Not Empathetic

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You and Bumble pretty much described my dad......He isn't aware of this though. You could hand him a detailed analysis on narcisissm and he wouldn't think it has anything to do with him. He can't recognize how HE affects other people, and the emotions they experience, but I bet he can empathize in some situations, maybe when he's detached from them.....

Narcissism is a comorbidity with AS....and I know he's not a sociopath, the man can't lie, probably doesn't feel he ever needs to, he's loyal and incredibly socially awkward although he has no idea. He's not a manipulator, he's a controller.....

But this isn't the same as the idea that people with AS have issues with Empathy?

@bumble

Because we are women rugby players and we were around men. There's no crying in rugby.

(Not outside the locker room - but don't tell anyone)

There's a difference between not recognizing how you affect someone else, and believing you are better than everyone else. I'm still unsure how your dad is, as I don't see how you described him as necessarily coinciding with the way narcissism was described.
Better described, there's a difference in being unaware of someone's emotions and being unconcerned about someone else's emotions. Sure, someone who is 100% completely unaware of someone else's emotions would have to be unconcerned by them. But that borders on not understanding that another person is, well, a person just like you are.
Note that this is also separate from someone who just doesn't care about how other people feel, even though they know how others feel, or can at least discern how others feel.

As to other things mentioned in the thread, I was, perhaps wrongly, under the impression that typical empathy issues along the ASD revolve around poor perception of the other person's emotions. But I see now that some people just fail at demonstrating a proper reaction.

I've said this over and over, every book that says that aspies lack empathy was written by a non-aspie. Meaning, to a neurotypical person aspies seem to lack empathy, but that very well could be a misconception. I have been told I don't show emotion even when I am feeling it. So, someone could be telling me something that is generating a lot of empathy in me but they don't see it and think I am cold and emotionless.

To me, as an NT - this is what I really, really struggle with. My husband wants empathetic responses and emotional support, but reacts with anger and sometimes cruelty when I need it. This heaps hurt upon hurt. We get uncomfortable with other people's emotions, too!!

I'm not religious, at all, in fact I'm an atheist, but I find this passage describes what I mean:



Who does it help if someone says they have empathy, but don't respond in an empathetic manner? Do feelings alone make someone a decent person? If someone close to you is hurting and they need comfort and you say to them "Stop crying" but you do not give them a hug or kind words, who is it helping? Thus, feelings by themselves, without corresponding actions, are dead.

I can't speak for your husband but I can speak for myself. It's impossible to explain this adequately. I’ve spent some time trying to find an experience that would be somewhat equivalent in discomfort. The best thing I can think is that I do not ever cry in front of people. I was stoic at my own son’s funeral. People kept telling me it was okay to cry. If they had told me it was okay to stand there naked while they touched my bare skin I would have felt about the same. It makes my skin crawl. I’m repulsed. Perhaps, it’s a learned reaction over years of being abnormal and having to hide my true personality. Perhaps it’s just some symptom that is part of Asperger’s. Touching my skin can leave a trail of fire where I have hugged someone. It’s a physical sensation that lingers long after being touched.
It is best if I prepare myself for this blow; this physical and mental discomfort. Sometimes I even want to hug. Most of the time I have learned to protect myself and never be vulnerable. I know I’m gullible and too honest and that if I explained my symptoms to people they would only tell me things like, “oh, I have that too. What makes you have Asperger’s?”

I have trouble finding the right words so I always lose in any kind of conversation. It would be better to be able to type all my responses but that obviously won’t work so I keep it short and try not to tell too many details about myself. I know how people get offended by my bluntness so I don’t say anything. I’ve learned to act normal; pleasant. It’s a big act that takes up much of my day. I get so exhausted keeping this up. People tell me to, “not care what other’s think,” and, “just be yourself.” They don’t really mean that though. There is an acceptable level of normal. You can be a rebel against the norm inside those lines. If you step outside those lines, people get uncomfortable. I’m being weird; awkward. I went through a childhood of parent-teacher conferences and getting paperwork and seeing specialists because I just wasn’t right but I tested high and was quiet.

So, no, I don’t like that I should have to learn to be more normal. It offends me that I should have to fit the worlds idea of normal because they won’t give me an inch to deal with the way I am. I can’t be so vulnerable as to console someone. If I can’t cry in public while my children die how could anyone expect that I’m comfortable enough to give them a hug and say comforting things (which I can’t ever decide what those things are when people are crying). It’s an instant response. It’s probably inappropriate but It’s like fight or flight. Someone is crying and I start to panic because I can’t be a comfort. I can’t hug. I just can’t do it. So out of that panic and out of that discomfort my first, instant response is to push it away. It’s rude, it’s not normal but I push people away and tell them to shut up or stop it. And you know what, if they love me they may get hurt but if they know me they know where it’s coming from even if they can’t understand why. I can’t pretend that any more than I could walk a tightrope. I’m frozen with fear. It’s so uncomfortable that if it goes on and I HAVE to comfort someone they won’t realize I’m on the verge of hyperventilating or screaming out in anger because I know it’s not right that I should feel this way. Sometimes I don’t even feel the fear. I go straight to the anger because it’s embarrassing to be scared of another person’s touch and their emotions. Normal people don’t have to do that. They may be uncomfortable but they don’t think so much over every minor detail that they fear they will run away, the way some people run away from a falling tree. It’s adrenaline. I get a rush of it sometimes when I have to comfort. It comes after the fight or flight sensation.

