Empathy

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I have a suspicion that others will be able to relate:

I consider myself an incredibly sensitive and empathic person. However, I have found this is absolutely not the case for the outside world. These traits are ravaged upon like weaknesses. I have a general picture of humanity as a apex predator that enjoys preying on what it perceives as weak, and traits like kindness and having higher sensitivities registers to them as weakness. It is hard to feel empathy for something that has demonstrated a proclivity towards feeding on you. It is hard to feel empathy for a person who is only talking to you to gain something from the conversation that they can then mock you when you're not around. It is hard to feel empathy for people who seem to show no hesitation in resorting to cruelty with very little provocation.

I get tired of the description that HFA people have low empathy. No, we're just a little jaded dealing with the broader population who is so freely cruel to us.

I have empathy for the bosses that bullied me. They are going to have a very hard life. But likewise, that does not mean I am going to put myself in the situation where that can happen again.

I’ve had the thought that I can’t muster empathy at the same time that my self-preservation instinct is activated. Even with people I know and like and whom I trust not to be cruel. I don’t know if NT people don’t experience that but that’s what I experience.

I get angry about all this autistics lacking empathy BS too. I was watching on YouTube a family with 3 HFA children and 1 NT child, and although they were a lovely family and understanding parents, they described the NT as "very empathetic", and the 3 Aspie children as "cannot feel empathy". I'm not saying NTs aren't empathetic, but it just annoyed me that the only word they used to describe their NT child was that they're very empathetic, like they were trying to prove that all NTs are empathy savvy while all autistics lack empathy. I don't think empathy is a way to differentiate autistics and NTs, not these days anyway. It just feeds the bad stigma that autism already has.

Aspies have excess empathy...

Now there's no such thing as excess empathy when it comes to humans or animals. Except when it comes to trusting the humans who don't deserve it and the animals who, while they deserve it cos all animals are innocent, might be too dangerous to be around.

But we're also empathetic towards objects. Which is technically illogical... But shows great imagination.

As long as we:
1 don't hoard
2 don't go near dangerous animals
3 learn to figure out who the dangerous humans are so we don't let them too close to us and we can guard ourselves against them...

it's a good thing that we're like this. Even if we do fall into 1-3, it's still something we should be proud of. Just a shame the world takes advantage of it.

NTs mistake empathy for 'being good at guessing what NTs like'. HFA people are good at guessing what HFA people like, instead.

Its true. I feel quite burned out of feeling.

I've come to the conclusion that the definition of empathy among NT's must be confused with the ability to think you know how other people are feeling when it fact you are just projecting yourself into that person's position. This may often result in correct assumptions but just as often does not.

It is more difficult for me to show sympathy than to feel empathy. Unless I am actually experiencing the other person's pain or have had it carefully explained to me, I respond with curiosity to other people's feelings. I try to understand the situation, I try my best to be supportive, but emotions are so often faked or exaggerated by people that one does become jaded.

I find I am all to often correct about others way of thinking even if this conflicts with their actions. I know what you are feeling, I just don't share your feelings personally, so I'm not going to appear to have empathy when in fact I probably assessed the situation better than others and may actually feel your feelings much more deeply than an outwardly empathic appearing individual.

(not sure I explained myself well here - I'm trying to understand it myself )

My NT mum has a habit of pointing out if someone is autistic or NT only when the person is being annoying or worse...

So far it's always the NTs who are worse imo.

But not always that they are that bad. Some are just annoying.

So she will say my bullies bullied me cos they're NT and the ladies at the library were racist cos they are NT.

Or someone gossips too much she says 'that's cos they are NT'. Or my stepdad is 'autistic' cos he's always blunt to the point of rude.

But I'm also autistic. And she's also NT. And she doesn't say that the things we do are cos of that. She says 'well that's me and that's you' like we're separate people floating above everything on a cloud...

She uses both 'NT' and 'autistic' as insults to say someone is annoying, but in different ways.

I just hate the way autistic people get denied that they have empathy even if an autistic person outwardly expresses empathy often. It's basically a stereotype. I, for one, have very high empathy. I can recognise moods just by looking at a person's body language and I get deeply affected by it. I also am very sensitive to other people's thoughts and feelings, like my actions are automatically driven around other people's feelings.
For example, if someone left their wallet on a bus and I found it at work (I work at a bus depot), I'd immediately hand it in without even looking inside, but it's not because of "Aspie honesty", it's because I can imagine how the owner of the wallet might be feeling and the thought of the wallet being found and returned to the owner untouched is wonderful. I'd rather personal belongings to be returned to the owners than to steal the belongings, even if I knew I could get away with it.
I remember one time a man came into the office to claim a phone he'd left on a bus, and when we handed it to him he was so thankful and relieved that his phone was returned safely, and I could feel his relief so much that I had tears in my eyes.
But no matter how much I experience these feelings with people regularly, I'll still always be in the "lacking empathy" category just because I have ASD.

I started researching this but became frustrated; partially because I'm trying to read studies on my phone, but also because the assertions weren't being properly substantiated. I may come back to it later, but here's what I can say so far:

1) I disagree with a lot of what Simon Baron-Cohen (cognitive neuroscientist & creator of theThe
Empathy Quotient (EQ) test) has to say regarding empathy and it's role in autism. https://www.centerforempathy.org/exchange-with-simon-baron-cohen/

I don't believe that affective empathy (affective empathy is the drive to respond with an appropriate emotion to someone else’s thoughts and feelings) should be categorized as an area of empathy. In my opinion, instead of it falling under the empathy umbrella, it should be a separate term.

2) For me personally: I think I am empathetic and often I feel empathy too deeply to the point that it's very draining. In my time here I've spoken with many people who feel the same way.

Being exposed to N T. Style of interacting , of zero empathy , in my opinion with most NTs have dealt with .
It seems that targeting anyone whom might be even Be slightly weaker . Am thoroughly disgusted with people whom seem taking advantage of others is a way of life .. it has tainted me , I feel to have to have had to deal with people Such as this. Has left me with high developed sense of justice that just does not seem to appear to be present in the world I deal with these days .

There was a groundbreaking study on this quite a few years back that suggests that we don’t lack empathy, that we actually feel others’ emotions too intensely...

https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/diseases_cures/2009/05/14/aspergers_theory_does_aboutface.html