Mainstream understanding of "lack of empathy"

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I have empathy, as I've said before. But it's only when people tell me how they're feeling. That's really the only possible way to know how they're feeling, so logically it is the only way I can feel the same way.

I can work off how I'd feel if x happened to me, and if I know the person well enough I can understand how they'd feel.

Hmm.. as far as I can remember, they never taught us anything back in the day about our emotions.. Then again I WAS in the Florida education system

I lack a great deal of empathy. Best I can do when someone comes to me/ I see them upset is to try to come up with the best logical response to say to them. My default answer is usually "I'm sorry to hear that" or "Oh... that sucks to hear." Plain ol' monotonous. I am for the most part emotionally detached. I try to tell my family members that that's just how I am, but I get criticized. lol

Yeah! That confused me for awhile. I went through a few symptom lists i found online with my parents to see which ones they think i fit, and they always said "oh no, definitely not you! you care about others a lot!" 'cause they know me well enough to know that i care a ton even if my facial expressions aren't showing it and i can't think of what to do.
And i think one of my co-workers, who recently took an abnormal psych class, interpreted the "no empathy" thing as something more along the lines os sociopathy... Because when i mentioned being pretty sure that i have Asperger's, she said that i couldn't, and i must just have depression or something, because i don't lack empathy. And i had to explain the whole difference between interpreting and reacting to nonverbal cues that communicate how people feel vs. not caring how people feel.

Yeah! That confused me for awhile. I went through a few symptom lists i found online with my parents to see which ones they think i fit, and they always said "oh no, definitely not you! you care about others a lot!" 'cause they know me well enough to know that i care a ton even if my facial expressions aren't showing it and i can't think of what to do.
And i think one of my co-workers, who recently took an abnormal psych class, interpreted the "no empathy" thing as something more along the lines os sociopathy... Because when i mentioned being pretty sure that i have Asperger's, she said that i couldn't, and i must just have depression or something, because i don't lack empathy. And i had to explain the whole difference between interpreting and reacting to nonverbal cues that communicate how people feel vs. not caring how people feel.
I think i'm the opposite of a sociopath... When it comes to other peoples' feelings I care too much but have very few skills in dealing with them. Lots of sociopaths are manipulative and don't care at all about other peoples' feelings, yet, have a huge amount of skills in interpreting them and responding to them to get the reactions they want.

I can sense when my wife's upset, but never really know what to do about it. I mean, I know to hug her and comfort her physically like that, but I'm pretty clueless as to what to say to her. There have been times when the standard "everything will be okay" response hasn't worked and just made her more upset. ("No, everything won't be okay!!") Now that she knows I have Asperger's, she understands that just because I'm not always sure how to comfort her, doesn't mean that I don't want to comfort her. Sometimes just holding her and letting her cry on my shoulder is all she needs, and she's fine with the fact that I don't have all the answers or know the right thing to say.

The popular usage of the term "empathy" is so butchered compared to the proper usage as used by psychologists and neuroscientists that using the term in layman-level stuff on ASDs is extremely dangerous. People treat "empathy" as either a synonym of sympathy and/or compassion, and the term has been further butchered by popular psycho-babel and ideologically-motivated pseudo-sociology. As a left-winger it saddens me to admit that a lot of the pseudo-sociology comes from 1960s and 1970s left-wing social thought, leading to the systematic-style thinking we autistics use to be demeaned as something reactionary and inferior to mushy new-age nonsense and even associated with sociopathy, and evil mad scientists, and Nazi doctors performing vile experiments on people.

Also, IMO the notion that people with ASDs have issues with Empathy are based on a misguided premise. In reality the "lack of Empathy" is an illusion caused by the fact that NTs can safely assume that the minds of other NTs work the same, us autistics can't get away with that, and thus we get accused of "lacking empathy".

It's interesting to note that empathy is never mentioned in DSM-IV AS criteria.

I have empathy, but not always in the way that is expected. My AS son had a really hard day today, full of disappointments, and he had a hard time coping. He went to bed in a bad mood and didn't want to go through our usual routine (me listening to him talk about his special interest for a few minutes while he lies in bed.) When I said good night to him, I got tears in my eyes, because I feel sad when he is suffering. Part of it is because I'm his mother, and I'm the one person who should be able to make things better for him. So, maybe I cry because I feel helpless.

On the other hand I don't feel a whole lot of empathy for people other than my kids. If the nice lady down the street tells me that her son had an attack of appendicitis, I can imagine the stress the family would have felt, and imagine what it might be like if that happened to one of my kids. But then I get on with life, and I'm not getting all emotional about it.

I have empathy for the planet as a whole, and hope that my children will not have children of their own...because I don't want them to have to watch their kids grow up in a poisoned, over-populated world. I don't know if that's empathy or cowardice.

If my wife is emotionally upset about something, it upsets me, too, even though I often don't understand where that emotion is coming from or don't believe I'd feel that way under the same conditions. That could be considered a lack of empathy, but certainly not a lack of sympathy. I have a tendency, I think, to be hypersensitive to her emotions, actually... more that I think is usual in a typical marriage.


Yes, exactly. But then again, isn't that generally normal, even for someone who is neurotypical?

Not true, on the list of 20 sociopathic traits you need 15 of them to be a sociopath. Compassion, guilt, remorse, empathy, etc, etc could be the 5 things on the list you do not match.


I agree. Infact my brother recently broke up with his girlfriend. She has gone around to all their mutual friends quite visibly upset; whereas my brother is not very emotional. Because of this they have all alienated my brother to an extent, true emotions are just as manipulative as fake ones.


It's a very common belief and it does need to change, sadly people on the autism spectrum are just as vulnerable to stereotyping people and having strange beliefs about empathy.


Haha omg this is something i have noticed myself. People never believe me when i am telling the truth, rather ironically people always believe me when i am lying.


You seem to be suggesting that lacking sympathy or compassion automatically makes one a bad person. These beliefs are just as bad as stereotyping everyone with aspergers as lacking sympathy and/or compassion.

I don't think we'll ever achieve anything until we can educate ourselves. We sit here asking not to be judged on our deficiencies, while at the same time judging others for deficiencies. We need to stop stereotyping and we need to start judging people on their actions.