Autism and empathy

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KitLily
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04 May 2023, 10:50 am

Joe90 wrote:

I agree with you. It's so annoying when you're having trouble with someone in your life and you post about it here and most of the people in the thread take the troubled person's side (I mean "you" as in second person speak).

Or it can sometimes be the total opposite; you have a healthy, close relationship with your parents but you say one quirk or flaw or whatever about them and you get a load of replies saying how toxic your parents are and that you should move as far away from them as possible and that they are abusive narcissists. Mind you, and sorry for being blunt, but it seems a lot of people here have toxic parents who hate them, so it's easy for them to think that everyone's parents are the same. Well I find it insulting if anyone badmouths my parents, because my mum died of cancer and if anyone lets on the tiniest hint that she deserved it then I will not stand for it.

Sorry, went off on a tangent there. :oops:

I understand both your points there. People are so quick to judge when we just want them to listen.

I probably said to you before, it would be like you saying 'my neighbours upstairs are too loud, they make me feel ill because I can't get a moment's peace.'

And me saying 'oh the poor neighbours, they probably have a very busy life and lots of problems, you should be more sympathetic.'

That's not empathy is it. I don't know what it is called, maybe 'misplaced empathy'?

And this mainly happens to me in real life: I tell a person that someone else has mistreated me and they immediately jump to the defence of the other person, who they don't know and who isn't even there.

Grrr

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Joe90
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04 May 2023, 2:40 pm

Funnily enough people seem to understand me offline and see my side, and if they don't it still seems easier to accept that they don't agree with you, because I can still sense they understand. But online, whether it's an autism-specific site or not, a lot of people seem to like to side with the other party rather than at least try to empathise with my side (the side they know best). Maybe it's because they view any rant online as an open opportunity for discussion, debate and advice, rather than just listening and understanding.

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04 May 2023, 2:44 pm

^ How do you know that people offline aren’t offended? They could just be being polite. People usually don’t know if I disagree with them OR am offended because I keep both things to myself.

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Joe90
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04 May 2023, 3:05 pm

Twilightprincess wrote:

^ How do you know that people offline aren’t offended? They could just be being polite. People usually don’t know if I disagree with them OR am offended because I keep both things to myself.

I can usually tell by their reaction, non-verbally. But I don't really talk about sensitive topics offline if I know it may offend them. My TOM skills seem to be better offline than online for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm anonymous here and I can't see who I'm talking to. I don't know.

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04 May 2023, 8:58 pm

Joe90 wrote:

Another thing that gets me about empathy (this I've probably already mentioned in this thread) is the way NTs are allowed to take things personally and Aspies have to understand that, but if we take things personally then we're being self-centred and lacking in empathy for them. And I don't think anything should justify this double standard, like "they're in the majority so they don't have to understand". That's BS, because autistic people aren't the only minority group they misunderstand. They can even misunderstand each other if they aren't matched with each other, and they can even misunderstand the opposite gender.

In all seriousness, publish that.

Caz72
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05 May 2023, 9:16 am

i do lack empathy literally

well except for when bringing my son up my mothers intuition kicked in but thats because im not some sort of psychopath

but otherwise i cannot feel for others and i struggle understanding my own feelings and i am self centered

i dont go around purposely upsetting people but i dont go around trying to be nice either

i find it hard to feel guilt or embarrassment

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05 May 2023, 9:35 am

Caz72 wrote:

I'd rather want to be like you.

Without my emotions and affective empathy remained useless, dysregulated and exploitable.

Or even at least able to flat out say that I'm naive, vulnerable or at fault of a lot of things than have a "sense of personal preserverence" to deny, self flagallate and go through the unnecessary processes before thinking of an actual solution.

At least that's how I imagined it if I were alexithymic and have lower social affect than the reactive and irrational ones I have in this current life.

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05 May 2023, 10:10 am

I personally feel autistic people (myself included) have more empathy than most people. We are eager to please so we are constantly "reading" the room or our interactions with others. NTs could learn from us.

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05 May 2023, 11:14 am

Aspinator wrote:

I feel like that could be a trauma response from being excluded/disliked for being weird.

