Any Aspies that defy the "clueless to other people's...

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feelings" rule?
Shouldn't an Aspie be able to overcome this? Personally, after 10 years in therapy I've become hyper-aware of others' feelings, as well as an uncanny understanding of what's going on "behind the scenes" to the point of seeming like a clairvoyant! I know it may sound ridiculous, it sometimes feels quite ridiculous but that is my honest experience.
About 10 years ago (after entering psychotherapy) I became transfixed mainly on psychology, reason and logic. I seemed to have gained the "awareness" after that. It's just confusing because I'm a diagnosed, textbook AS case. Yet what I just described flies in the face of all that. There's scant material regarding how children with AS respond to therapy aimed at making them "gain awareness". Has anyone else experienced anything similar to this after going through long term therapy and/or studying mental process?

Being diagnosed with AS has helped me become much more comfortable with myself. It answered previously unanswerable questions that bothered me for a long time. I'm eager to see more light shed on this neglected aspect of Aspies & ToM.

FWIW, my therapy was not aimed directly at anything to do with AS.

-J

I believe I do as well, one of the troubles my psych had in diagnosing me was finding out how my abnormal levels of empathy with all the people around me could be reconciled with my AS. I think its because I grew up around unstable people and it was more or less something I had to develop to get by.

i am not like you. someone said to me once (a buddhist lunatic) that everyone has an aura, and when 2 people meet, their aura's mingle and they "feel" each other. he claimed that the average persons aura is about 6 feet (2 m) in radius, and that his own aura was about 60 feet in radius. he said that mine was about the thickness of cling wrap.

even though he was ranting on with poppycock, his description was imaginative.
you seem to be an exception to that general characteristic of autism, however i am almost sure you will get a flood of replies that say "me too".

Hi John,

I'm not diagnosed, but I have all the traits of Asperger's.

To answer your question: Yes, I can ascertain other people's feelings. I can in fact do it very well,

I've always been extremely intuitive and empathetic. I guess you could say that I'm sensually tuned into my environment. I know this goes against a lot of things written about Asperger's, but I believe the understanding of the syndrome is still in it's infancy and there is a continuum as well as, personality disorders fair portion of those with Asperger's and Autism complicating the matter of diagnostics.

So, for example, with the ever-mentioned symptom of lack of empathy. There is a real fallacy happening with that. Only pychopaths or sociopaths, whichever term you use, are completely devoid of empathy (and remorse). This is not an AS deficit. It may be present in someone with AS, whom also happens to show psychopathy or even some severe forms of Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. So, that's when you would get some cases of those with AS who have no empathy. The crucial fact to note is that the lack of empathy is not from the AS.

Adding to a lot of the misundering is that pschological testing and observation is by it's very nature subjective. It's not a totally empirical science. So, you have the doctors making these studies based on their subjective observations. And, what do they see? Well, they see someone who doesn't exhibit or express empathy the same way most people do. But it's a faulty inference to jump from that observation to saying Aspies can't empathize or feel other's people's feelings.

Here's the crucial misunderstanding. Just because Aspies don't behave the same way by showing facial expressions or body language of caring as NTs do, does NOT mean there is no empathy or understanding of emotions happening.

There are other internal things going on that can't be seen by observation.

Speaking for myself there is the issue of possibly being quite overwhelmed by the other person's or (or more than one person's) feelings, since I am hyper sensitive. Then there is my way of dealing with empathy by still using my brain. I think about what would be best for the person. I'm actually awesome in a crisis situation believe it or not. It's ironic, but my gut can feel when there is an emergency, I become practical as hell and just do what needs to be done while everyone else is losing it.

A lot has been made out about AS and not being able to read people, body language and faces, which is true. But, the things that's missed is that every species has their survival strengths. I may totally suck at seeing body language, but I can sense emotions better than most.

Hi b9. I'm sorry but I'm confused by your post. I understand the part when you stated you do not share the same experience I had. You then said you once met a "buddhist lunatic" and from what you wrote it sounds like you didn't put much weight in his words, even dismissing them perhaps completely. Then you wrote that "his description was imaginative". You seem to have liked that part of your "buddhist encounter". Do you mean you respected his imaginativeness on the matter?
I happen to believe in nothing (theologically speaking) but I do respect many religions as well as those that follow them. I'm strictly concerned with science. It's common knowledge Aspies can easily apply themselves to almost anything and become well versed in whatever it is at the least. Therefore I was wondering how the tenet of ToM stands up if an Aspie develops his/her keen transfixion on the very things we are deficient with regarding the ToM. Just curious if all of us are oblivious to emotions other than our own, across the board like every single book I've ever read has stated.

And since you've been here much longer than I, why do you expect a flood of "me too" responses? I ask all of this out of genuine interest as I have never even been in a group with fellow Aspies before.

