Autistic empathy

[Pats]

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.

I guess that's what happens when an NT comes up with traits and behaviors for a diagnosis.

 

[the_tortoise]

I guess that's what happens when an NT comes up with traits and behaviors for a diagnosis.

Yeah, they don't just stop at observable behaviors, they get into interpretation and theorizing about the reasons for those behaviors (which is not inherently bad, it's essential for differential diagnosis) and somewhere along the line they forget that it's just a theory and not a proven fact (or never consider that their theory/interpretation might be wrong in the first place -- that there could be more than one explanation for the behaviors they witness).

 

[Tom]

I empathize with those in misfortunate situations.

Not so much with those that have screwed things up themselves.

 

[Pats]

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.

I agree with you but don't understand why others are so careless.

 

[Tom]

They say that people are mostly made up of water. I think they are mostly ignorant and 3/4's stupidity on their father's side.

 

[BraidedPony]

Sorry Fino for bringing up bad memories, but I DID leave out the graphic parts.
I also became vegan after watching that show, for 5 months. Now I’m just a vegetarian.
Anyway, sorry.

 

[Pats]

I empathize with those in misfortunate situations.

Not so much with those that have screwed things up themselves.

I know what you are saying and agree to a point - like if someone knows what it's doing and continue. But sometimes people make 1 mistake and it changes their life. They screwed up, yes, but doesn't always deserve the consequences. I had an AIDS patient, he was 18. He was kind, polite and well behaved. We had a long talk and he was telling me that he had decided to experiment one time with homosexuality and ended up with AIDS. He died from his mistake and I could never feel like 'well, he did it to himself'. So I can't agree in every case. When it's a regretted mistake I empathize maybe even more so. Maybe because I know what it's like to live with a mistake that you can't undo.

 

[Hello_Doggy]

I feel empathy, but I don’t show it in public because I’m afraid of being different. If I say I see something no one else sees, I’ll be labeled “different”, if I say nothing, I’m afraid I’ll be considered “cold”. All in all, it’s easier to be lonely than it is to be the center of anyone’s attention.

 

[Pats]

I wonder if the fact we are so empathetic, it may make us more forgiving in nature? I was thinking about this when I was commenting above. Knowing how easily anyone can make a mistake or knowing how easy it is to find yourself wrapped up in something risky in whatever way and understanding how it happens can make us more understanding and forgiving. I'm probably one of the most forgiving people I know even when someone does something horrible - that is, as long as there's some regret there. And is it the regret I'm feeling or the understanding of how they ended up there to begin with or both?

 

[Ginseng]

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

My exact thoughts!

 

[BraidedPony]

I wouldn’t blame your AIDS patient at all. He was young and trusted someone. Poor kid.

 

[Gritches]

The common perception is misleading. We lack cognitive empathy, not affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is why we might have trouble reading facial expressions or making eye contact. Affective empathy is what people usually mean when they talk about empathy, which we do NOT lack.

A sociopath will lack both cognitive and affective empathy. An aspie only lacks cognitive empathy. That's the difference.

 

[Graphin]

@Gritches
I've had experiences with a (high functioning) sociopath, he definetly had cognitive empathy, and could understand neurotypicals very well, as it is with most of those people I hear about

Also, sometimes enjoyed the suffering of others, isn't that kind of empathy too?

 

[Gritches]

@Gritches
I've had experiences with a (high functioning) sociopath, he definetly had cognitive empathy, and could understand neurotypicals very well, as it is with most of those people I hear about

I might be getting that wrong then. It might be that psychopaths lack affective empathy with cognitive empathy still intact, while autistic people are the direct opposite. I'm not sure. Good call-out though, I don't want to spread misinformation if indeed I am mistaken.

 

[Mr Allen]

People have been saying for years that Aspies and Autistic people generally don't "do" empathy, it's a complete myth IMO.

 

[BrokenBoy]

People have been saying for years that Aspies and Autistic people generally don't "do" empathy, it's a complete myth IMO.

A utter crap one.

