Analytical versus Cued Empathy in Autism

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This is engrossment although it happens to be a restrictive focus on a spinning object, which is pretty autistic.


You said it: panic. It can take me several seconds to look at someone's face before I decide I recognize them. Usually, they recognize me first and say hi or something. Sometimes I get it wrong and think someone I see is someone I've recently met, but they're not.


This happens to me every once in a while, and I usually just take the cautious approach. I sometimes end up looking like an empathetic listener just because I don't know how to get out of a conversation politely! I end up trying to give them advice and reassurance since I'm there, but I also sometimes want the conversation to end.

That was me too.
Back in the day when I was more social, I'd always give out advise in rather short simple answers. I then started to see it put others off so I stopped.
For some time now, I usually just sit (and stare throgh them) and pretend to listen. Thats what most people want anyway.
I hate it though, I usually feel used afterward.

Looks like I'm the odd one out.

I seem to use the NT way of expressing emotions. Like if a girl I know looks really depressed one day, I'll go up and say "Whats wrong? Are you feeling okay?" and if she says "my cat died" or something then I'd reply "Wow, I'm so sorry," without even having to think about it.

Whether this ability is innate or second instinct I'm not sure. (How would I tell the difference?)

I have had situations (such as a girl i didn't know very well sitting next to me crying in a class) where I had no idea what to do or say. (Other males in the class tried to cheer her up by telling her jokes to make her laugh. Females just ignored her I think.) After seeing a lot of these and seeing how others respond I just seem to pick up on what to do.

I do have visual and audio flashbacks when I sit down and remember what was said and done but not during an actual social interaction. I don't seem to do the data base thing though - at least not on a level that I'm aware of consciously. (I do use that method on other problems but not for social stuff.) Actually I just sorta blank out when I don't immediately know what to do - just stand there unable to think of anything. Hmm.

I wonder how an NT would describe this process...

I think the difference is that when I see someone who is upset I want to know WHY they are upset and only empathise to the degree that I can imagine myself in their situation and think their emotions are valid, whereas I think an NT person responds to the emotional state directly even before knowing the cause. If I see someone crying and don't know *why* they are crying or think their reasons are stupid then I'm really not affected very much by it and may appear cold and uncaring (which is essentially true, I guess), but once I know the situation and agree that crying is appropriate then I'm likely to get quite emotional myself.

When I see someone who's upset, well, I can't make myself feel bad, because it may not be something I would get upset about, and because, well, it isn't me, and I'm far from one of those people I've heard report that they tend to feel the emotional states of others sometimes to the point of feeling invaded by them. I feel more of a "resonance," a sense of "I get it on more than just an intellectual level, and it's wicked cool that I'm not the only one," if it's something I DO get upset about. Otherwise, though, I can more distantly sympathize with people upset about other things insofar as I figure that, just as I am bothered by things that don't seem to bother most people, they're bothered by things that don't bother me. My little sister can sympathize with or respect my own emotional reactions in a similar way, by making this kind of analogy.

Hmm. Seems I'm more NT-like in this aspect. When I see someone upset my instinct is to comfort them immediately. I will right away ask whats wrong, but thats more of a "find out stuff so i know how to provide comfort" sort of thing.

If I don't respond at all, I do feel sorta bad. At least, a little uncomfortable. In the sense that I feel like I'm not fufilling an obligation. This is a reason why I try to comfort someone who is upset.

That reminds me of my Aspie friend. It's one of the ways he's learned to (over?)compensate for his wiring, I think. If he sees a sign of a negative emotion, he will ask if it was his fault (always alert for a faux pas) and, whether it was or not, ask if there's anything he can do to help. Unfortunately, sometimes my reactions to being asked this can make me more upset, about having gotten upset in the first place. That's probably related to my growing up getting upset about things like losing games and getting grades that other people would be happy with but weren't good enough for me, and people told me to just get over it - basically, I've internalized and perhaps generalized the message that my negative feelings are invalid. Never learned to not care. I have to let my reaction go away on its own time. It's my problem and nobody else can solve it.