I can determine peoples feelings fairly easily. I often miss cues and subtleties but if I'm looking, I'll see it.

no, no, i certainly don't think this is true (for what it's worth??). but aspies tend to empathize in a more logical way .. or according to Dr. Tony Attwood (who is an aperger's specialist, and in particular is really well versed in diagnosing women and those who present unstereotypically) women (and also maybe very sensitive men?) can almost have a "sixth sense" about people's emotional state, grasping their "aura." this from a renowned Asperger's specialist.

FYI: there is a lot of talk about empathizing on the AS / NT open forum (stickied at top of "general autism discussion," p. 51-52)

and you may also want to peruse any threads (in the general autism discussion, and in the women's forum) about women and diagnosis for clues about how AS can present differently than the textbook stereotype.

My lifelong relationship problems encouraged me to do a fair bit of counselling over the years, and the counsellors were pretty keen on the idea that understanding feelings (of self and partners) was paramount, so I became interested in emotions, in fact to this day I value feelings more than I value logical thought, though I can still be pretty nerdy.

I'm sure I still don't know a lot about what others feel (I'm not even all that clear about what I myself feel half the time), but I wouldn't describe myself as clueless to emotion. I can usually spot a fake smile and I can often sense when a person is stressed or unhappy.

I suspect it's a myth that NTs "read" each others emotions just from a quick glance at their facial expressions and body language. I think it can be a bad mistake to deem to read minds like that.....I think it's wiser to just ask people how they feel if you really want to know. Sure, a few things can be picked up without doing that, and they might be right, but in my view it's important to check out those things with the person concerned. Neither method is completely reliable - people are often in denial about what they feel, or they'll pull their punches for the sake of politeness or competitiveness, and tell all kinds of lies about what they're feeling, but the truth can often be found by combining the two methods.

My biggest problem with divining feelings is that I tend to let matters slide, I have to get practically obsessional about the subject before my "radar" will function. So I often forget to even look at faces, I forget that feelings exist.

hello. i would like to know what people are feeling sometimes because it would require less
explanation from me as to why i do not seem to act in a way that is appropriate to how they feel.
to me, most people's heads are like balls on their shoulders. i consider your experience valid however because i know it is my deficit, and you have more neurons available to sense what i am blind to.


it was not because he was buddhist that i gave minimal credit to him. he seemed to engage in magical thinking, and he also seemed quite egotistical (strange for a buddhist to be ego centric when the ego is what they say should be cast off).
his imagination of his own aura extending for 60 feet seemed grandiose and self congratulatory in a way. and his assertion that my endowment of the quality he was referring to was as thick as plastic film was not enjoyed by me, so i dismissed him.


i thought it was a good metaphor in a way. as you are not disabled in an empathetic way, i am not disabled in my usage of metaphors. i create many personal metaphors to assist in my understanding of the world, but i understand few metaphors that spring from another persons imagination.
i did perceive what he said as a kind of metaphor that my mind created from what he said.

i have an internal "being", but mine stops at my skin and extends no further, whereas other people have an inner being which radiates around them for 6 feet, and if 2 normal people are within each others field of being, they combine and then they feel each others being along with their own.
that is what i derived from his words.



that common knowledge does not apply to me. i will never understand how to interpret the sense that a bat has while using sonar to simulate visual imagery. i may understand the process if i learned, but i would never subjectively be able to do it to know how it feels.

i am blind an i will never see.
to describe "red" to a blind person will never convey the actuality of "red" to their subjective experience.


unlike many people here, i never speak on behalf of anyone else than myself. i have no idea whether others are oblivious or not.


i should not have said that.
it is just that there are some topics where someone says things like
eg: "eye contact makes me feel nervous" and i think about my opinion about it and i think
"no. it does not make me feel nervous. i do not engage in eye contact because i do not get anything from it. it is like if the social rule was to concentrate on a persons shoelaces. i may look at their shoelaces for a minute, but after that i would prefer to look at other things".
then when i go to post my thought, i see that there are pages of people who also claim that eye contact makes them nervous or uncomfortable, and i think "everyone agrees with what ever is posted just in order to post something", and i am often the odd one out.

so, considering i was at odds with my identification with your post, then i assumed that others would be in agreement with you, and it is shaping up to be the case.

but i do not speak on behalf of anyone but me, and i am not a prominent member of this site.
i may have been here for a while, but i am not representative of the general flavor of the site.
do not judge it by what i said