 

[Autistamatic]

I might be getting that wrong then

You're not wrong - it's a very complex balance and there are so many competing theories, hence why it's not a simple subject to cover. Cognitive empathy and Theory of Mind are very similar, some even argue that they are the same thing. Many of us are lacking in this area but we have ways of compensating for it with logic and conscious thought. Affective empathy requires an instinctive awareness of emotion that allows us to share an emotional state. Some of us are quite strong in that area, particularly autistic women, but equally many are not. Part of the problem may be related to eye contact - if we're missing emotional cues (because we don't understand them or we're just not looking at someone) that tell us how someone is feeling, we can't share the emotional state via affective empathy. At that point we have to rely on cognitive empathy - but we may have a deficit in that function too - so it requires employing conscious, problem solving effort to back it up.
That's where we get into areas like "Empathy - Systemising Theory" and "Theory Theory" and it starts to get messy!
Some of us - myself as an example - use cognitive empathy over affective empathy, but because it's not a quality in which I am strong, I treat it as a problem to solve. I am simulating cognitive empathy in conscious thought - building a model based on experience to calculate my responses. In my case, according to Empathy-Systemising Theory - I am systemising. I'm a PC (autistic) brain running a Nintendo game (empathy) through an emulator if you like. It's not as efficient as natural empathy of either type, but I usually get there in the end. Once I've worked out what the feelings are I find myself mirroring them to some degree, but it's unlikely that my "emulated" empathy is as powerful as it would be if it always came to me naturally.

 

[TempeFan]

em·pa·thy
/ˈempəTHē/
noun

1. the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Actually we have more empathy for people who are hurting through no fault of their own while not as much for people who chose to hurt themselves and others. It doesn't make sense to us that people would want to harm others, especially in a way that causes themselves a loss, but it's imperative to others that they behave in a socially acceptable way, which means not considering the understanding or feelings of persons who are different.

Everybody knows it's wrong to lie, cheat, steal, maim, and murder others. Most people, not just psychopaths and sociopaths, chose to disregard this understanding and not share the feelings of others in favor of believing that it's OK for them to do whatever they chose, just not for others to do bad things to them. Doing bad things to people who are labelled as different is what society teaches. Most people simply act on social cues in the way they were raised to respond. Those on the spectrum can't do that because they are blinded to social cues by the Autism. Information is being with held from us that is not being with held from NTs. Our thought processes are more unique. We have to rely on actually thinking and feeling to process each individual response, without the extra information of social cues and preprogrammed automatic reactions from irrational training. All people have empathy, but the masses don't use it very often and view empathy toward popular people as being true empathy but empathy, toward a person who is not of their particular group, as insignificant and therefore discard it as not recogniseable.

Because of our neurodiversity, we are singled out for all sorts of abuse, so we know firsthand how much it hurts to be betrayed, beaten, bullied, excluded from employment, healthcare, housing, public accomodation, relationships and all other social amenities - simply because we were born with a brain anomaly that impairs our ability to lie and hate for no reason. We are routinely misinterpreted, misquoted, misjudged, misdiagnosed, maliciously maligned and otherwise mistreated due to other people's unwillingness to be empathetic.

 

[onlything]

If we understand sympathy as feeling of sorrow, pity and compassion for hardships of others and empathy as understanding another by putting yourself in their shoes(definitions taken from dictionary.com), then I have to say that I do have problems with feeling empathy and expressing sympathy. I simply cannot fully understand a situation if I didn't go through it. I can realise that something is painful for the other person and maybe even how painful but it doesn't mean I truly understand what they're going through. I can feel sorrow for what they lost and want to do something to make them feel better but it doesn't mean I know what to do and how they feel.

I always found myself as quite sensitive and compassionate person but I'm not sure if I would call myself empathetic. Eventually, it is possible that I am and that I understand this kind of state of mind as much as the rest of the range of my emotions - which means that not really.

Since the emotions I have are mostly a jumbled mess, I suspect it's possible that I just can't fully perceive it. Still, this kind of speculation is not exactly useful.

 

[Autistamatic]

other people's unwillingness to be empathetic.

I'm not contradicting anything you said, but it did put me in mind of some of the reading I've done researching this topic.
There's an increasing body of thought and evidence that suggests that NTs can find empathy with autistic people difficult, and ASD people can find empathy with NTs difficult, but autistic people very often find empathy with other people on the spectrum comes quite naturally.