There has been alot of dying in and around my family lately which is why I haven't been posting alot. I understand that I cannot "fix" any of the anguish and sorrow but somehow I feel that is what I need to do.

I understand that many people need the "power" of human touch as comfort and I can do this for short amounts of time and I realize that just holding a hand or allowing someone to cry on my shoulder does somehow help a grieving person (perhaps taking strength in the touch of another human being) and so, I will do this to comfort another in pain. I do not require this human touch though when I'm grieving - I just need time alone.

My way of "fixing things" is to do things that I know will be appreciated. Lately, I have fixed meals, cleaned and ran errands, stayed late to listen or provide conversation and did whatever I could think of to lighten the burden on those that are having a hard time coping at this time. When you put yourself in gear serving someone that is having a hard time managing things sometimes it isn't noticed that you are not "showing" the outer signs of compassion. I feel sometimes compassion and empathy can be revealed in other ways.

I have been called heartless before though for not openly weeping and lamenting with others as they feel this is the proper thing to do but I feel just like many of you have said, like it would be a fake show of emotion or an act. (I am what I am and that's all that I am)

Any one else cry when they see someone else cry? I have never been able to control it. Even if I see someone cry on TV, my eyes instantly well up. I've asked this before, but haven't seen any response.

Additionally, once I start crying (not sympathetic crying, but actual crying because I'm personally upset), I can't stop. It is extremely embarrassing. I wouldn't call it a "meltdown" (which for me is quite rare), but it is very frustrating because I can't control it. It can go on for hours. Anyone else have this problem? Advice?

When I see someone is upset, I try to behave the way I have seen on TV. I will hug that person and listen and try to say comforting things. It's not that I don't empathize, but when I am upset, I don't want anyone to talk to me or touch me. If someone tries to hug me, I just get more upset. Normally I try to treat people the way I would want to be treated and leave them alone, but in this case, NTs (I think) want to be comforted so I do my best. To people who don't know me well, my behaviors appears "normal" and only perhaps a little bit "stiff" and awkward.

I see it more as a data rate and filtering thing.
Autistics are basically getting MUCH more sensory data, we perceive the world in 4K-UltraHD, while everyone else is in old fashioned black & white.
We seem "unempathic" because we are dealing with much more information at once, sometimes empathizing with conflicting people at the same time producing unpredictable results.

The filter is different, it lets more through. While other folks "tune out" extra details in a face for instance, we get caught up in all of them. We also can pick up an and catch a lot of things others ignore. These "super senses" can be trained and put to good use.

They just make for awkward social interaction, we respond to so many things "normals" tune out.

Humans are not their brains, Our brains are just control interfaces for interactions with this world.
We just need to learn how to operate them more efficiently.
We are something more than just our brains.

This idea that autistics of any kind lack empathy has got to be squashed at every instance. It's total bs, and harmful to all of us.

If anything we are MORE emphatic.
Many so much so they have to deliberately shut it off.

And the hemispheres?
All humans are supposed to use both equally.
A dependence too much on either will blind a person to aspects of the universe.
And our society generally trains most people to push most of the right hemisphere dialog into the background and just use critical thinking. It's good for maintaining civil control. People do what they are told if they ignore their "intuition".
Some cultures more than others.

If someone is too much left brain, they are cold, analytical, rigid, scientific, academic, possibly aggressive.
If someone is too much right brain, they are intuitive, passive, vulnerable, warm, emphatic, fun, emotional , irrational, etc.

Autistics are pretty much "overclocked" on both sides.
But our upbringing can make us into cold computers, especially males who get violently trained to not show emotion.

This is completely off topic, but it's weird that the first post with normal font in this thread was the fourth.

Anyway, I there is more to empathy than analytical versus cued because I think we are impaired in both areas in some aspects, but also superior in other aspects in those areas.