lack of empathy.

 

[Autistamatic]

Thanks for all the responses everyone. You've certainly made me think already. There's some intriguing stories and some very interesting observations. There are some extremely thoughtful and observant people on this forum
@SusanLR Your post above covering the different types of empathy coincides with the subject of the first video which is already filmed and in the process of being edited. Many of us use cognitive empathy over affective (emotional) empathy due to our neural wiring and our differences in theory of mind. It's surprising how many of us still have a strong sense of affective empathy despite our difficulties in understanding others, which I think some of the responses in this thread demonstrate. Our abilities to express our feelings and the things we choose to say are very likely a source of much of the misconception we experience.

 

[Mattymatt]

NTs don't show empathy towards us.

I generally feel like the world is hostile to us. Sometimes we are treated, at best, like a child, and at worst, with utter disdain.

 

[xDominiel]

I generally feel like the world is hostile to us. Sometimes we are treated, at best, like a child, and at worst, with utter disdain.

Yep. Just look at how popular "autistic" has become as a go-to insult. Even if the people using it that way aren't really thinking (no shock there), it reveals the general attitude towards it.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

My understanding is that you either have empathy or you don't and that it doesn't work on a scale. The ability to empathize is to have an emotional response appropriate to the frame of reference.

For example. If you see a crackhead dead on the street and find yourself feeling a deep sense of hopelessness and sorrow for the situation while everyone else shrugs their shoulders and and says, "It's only a crackhead." You are the one without empathy. This is because you are not sharing in the emotions at a level of the others and it's this level which sets the bar of appropriatness. The crackhead, in this case, has no frame of reference; they're dead.

 

[OkRad]

My understanding is that you either have empathy or you don't and that it doesn't work on a scale. The ability to empathize is to have an emotional response appropriate to the frame of reference.

For example. If you see a crackhead dead on the street and find yourself feeling a deep sense of hopelessness and sorrow for the situation while everyone else shrugs their shoulders and and says, "It's only a crackhead." You are the one without empathy. This is because you are not sharing in the emotions at a level of the others and it's this level which sets the bar of appropriatness. The crackhead, in this case, has no frame of reference; they're dead.

Wow, I must say this is the most Logic answer, excruciating logic. Maybe my empathy toward him reflects on myself, a selfish desire not to be Unempathetic that has backfired? despair at how cold the world is, how alone we all really are?

You said a lot there in a few paragraphs. You would have made a good Athenian and a brilliant Spartan.

 

[the_tortoise]

How do you feel about your own sense of empathy? Do you feel lacking or do you feel it is one of your strengths? Do you think the common perception is accurate or misleading?

Answers to questions in the order they were asked:

I definitely have empathy. Not sure how I compare to others but I wouldn't say that I lack it. I don't always know how to show it, and I suspect this is often the case with autistics, because how we think about situations and process.....anything/everything....is so different (this alone can make it hard for us to empathize, but not impossible -- we just can't assume that another person is reacting and feeling the way that we would in any given situation). Also when you have a communication problem, communicating about anything at all can be a challenge, but when it comes to all the abstract/invisible between-people things it becomes extra challenging; Communication about inner states of other people requires exercising a lot of different cognitive skills.

I think autistic people are as diverse as non-autistic people when it comes to our experience with empathy....So, I think the perception that autistic people always or usually lack empathy is inaccurate/misleading. Autistics are more likely to have alexythymia, apparently, so that may mean that an autistic person is more likely to have difficulty with empathy but I don't think that means the majority of us lack it in the sense that is commonly portrayed.

 

[Mattymatt]

I don't even think it is as simple and as black and white as having empathy or lacking it. Some days I am more empathetic than others depending upon how I am personally feeling on a given day.

 

[Autistamatic]

Thanks @the_tortoise you've kind of hit the nail on the head as to why I picked this topic to cover. I've observed many people on the spectrum both demonstrate clear empathy and talk of it as one of their strengths. I am of the opinion that whilst some of do have difficulties in experiencing empathy, the widely held idea that it is a typical or very common trait is a myth, at least as far as it applies to HFA/AS. We even see people come to this forum who think they may be on the spectrum who say things like "but I can't be ASD, because I have deep empathy."
So far the first video covers different types of empathy and explores how some of us rely more on cognitive empathy than affective, emotional empathy. The second goes into how our communication styles and the way we perceive other people's emotions can be different thereby giving the impression that we are unemotional or lacking in empathy. I've mentioned alexithymia in that script because it's quite an important thing to take into account.
I'm toying with doing a third, partly depending on the variety of opinions expressed here

 

[Autistamatic]

I don't even think it is as simple and as black and white as having empathy or lacking it. Some days I am more empathetic than others depending upon how I am personally feeling on a given day.

And any psychologist worth their salt would agree with you. Mood and fatigue can alter your capacity for empathy on any given day, and it's far from a black and white, you have it or you don't situation.