Does crying over empathy mean I don't have AS?

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I can understand hurt,since I feel it I know what it must be like.That dos'nt mean I understand why they are troubled.All I know if I see a turtle or other animal that has been run over I just feel devastated by it .In my mind I can imagine and picture what they went through.I have seen horrible pictures on T.V. And other media of things that have happened to animals and people and the sucky thing is I now carry those images in my brain forever.I wish I could delete them.Sometimes when I get depressed they float into my head like a slideshow of misery.

I've come off as heartless or highly emotionless to some of the people I've known over the ages for almost this same reason. I put the pain of the animal before my attachments. Luckily, when I hit an animal, I have no attachment to the animal, so I almost robotically exit my vehicle, grab a knife or tire iron and finish the job as fast as possible. I don't see how this would make me a bad person, since I'm ending the suffering as fast as possible, and I'm not going to change my stance on this. I find it stranger that others would think I have a fascination with death, or something just because I'm processing something more quickly.

I try to respect the animal in this way. I think of the Native American way of respecting the earth and animals and such.

When I see an already-dead animal on the side of the road, I don't entirely see it your way, but I do tell myself it was quick. I believe it usually is. In those instances, my ignorance is blissful.

I have noticed this too and have given it a fair amount of thought. I think the reason we often feel more for fictional characters is that their emotional states are more effectively communicated to us than are the emotions of those we interact with in real life. In other words, in film or on TV, we see a character in close-up, and everything from lighting to camera angle to soundtrack is used to help convey that character's emotional state. In real life, the same emotions are often communicated in far more subtle ways, and we simply miss the cues.

This all speaks directly to the difference between affective and cognitive empathy - movies and tv telegraph characters' emotional states, bypassing our deficient cognitive empathy and triggering our all-too-powerful affective (emotional) empathy. It's funny how many researchers still don't seem to fully grasp this phenomenon.

I am pretty darned sure most of us feel too much, not too little. It's just that sometimes you have to hit us over the head with a sledgehammer to get through to us - and this is something film and TV do quite effectively.

The problem with this theory are some experiences I've had:

Death of friend's relative.
The emotional state was very obvious. People crying, a freaking coffin, more people crying, people sitting on corners, isolating themselves.

So it didn't go over my head, but I still could feel nothing at all.

I'm leaning more to a differend hypothesis: that the discomfort/anxiety of social interaction have a specific effect on my emotional responses: either shuts it down as a defense mechanism or leaves no space to feel anything else (meaning all I can feel in social interactions is anxiety/tension).

Don't know, just brainstoriming here

I never thought of myself as lacking empathy because I've always been very sympathetic. But I'm coming to understand that empathy and sympathy are very different things. Empathy isn't just understanding other people's feelings, it's feeling them (and expressing those feelings). I definately have deficits of empathy, although I compensate with sympathy, which does not require feeling, only understanding and patience.



See I think this illustrates the difference. You're sympathetic - the animal is suffering and you can help and you should help. But others can't do it because they're too empathic, they feel the fear of the animal, its terror of death. Their empathy is stronger and overpowers their sympathy, and they leave the animal to suffer, or stand over it wringing their hands in cognitive dissonance.

To me, this sounds like the difference between affective empathy and cognitive empathy. It sounds like houseofpanda overrides affective empathy with cognitive empathy--he/she must imagine what it would be like to be in the animal's place, and think that he/she would prefer a short death rather than a long one.

I've often wondered about that type of physical empathy people tend to have--that makes someone cringe at the thought of cutting another person. But that seems like a type of affective empathy. Surgeons in wars have had to operate on people without anesthesia--being forced with the choice of either overriding their affective empathy or letting a person die. This seems like cognitive empathy is the motivator--with some altruism, as many people would find more discomfort cutting apart a screaming person who they're trying to save or help. It might just be easier to let them die.

I'm confused about cognitive vs. affective empathy though. Like, I've heard AS people talk about problems where their friend will tell them something they feel bad about (the friend feels bad about). And then the AS person will give advice or something instead of doing the more socially expected things like giving a hug, looking sad, saying things like "Oh, that's so horrible, you must feel so bad."

To me, that sounds like they are using cognitive empathy, because they are still trying to help the person, and to do so, they still have to imagine what it would be like to be in that situation...I don't know. Maybe that is just sympathy?

Edit: And I am confused because I often hear that psychopaths lack empathy, but now I am hearing that they have cognitive empathy. So they can understand what the other is going through (as they hurt them) but still don't really care. So it seems like empathy is just some kind of benign skill, so what motivates people to act on it--and to try to ease another person's suffering? Is that just personal ethics?

It doesn't take telepathy to know that someone's sad when their mother has just died and they're collapsing in tears (as an example). That's the purpose of affective empathy - to trigger an empathic response in others. It's hard to relate to the system as it operates normally when you have deficits, though.

I don't think empathic deficits mean a lack of sympathy, and I do think empathy is more shallow than sympathy.

