Hi, I'm not really sure if I have Asperger's or not but I definitely am not totally NT.
I'm confused about empathy, and I figured the women's board would be the best place to ask since (at least I've been told) we tend to experience it differently than men do.
I think I kind of have natural empathy. I don't have to try to feel things and a lot of people have told me they do. Even the last guy I dated said he didn't know how to feel love and he didn't even love his own mother. When we fought he would say "I TRIED to love you the best I could" which made no sense to me. He asked me why I cared about him but I couldn't really answer because I feel like things like love and caring just happen after a while if you are attached to somebody.
I have had problems in both friendships and romantic relationships with kind of being used as a free counselor. People want to ask me for advice or talk to me about their problems and it doesn't bother me, but they get all irritated with me if I need to vent or want advice. They say my problems are worse than theirs and they're not qualified to deal with it, or they don't know how to help me or they have their own problems to deal with and I'm selfish and blah blah blah. The thing is I don't really want them to solve my problems. I thought if you cared about someone then you are supposed to listen to them. I can usually solve most of my problems on their own and if not, well that's why I have a medical doctor and sometimes I see a counselor and/or psychiatrist for something really deep that I can't handle. I just wish someone would support me.
Some people have called me an empath but for the past couple of years I have wondered if I am really detached or something is wrong with me. I watch and read the news and a lot of people I know don't because they say it's depressing. I don't know if it's because I already have depression and PTSD but unless they are talking to something really similar to a traumatic event in my life, it might kind of bother me on the surface but not disturb me so much that I can't watch it or I freak out. I feel the same way about people talking to me about their problems. Some people tell me they would cry when talking about some of the things that happened in my life- but some of them (like my mom dying before I was a year old, which I don't talk about that often) It sucks but I don't have any memories of my mom. It makes me sad but I don't cry about it much. Until last year when a relative emailed me a picture of her grave it almost seemed like it didn't even really happen. Even with minor things, people tend to get more upset about things that happen to me than I do. I mean there are some things that are so bad I get flashbacks or I feel almost as upset as the day it happened when I talk about them or think about them, but not most of the things. Like if I had an ordinary bad day I'm not going to go around screaming and crap because it's not that big of a deal. But I have an ex who would scream about everything, even something as silly as people complaining about the weather. I couldn't talk to him about anything without setting him off but I had to listen to all these terrible things that happened to him. I've attracted people like that to me for some reason so it's usually more peaceful just to keep to myself.
Can anyone relate to what I'm saying? Does any of this make sense?
08 Aug 2011, 2:18 pm