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MatchboxVagabond
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05 May 2023, 4:23 pm

This gets a bit messy because there's empathy, sympathy and emotional imagination. IMHO, they're all interrelated and as long as you have a combination of them that's enough to treat people with respect and dignity, that should be enough. Autistic people typically have plenty of empathy, little emotional imagination, and often not much sympathy. So, we do usually care a lot about others, we just lack the ability to estimate how they're feeling about things and may or may not feel their pain the way that NTs typically expect.

For example, I made an unwise comment about the fact that a coworkers earrings could be an issue in the freezer. She wasn't particularly offended by it, but I shouldn't have said it because it wasn't helpful and at worse is now something she'll think about if she needs to go into the freezer without a thick hat. I have empathy, I realize that I shouldn't said it and why, I just wouldn't have seen it coming due to the lack of emotional imagination and I don't really feel it was wrong because I'm lacking in sympathy.

I think that should be at least somewhat helpful to others.

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05 May 2023, 4:36 pm

I have too much empathy, normal emotional imagination, and selective sympathy.

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KitLily
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06 May 2023, 3:12 am

Joe90 wrote:

That's so interesting because I'm the opposite. Online I can clearly explain myself and put my point across. But offline I'm hopeless at communicating and people take offence left right and centre. I'm generally better at writing than talking.

I think you've got the better way round Joe. People we know online are very casual friends and don't miss us if we suddenly disappear. I've noticed that many times.

I often think the 'professional arguers' and 'online lawyers' are paid to cause trouble anyway. Or they have very miserable lives and so like making others miserable.

Either way, they aren't worth worrying about. Focus on real life friends :heart:

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Joe90
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06 May 2023, 7:35 am

Sometimes people just want to be agreed with when they're confiding in you, and I think it's important to just agree with them, which I believe a lot of Aspies fail at.

When someone at work reported another colleague for something petty that wasn't worth reporting, the colleague he reported got angry with him (expressing it passive-aggressively). The person who reported him got annoyed at his reaction and said to me about it. Inwardly I was thinking "well it was a petty thing to report someone about, you should learn to butt out", but I knew that wasn't what he wanted to hear, so I just sympathised with him and moved on.

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KitLily
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06 May 2023, 8:30 am

Joe90 wrote:

That is very wise indeed. I've tried to learn that over the years.

You always put yourself down Joe, but you are very wise! I mean that sincerely.

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Edna3362
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06 May 2023, 8:35 am

Joe90 wrote:

Sometimes people just want to be agreed with when they're confiding in you, and I think it's important to just agree with them, which I believe a lot of Aspies fail at.

I could.
Except, I won't. Even if this is what other people want.

I have all the sympathies anyone would want to have. And as I said with my other post in this thread, I refuse to act upon it.

In my past online life, I'm very much the person who always cares, who always sympathize.
To a point that I got saddled with a roles of mediator and councillor.
Who always acts optimistic when someone needs reassurance or be on their side if someone needs validation.

Even if I did enjoy being this person, I've burnt out doing that.
I've put this part of myself to rest a decade ago so I could focus on my own life, on my own reality, in real life.

And when I find this side of me in real life? Or, if I just decide that I'm done trying to face the entirety alone?

I'll come back to it again. It could be tomorrow, it could be never.

But not now. For now.

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Joe90
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06 May 2023, 8:53 am

KitLily wrote:

Joe90 wrote:

That is very wise indeed. I've tried to learn that over the years.

You always put yourself down Joe, but you are very wise! I mean that sincerely.

Thanks.

I don't often offend people offline but on the rare occasions that I have I can always tell I have, even if the other person doesn't make it obvious that they're offended.
For example in my old voluntary job I once ranted to another volunteer about the kids coming into the place and messing my toy display up, and I used the word "brats", forgetting that she had a little one herself. She gave a little laugh at the way I said it but something in me told me that she took offense to it, and turns out I was right, as she never did speak to me after that.
I think that comment was made on impulse. To this day I wish I hadn't said it. But as an NT she should have realised that I didn't mean it personally against all children including her's, I just used it in a non-specific context. But even NTs do take things personally too and don't always read between the lines.

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