And trying to explain this is all so inadequate. There are no words to really get people to understand. But this is why I yell at my husband. It’s awful but he loves me and knows me better so I’m more apt to be myself around him. If he were an acquaintance I’d probably bite my lip and look for an exit. In that case my instinct is over run by my desire to act as normal as possible around strangers. There is a reason most people think I don’t have Asperger’s. It’s really hard work.

I have a tendency to be too honest and to use a lot of words to try and explain abstract ideas.

Empathy is definitely not an issue for me, nor for my daughter (who has a diagnosis of Aspergers). I actually feel another's pain to an extreme (emotional and physical). A neighbour told me last week that her brother, who's in his early 40s, has a form of dementia. As soon as she told me this, I felt tears welling in my eyes, as I just knew how that must make her feel. I think I can guess how I'd feel about such a prognosis, even though I don't have any siblings. My daughter is a very caring little girl and wouldn't harm anyone or anything, I think partly due to knowing she wouldn't like it to be done to herself, i.e. she can put herself in another's shoes. I think she and I can sometimes have the appearance of lacking empathy, but that's just how it might look, when the opposite is true. Who's to know what another person's really thinking, especially when the person has a hard time, for whatever reason, expressing their thoughts and feelings.

My views on this are evolving rapidly--it's been less than a year since I started to learn about Aspergers and ASDs and when I was in the early stages of thinking that in point after point the descriptions of symptoms were very much like me, this one always gave me pause.

"I am very empathetic," I thought. "My son is very empathetic, ergo he doesn't really have Aspergers and neither do I--OR--we do have it and this part of the description just doesn't fit. When you've met an aspie, you've met ONE aspie, etc."

But I have been reevaluating.

My wife, empowered by an understanding of the traits, has begun to tell me when my reactions are not what she wanted from me or not appropriate. This happens far more often than I would ever have imagined. I think that NTs just know how to respond in these moments and many on the spectrum do not.

For example, she will tell me about something and I will listen. I absorb the information and it seems there is nothing I am expected to do in response, so I make some acknowledging response to let her know that I have received the information and then change the subject. Suddenly she will tell me that I was supposed to say "how awful" and then wait for her to continue talking. Of course, I understood that the story she was telling me was bad, but I did not understand that the purpose of our conversation was therapeutic--that she needed me to be a "sympathetic ear."

Each time this happens, I am really embarrassed. I got what she was saying, but somehow missed the situation in which she was saying it. I realized this happens with other people all the time and my failure to respond in the right way is like not having a password--this is one of the things which makes it difficult to make and keep friends.

Fortunately, people also describe me as a great listener and as having a sixth sense about their feelings. I think the listening part is that I have to pay full attention to them in order not to misunderstand, and the sixth sense is a way that I intuit their emotional state--that is to say, I have some alternative subconscious process which decodes their emotional signals and supplies me with some understanding of it, but more as a fact and less a shared feeling.

This is not to say I don't have feelings or that they aren't triggered by new knowledge about the emotional stimulus that I am hearing about... but I don't think this is exactly what goes on inside NTs when they have empathy.

I think they have an immediate response and the feedback on their signalling of this stuff is extremely fast and processed instantly. For me it might be more like reading words, but for them it is like seeing. The recognition of shapes and patterns is precognitive, the recognition arrives with the signal, already deeply understood.

I might also draw an analogy to a computer with a fast graphics card vs. "integrated" graphics on the motherboard. A huge amount of emotional recognition is happening in their cards, while I have the low-end laptop version.

This also comes into the TMI thing. My wife is often stopping my son and letting him know that what he is saying is too much information (TMI) which really means information not appropriate for the current setting. I understand what she is saying, but I don't feel it. If we are talking about the subject as science, I don't see any subject as not appropriate, even disgusting ones: death, disease, decay, scatalogical topics--whatever. But I know this is not how it seems to others.

I am very sympathetic. I am distressed when I imagine other people in pain. I was deeply shocked and upset by the hijackers flying their planes into the world trade center and horrified to see the people jumping from the heat and gases. Nevertheless, I think I do have a defect in my empathy--a deficit in the response that nts have with one another. This deficit is the layer that forever leaves me feeling like an outsider, even when I am right in the middle of things.