What about this?
"Theory finds that individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome don’t lack empathy – in fact if anything they empathize too much"

https://seventhvoice.wordpress.com/2013 ... -too-much/

I came across this forum post while Googling something. Recently, I've been revealing to some friends that I cry easily during movies (maybe to see if they did too). I even watched some movies with some friends and cried during the movie but found out later that none of them cried at the same parts I cried or any other part. I asked if they have cried in any movies at all before and they said they couldn't recall any.
(Might have just been that those friends I asked happen to be less emotional but) being someone who pretty much tears up at least once in every movie, I was kind of confused. Past month or two I found out about AS and I've been feeling like (but really not sure) I might have AS or some form of it. So I tried to Google to see if there's any correlation between crying more than normal in movies and AS and that's how I found your forum post. At the same time, I also found that article. Even though I can see that this forum was from over two years ago, I still thought I'd share. Good luck!

P.S. I also feel like I am overly (keyword) sensitive and empathetic sometimes.

So Aspies get bullied, misunderstood, under/overestimated, teased, rejected, hurt - by a neurotype that are supposed to feel empathy for any person in any situation.

I f*****g hate these empathy threads!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

"Normal" empathy is being able to relate to how others feel WITHOUT having prior experience with the emotional situation. A person with impaired empathy can still relate to others who are experiencing something they themselves have gone through.

It's like not being able to imagine what it's like to go on a roller coaster because you've never been on one, but being able to if you have ridden on one.

I think this is a really important issue. It's amazing to me how much aspies' experience with empathy seems to vary between individuals. I understand that there's supposed to be a "spectrum" but it seems as though there are substantial qualitative distinctions, rather than merely continuous differences in degrees. It reminds me of the way that specialists assign symptoms and criteria to women that differ from those which men with aspergers are held to. Personally, although I'm a gay male and identify as slightly masculine-of-center, I find that the criteria for "aspergers in women" apply to me far better than the criteria for men. It almost makes me think there are subtypes for the disorder. So much of our current understanding of the syndrome goes back to Hans himself and his work in the 1940s, and I'd be surprised if the model didn't change quite a bit in the near future.

Personally, I tend toward the "overempathic" extreme. Watching shows or films where characters were embarrassed, hurt, or disappointed would send me into fits of stimming under the covers when I was younger. People who know me well generally confide in me because, although I'm awkward, crude and shy, they know that I'm a pretty warm person. I became vegetarian at a pretty young age. I don't want to come off as sanctimonious, but I do want to contribute to the conversation and our collective understanding of Aspergers.

Part of what made me dismiss my diagnosis for so long was exactly this issue-- that I simply didn't identify with the stereotype of the cold, unfeeling Aspie. And I wish I had taken my diagnosis more seriously, because I spent so much time suffering, wondering what was wrong with me, when the answer had been in my medical records since middle school but I couldn't believe it.

[quote="houseofpanda"][/quote]

No it does not.

My cognitive empathy is fine. Maybe it's just the experience of hearing about other people for years and learning how people react to common situations, but, for example, I know that somebody is upset if a relationship ends, or they don't get an opportunity or recognition that they wanted, or they have a serious disagreement with someone important to them. My problem is that even when I logically know that someone is experiencing something that is emotionally affecting them, I don't feel emotionally affected. I can try to compare it with how I felt in a comparable situation, or an emotion I've heard in a song, but I know that isn't the other person's emotion that I'm understanding. Unfortunately, the only thing I feel when someone shares something with me is usually responsibility and self-preservation - I want to prevent the bad outcome of responding the wrong way to someone else's emotions, because I know that would harm them and our relationship.

For some reason I pick up emotions easily from music, though. Feelings EVERYWHERE.

I used to think that the fact that I automatically cry if I see someone cry (even on TV) and that I am extremely empathetic meant that I couldn't possibly have Asperger's. I believe that newer research indicates an excess of empathy is more likely than "no empathy". I have poor coordination, zero sense of direction/poor spatial reasoning, extremely sensitive hearing, engage in self-soothing repetitive behaviors, have difficulty meeting social expectations and norms, and have essentially created a life in which I rarely have to leave my room. I probably have AS. There is insufficient research on how AS manifests in females, so I don't think that one should rule out AS based on this highly contested variation. The reality is, (very generally speaking) girls are more inclined and socialized to be "warmer" and to care for others. I consciously and actively learned to read facial expressions even though it didn't come easily to me. I first suspected I might be more than just "odd" when my young daughter opened her arms to me and said (mostly jokingly), Mom, this means I want a hug!
Aspies are more likely to be "asexual" but that's never been an issue for me either! I think we don't know enough about AS overall and especially AS in females to rule it out based on a couple variations.
When it comes down to it, having a diagnosis is a relief, but it doesn't really change anything. What has helped are communities like this one where I have learned to understand my weirdnesses better (and forgive myself for not being "normal" and about coping strategies.

Some NTs don't cry over empathy. Especially men.

It doesn't mean that if you exhibit empathy you do not have AS. Those who have AS are humans too, they have feelings, whether concentrated within them, or not, energies/frequencies will always have a chance on affecting someone for we carry within us electrolytes, and therefore, electricity - energy, sublime and existing can cause us to be stirred.