Is the internet the only place where you can pass as NT?

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Hmmm I think the same applies to me.

I don’t even try and pass as NT anymore. It is too exhausting for me.

I don't know what I pass as but I definitely don't have any obvious autism-ness when I'm interacting with people. If I mask, I just come across as a timid and shy NT. If I don't mask I come across as a quirky NT with some mild intellectual learning difficulties. But when I don't mask, my ADHD is quite obvious. But nobody would guess Asperger's or autism.

I come across as being someone with many thoughts unexpressed.

Where is empathy (or cognitive empathy) listed in the DSM5?

I'm not trying to challenge you NP. I'm sincerely curious because I don't see it.




Is it this? Reduced sharing of emotions?




Reduced sharing of emotions isn't necessarily anything to do with empathy.

It means Alexithymia, or not being expressive about your own emotions.

^^^There has been quite a bit of confusion over the lack of empathy thing. There's been some posts in the L&D section in the past by women in abusive relationships who were diagnosing their guys as being autistic because they lacked empathy. There's also been some sites dedicated for bitter women in abusive relationships with Aspies & I bet that most of those Aspies were diagnosed by those women, in some cases the women may of been the real abusers & were projecting. On some other forums the words Autism & Autistic are slang words for Troll.

I come across as someone with many thoughts and feelings that I find difficult to hide, resulting in people commenting that I complain all the time, and I'm getting so tired of that word being said to me that I will yell at anyone who dares say it to me, unless I am actually complaining in the dictionary definition way (high-toned voice, miserable, bad opinion on everything, etc).


The lack of empathy needs to be explained better, otherwise autism just gets confused with psychopaths. I don't think autism and lack of empathy should ever be used in the same sentence because it just feeds the stigma.

I have no idea.
I'm not even sure what other people think of me, whether we communicate only through the internet or not.

I rarely get any kind of in-person comments unless someone has a teaching/custodial obligation to me.
When I ask directly, the usual answer is "you're interesting" or "you should be more serious".
I don't know if this is a manifestation of not seeing me as "NT".

I'm guessing everyone has some weird/unique trait that others see, I'm not even sure if I'm the one with the most. Although my mother insists it is.

Caption: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

Many if not most people on the internet have antisocial personality disorder and it shows. They are psychotic, arrogant, egotistic, misinformed, ignorant, racist, sexist, ageist, and ableist. They've made politics their one and only personality trait and love telling others to have anal sex with presidents and prime ministers. And yet *we're* the ones who aren't normal. We're the ones that they claim we have made autism our whole personality (if they think we have a personality) while they're insisting that vaccines were created by Satan or that shooting and killing people is something they would do in a second everywhere they go.

But I still won't hide my Asperger's from the world by internet. When I first started using internet in the early 2000's I was very anxious and afraid that people would find out and be horrible to me. I was afraid they would ruin my life (more so) because they aren't trolls, they're gremlins, only instead of sabotaging machinery they sabotage your life. But when I saw people being idiots about autism I ended up standing up for myself and autistic people in general because I simply can't stand the injustice, ignorance and just plain stupidity of these humans.

I don't know.

I struggle with conversations online as much as I do in person. At least with online communication, there's less pressure to interact and I have more time to think (even though I still muddle my words). And no-one can see me fidgeting with my stress balls

Being able to leisurely recall and query information, collating logical chains and revising the wording repeatedly is definitely the advantage of online conversation.
This also covered up all kinds of small actions when I was anxious, including making inappropriate sounds. And other inconsistencies between the content and appearance.

Ditto.

Every author of every book on the topic lists lack of cognative empathy it as a symptom. And its listed as a symptom a billion times a month on this site. So go write your own book overthrowing what every expert since Kanner has said about autism in the last seventy years.

Empathy. Not sympathy. Lack theory of mind. Being unable to put yourself in someone else's shoes.

And you definitely see that now and again on this site.

you're confusing empathy with sympathy.

Sociopaths are the opposite of autistics. Lack sympathy, but have empathy. They know how you tick, and use that knowledge to exploit you. Autistics feel sympathy for others by lack the theory of mind to understand others.

It is possible for autistics to lack empathy & also lack sympathy. Some autistics have very hard lives growing up & sometimes the autistics grow up believing that nobody really cares about them or is there for them so the autistics feel they have no reason to give one flying f#ck about anyone else. I know one who is very manipulative with family & has accused family of not loving him & threatens suicide whenever he can not get his way. He knows certain family members would feel bad & give in to his demands. However he does NOT understand people in general, just certain family members.

Of course. Just like some NTs can lack sympathy, or lack affective empathy, because they were abused as kids. Or because they are Kim Jong Un, or whatever (and born into palace intrigue or whatever). But thats not part of the condition nor part of the definition of autism (or being NT either). Conditioning, not the condition.