I can relate to a lot if what people are saying in this thread. I definitely am empathetic, I think that l almost feel people pain sometimes, it makes me squirm to hear about a painful injury and I find social embarrassment to much to deal with (films like meet the parents and programmes like the office or the inbetweeners [UK ones that is] are too much for me to handle, let alone when social awkwardness happens in real life!) Yet my friends often say that I can be cold or unfeeling when dealing with situations. Some examples are: I have stopped being friends with some people because they complain to me about the same problems they have over and over again, I know they want someone to moan to to make themselves feel better, but if they aren't prepared to help themselves why should I constantly listen to them moan? The first time they tell me about their cheating husband or crap job I am sympathetic, but after several months of them moaning about them I can't understand why they don't do something about it!
The other thing that seems to crop up often is at the end of a relationship or friendship people think I'm cold because I am not upset that it's over. I was seeing a girl this year and it didn't work out (another story there, basically thought I was lesbian as I couldn't understand why I'd never felt close to a man, but then I realised I had aspergers) and when it was over she was devastated and couldn't understand why I was so cold. I didn't think I was cold, I was upset too, she was my best friend and I'd lost her and I didn't understand at the time why it hasn't worked, just that it wasn't right. I think at first I was feeling her intense love for me and felt that I loved her too (the feeling other people's emotions thing again confusing me) I ended it and she was cross because I didn't seem like I had cared about her at all, even though several times I said that I would always be there for her if she needed me (even though I pointed out that this would make me feel bad, she is depressed and her negative emotions leave me drained, I said because I love her as a friend I would be there for her) it's like people can not deal with the facts, I stated all the reasons why it didn't work (apart from the aspergers) and it just made her angry, though I thought it would bring her closure. When I realised I had aspergers and started telling people most people were understanding and said it explained things for them, I even made friends with someone who I'd previously found to difficult to handle and now we are good friends again. But the ex girlfriend is still finding it hard and seems to think that everything I say is hurtful, when really it is just a fact. For example like me telling her she has a drug problem, it wasn't meant to be hurtful, it was saying why I couldn't be with her, someone who needs to do drugs every day and not just for recreation at the weekends is not the kind of person I want to be with. I see that as a fact. I guess I'm saying that at the end of a relationship I can detach my feelings from the situation to assess why it didn't work, but that doesn't mean that overall the situation didn't upset me, it just means that I made the right decision in ending the relationship.

We often lack cognitive empathy, which means understanding what someone is going through,relating to it and knowing how to respond it. We typically have affective (emotional) empathy, which means we do feel emotions (often times way too much)

The whole reason we have the lack of empathy stigma is purely because we do not react the way others do or expect us to in situations that require an emotional response. This makes it appear as if we are apathetic and uncaring creatures.

If you really want to get technical though, most people in the world rarely know exactly how another person is feeling. They can only pull from similar experiences in their life (I believe) to channel that understanding and try to relate.

As for myself I do have a lot of compassion. It came to my attention a few years ago that I did not have to understand why someone I really cared about (specifically my spouse) was upset . I just needed to understand and care that they were..I am married to a NT male, so i do understand the whole "I just don't know what you want from me" thing. If you care for your spouse, talk to him about what he needs in situations where you know he is sad,so you know what is expected of you. Mine likes a hug or a pat on the back when upset. yes it is outside my comfort zone, but he is rarely upset, so I am willing to give him that because I care. In return he responds to me the way I need him to in certain situations.

As for the 6th sense thing? I have it too.. and NT people put off some really strong energy/vibes... it's so uncomfortable, sometimes it hurts or makes me overstimulated. I was really pleased to read that I am not the only one who feels this.

Narcissism and Aspergers ......................

There are two basic schools of thought:

The first is that all of us Aspies experience a very strong "narcissistic wound" because we were so hurt as young people not fitting in. So this caused us to construct an nice image of ourselves to interface with the outside world in order to be accepted by others. This would make AS and narcissism comorbid.

The second, espoused by Sam Vaknin (a self-proclaimed narcissist who has written much on the subject) is that what appears to be narcissism in an Aspie is an entirely different animal. Whereas narcissists have no empathy but can feign empathy in their communication in order to manipulate people, Aspies have empathy but can't communicate it and have no desire to manipulate.

So take your pick at which theory you believe. I think there is some truth to both.

I think I'm way way way too empathetic - it gets me in trouble because I try to help people that don't always want or need my help. The only other thing I can think of that can explain this is, maybe we don't truly understand what empathy is and we are mistaking something else for it. In my case, if I see people in trouble I actually feel fear as if I was the one in trouble. Or if someone cries I try to "fix" it. I think it's not normal. Can't explain it. Maybe that's not empathy, but I'm slowly learning to try to stop myself from reacting too quickly to such situations.

This is the part that suggests a deficit in empathy. It's not participating in subtle social communication of emotional content. This is the thing that they are talking about when they say that people on the spectrum have impaired empathy.

Yes I think you are right. Like i don't go around looking for problems to solve, I only do it if someone presents a problem to me. But I think sometimes I think I am getting some kind of cue from them, say if they are crying in front of me - to me that reads HELP ME. But it may not at all read that and I'm not empathetic to that. Man you are really helping me today! Thanks!