I have a tough question to ask fellow Asperger's people. :-)

Post Reply New Topic

One of the criteria is lack of empathy and that fits me perfectly examples I laugh when someone gets hurt since I know they really aren't "hurt"(as in bleeding/going to the hospital etc.),but 2 empathy aspects that get to me is I laughed throughout Passion of the Christ and yet I am a Christian (I saw it as some actor and obviously being fake while I'd cry at some fictional movie/death.) Also the big one is I laughed on 9/11. It just did not affect me like it affected others yes 3,000+ people died but it just didn't have an emotional impact on me. Before you call me evil etc. I was shocked when Twisters hit not 5 miles from my house and felt sad over the deaths of known celebrity's (Steve Irwin,Christopher Reeve and John Ritter) These things strangely affected me more than 9/11 and I wanted to know if anyone felt the same way about this issue. (I know 9/11 is a touchy topic to bring up and I'm sorry if I upset anyone.)

to be honest, 9/11 did not affect me heavily either; I was just surprised and interested at seeing the dust clouds form and how they formed, how the entire south side of Manhatten was in smoke; etc.

My mom was teary-eyed and crying and mad that they showed it that day. She snapped at me because I was more interested in the dust clouds, etc. I was in 6-7th grade then, 17 now.

Now I'm a 9/11 truther (see my sig)

Wasn't it Stalin who said 'one death's a tragedy, 10,000's a statistic'?

It's easy to feel sorry for an individual, whether you know them personally or not, which is one of the reasons why charities like 'Concern' and 'Trocaire' often focus on case studies, putting as much information about one particular person on a brochure, rather than a list of statistics: people are more willing help '5 year old orphan little Emile from Rio di Janeiro (or variations on the theme)' than 10,000 anonymous homeless people.

In fact, I think they did an experiment with people begging and they found that if there was only one beggar, people would often give them money. If there were two, they were far less likely to give to either!

I think the technical term is 'compassion fatigue', where the sheer amount of suffering overwhelms the individual, to the point of numbness.

You aren't alone. I often have "inappropriate" reactions to tragedies, like smiling when a coworker is describing a three alarm fire in the wee hours of the morning that burned down three row houses, killed nine little kids and a grandma......am I a sicko? Nope. I'm probably just playing it out in my head like this...."Thank God that wasn't my nieces or nephews that died in that fire. Good thing the road closure didn't effect my commute to work. Good thing that wasn't one of my co-worker's houses. Thank God that wasn't my grandma, or my co-worker's grandma." See it's all about me and people I feel a connection with.......I don't know any of the people who died in that fire, so it doesn't effect me emotionally...I smile not because I'm happy that kids died, I smile because I'm thinking how lucky I am that the people I care about weren't affected.

I was standing on a tall building on a hill only a few miles away from the World Trade Center on 9/11 (across the water). At the time I was 19 years old and it was my first semester of graduate school. I saw the second plane hit and watched in awe as the towers burned and collapsed....not in awe at the 3000 people trapped inside dying....in awe of the fire and the patterns the smoke and dust were making. A friend says to me with tears in his eyes "why the hell are you smiling....do you realize thousands of people are dying?" It hadn't yet occurred to me...I wiped the smile off my face, and wipe a tear off his and replied "yeah that does suck a lot." Not a tear was shed my me.....not even as I drove down the turnpike and saw the huge cloud of smoke for weeks....not when I looked out my window on the eighth floor of my dorm. Not ever.

I do realize it was a tragedy, but it does not evoke any emotional response for me. Things like that never did.

You were affected more by Steve Irwin, Christopher Reeve and John Ritter's deaths than the thousands killed in 9/11, because you felt some kind of connection with them....growing up watching and enjoying their movies and shows. I was sad when Heath Ledger died, because I thought he was hot and liked his accent, and wanted to see him make more movies.

I don't think this makes us bad people....it's the way our brains are wired. That doesn't mean we can't be kind or generous.

I have this problem too, I cry in a lot of movies. I cried during Harry Potter when Sirius died and everyone said I was a freak. I felt a connection to him though(ok, that is a little weird ). When I was little, I could never cry when we watched movies or read books about Jesus dying, and I am a Christian. I also don't understand when people get super upset over certain things. But I don't mind it too much.