I'm not always in tune with other people's thoughts or deep feelings, but I find I'm very in tune with the basics, especially negative emotions.
When someone is sad or angry I can tell immediately. It scares the heck out of me, because I had no idea how to handle it, and usually I jump to the conclusion that they're mad at me.
If I'm talking to someone who's seemingly fine, and suddenly they're experiencing some negative emotion, I can tell right away. I absorb it somehow.
My boyfriend is like this too. He can immediately tell if I'm upset, but he too a) has no idea what to do about it, and b) assumes it's directed at him lol.
We have a little routine we've fallen into:
Person A is upset, person B asks if person A is upset, person A says yes, person B asks if person A is mad at person B, person A says no. All is well

i read up on basic body language and have extended my knowlege through watching people and situations. i know have a very good ability to read most body language. This is when i am consciously looking for it.

i find when i'm out and about all the body language scares me somewhat and makes me very misanthropic. i dunno, perhaps i have concentrated on the negative/defensive gestures etc.

it is interesting and allows me to do certain things i could not otherwise do but i do find it has it's drawbacks.

Thanks to everyone that replied. b9, I appreciate you expounding on your initial post. I see what you meant now. It's been great to read all of the responses to my question. This is the first time I have ever participated/shared my AS issues in a group. After being diagnosed a couple of years ago I tried to read all about AS. All of a sudden so many so many personal issues that I had been troubled with all of a sudden made perfect sense! What amazed me most was that all of the personally "exclusive" inadequacies that echoed daily in my head were not personally exclusive at all.

Hearing all of your responses helped me broaden the picture. Thank you. I too believe that there are still many things that are unexplored in the world of AS. Nice to hear some of you feel that way too. And I didn't want to give the impression that my ability of "reading" people is my set way of judging them or determining who they are or how they feel. I'm a big proponent of not prejudging. I only thought it's strange that I have an ability to "see" certain things that people with AS supposedly can't. I also agree with the opinion expressed that it's a bit hasty (if not downright cruel) on the part of the doctors that write these books on AS to make blanket statements about a "complete inability to posses empathy". Sure, some Aspies are challenged with that. But like another member here said, the only group of people that truly lack any shred of empathy or regard for the feeling's of others are are murderers, serial killers, etc... IMO, the doctors need to rethink their theory & approach to ToM regarding AS. Their current view is just too black & white and far from the diverse truth.

John,

Do you think you are using empathy or pattern recognition? Do you actually feel what the other person is feeling (empathy); or are you just noticing a pattern in their body language and facial expressions?

Here's a quick personal experience that may illustrate the difference.

There is an older woman at my work that's kinda "adopted me" (she looks out for me and brings me snacks at work ). We live about a block away from each other. I had to bring some stuff from work home with me one day because her husband was in an accident and she left work in a hurry. She cried and asked for a hug when she came to get her stuff and was telling me what happened.

A few months later, she walked up to my desk and her face looked exactly like it did before she started crying on the night I spoke of above. I was scared that something bad happened. Then she handed me a picture of her nephew receiving some reward. I guess her "pride-face" is remarkable similar to her "sad-face".

If my empathy worked, maybe I would have felt what she was feeling in both situations. I duno. I think I do more pattern recognition than true empathetic reading of others; and I'm not all that accurate at it either. :-/

This sort of thing is what makes me wonder if "empathy" is too vague a term. Do those who have empathy actually feel the emotion of the other person, or are they just putting themselves in their shoes and understanding how that person could feel that way?
If it's the former, then I pretty soundly lack empathy. However, I'm able to understand why someone feels a certain way (if their emotion makes sense, of course) and I can put myself in their shoes to some extent. If a friend's boyfriend leaves her, I can identify by thinking, "well, if my boyfriend left me, I'd probably be pretty upset." I'd always thought of that as empathy.
Maybe my definition is inaccurate...

I have always been very sensitive to negative emotions, like they emanate off of people in waves. I then get stressed out and anxious in response. Yay. It might have something to do with spending my early years with two clinically depressed caregivers (grandmother & father), one of them with other psychological issues to boot. I know I'm very careful not to be upsetting with what I say and always have been. Not that's enough - my dad says my expressions can be damaging. (He's a great guy, good father, btw, but combining a hyper-sensitive, almost needy parent with me as a child was not the best idea.) Anyway, I do think that I can pick up on other people's emotions, and if it was a learned skill, I learned it very very early.

What I'm not sure about, though, is that other people notice this. In fact, I think most people think that I'm completely insensitive to other people, because I don't express emotions and most of the time I don't know what to do about anyone else's. I think there has been too little recognition of the difference between experiencing something and expressing it. I hope this is starting to change.

I have noticed that some other people experience empathy differently than I do. Some people seem to react as though they actually feel what the other person does - like crying when someone else has bad news, or getting euphoric at someone else's good news. But what I experience as empathy is more like thinking than feeling. I don't feel devastated when someone's father dies, but I know that they do. I can imagine myself in that situation and think how I'd feel. But I don't actually feel it.

hmmm i can sometimes guess, but i worry and get anxious that i ;ve misinterpretated,s os its all still worrying