Okay, SO glad to know I wasn't the only one who cried when Sirius died!

I get what you're saying though zeldapsychology. Oddly it seems as if fictional characters move me more than real ones. I think I gained empathy through television and movies. I DO NOT like it when actual people cry around me. I have a tendency to either say something really cutting or just plain bust out laughing. I don't do it to be mean or to ridicule them, it's just that I become so overwhelmed with the discomfort caused by their display and my total lack of ability to handle it that I spit out something to deflect. When they get pissed at me, I know how to react to that, lol

Now I feel I'm not the only one. I also remember as a child laughing at someone stepping on a bee but when my sister did it and my friend laughed because she thought my sister was laughing not crying I yelled at her WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING SHE STEPPED ON A BEE!! !! !! ! I agree that the people I mentioned I've seen in shows/movies so they have more of an impact. I'm so glad I'm not the only one. (Other message boards would call me crazy.) Thanks again guys.

[quote="zeldapsychology"]One of the criteria is lack of empathy and that fits me perfectly examples I laugh when someone gets hurt since I know they really aren't "hurt"(as in bleeding/going to the hospital etc.)[quote]

Ah, yes! That happens to me too! Especially during movies when it's slapstick humor or really awesome scenes. In fact, I was laughing during the Transformers movie that came out this summer because of how cool the action was. *sighs* Such a good movie...

I also laugh when my teacher says something serious but sounds funny.

And 9/11 didn't affect me much either but that's only because 1. I was about six or seven years old at the time so I didn't really know how to react and 2. although my uncle was in New York at the time, he wasn't injured or anything.

question, that doesn't really have to do with the topic... Do you play Legend of Zelda (i guess from your username)? If you, i'm a fan of the series.

Anyways... welcome to Wrongplanet.

To answer the last poster's question YES! I thought of the name Zeldapsychology from A) I'm a huge Zelda fan it's one of those games that suck you in and doesn't let go. B) I am very interested in the field of Psychology it's kind of a long username though but easy to remember/ (zeldapsychology) (By the way TP>OoT

My family and I are in New Zealand, but my mother was STILL crying about 9/11. She woke me up early in the morning when it was announced on the news. No disrespect to anyone who lost family/friends in that, but I was more interested in watching people jump from the building on the tv. My mother said to me..."Show some respect, this isn't funny,"...although, I wasn't even laughing.

I wasn't really affected by this for three reasons...

1) I never lost anyone in that tragedy.
2) I'm not even in the USA.
3) I was only 9 at the time and didn't really understand the situation. All i knew was a plane crashed into a building and people died, which I know is what really happened, but I didn't understand the severity of the situation nor why it happened and the consequences it could have on the public.

My mother insisted that it was going to be the start of a 3rd world war whilst crying and talking to her mother (my grandmother) on the phone.

thats the same with me, I was really little and didnt know what was going on

Sirius dying was really sad. I get overwhelmed also, so I react the opposite way.

well I tend not to show emotional responses that are 'right', my siblings used to tease me about the way something bad is told to me and I'd simply blink and just continue on with what I was doing.

I don't think that it is always that we lack empathy but that we have difficulty feeling and thinking at the same time and have to compromise one for the other.

The Jesus movie was funny because it is was overacted and it had so many hollywood cliches. I'm not going to empathize a move if I don't feel it genuine.

I don't think the claim that we lack empathy is accurate. When those I care about are really injured, or in danger, I do fear for them. I don't break out in tears, but I feel panic and concern until the situation has been remedied, I move my entire world to do what I can for them, and I experience a wash of emotions LATER.

To use the World Trade Center attack as an example, no, I didn't break into tears - or even feel that sad. It was an unfortunate thing to happen, yes, but I didn't know these people, and it didn't feel right to weep for them.

It takes me some time to form a deep connection with someone. It doesn't mean I'm not capable of empathy... just that I don't whip out the hanky and cry every time a stranger scrapes their knee. If that's what it takes to be labeled "empathic", I think that really cheapens the sentiment itself. Perhaps non-autistics are the ones lacking appropriate respect for the emotions being expressed. Simply because they aren't privvy to our empathy doesn't mean it isn't there.