Revisiting Empathy in Asperger Syndrome

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Your scores: Fantasy: 0; Perspective-taking: 0; Empathic Concern: 6; Personal Distress: 6

about empathy versus sympathy.
i was told by my best psychiatrist (the one that really liked me as a child) that you need to have "compassion" to be "sympathetic", and you need to have "T.O.M" to be "empathetic".

recently, i have started to believe that a deficit of "theory of mind" is directly associated with "mirror neuron" deficiency of activity due to damage or malformation.
i think that maybe there is a myelin deficiency associated with those neurons in autistic people.

the mirroring effect is demonstrated when someone yawns earnestly, and others feel the same sensation just by seeing it. they all start yawning. i do not get affected by the urge to yawn in those circumstances.

another example is when people laugh. the mere sight of their laughter makes other people smile, even though they do not know what the laughter is about.
if the laughter they witness is extreme, then they may even start to laugh along with no idea of what the source of the humor is.
laughter is lost on me like water off a ducks back.
i do not feel any urge in my sensorium related to anyone elses display of behavior.

"sympathy" apparrently requires "compassion".

if i analyze the word "com-passion" (in my own silly way), then i see that there is an element of common passion in the mind of a person who is "compassionate".
this makes me wonder whether it is really associated with "sympathy"

i do not share the passions of those who i feel sorry for. i can feel sorry for some lives.
but i do not share their suffering. i just observe it and find it to be sad and i want to help make it better.
that is what my psych called "compassion" but i beg to differ.

it is a sense of justice in me that means that i feel that if some life is deserved of better things, i will try to facilitate them to live and feel better.

"justice" is sometimes confused with "compassion" i am sure.
i have a very valid idea of true justice, and i am not happy when i see some life that is being treated unfairly by their environment.

but i do not feel as if i am in their lives.

when i think of etymological roots as definitions of the words "sympathy" and "empathy", i find that to be in "sympathy" means you have to vibrate in harmony with another vibration. ie. "sym-pathy".
"pathy" means a "route" of whatever evolution, and "sym" means "similar".
so to look at someone who has just experienced something that you have experienced, will maybe inspire "sympathy".

"empathy" means to internalize the "pathy." it means that the person who empathizes actually feels in their own consciousness the real feeling of the person they "empathize" with.

"em" means "to take in". like to "em-ploy" means to take into your ploy the ploy of another.

"em-body" means to take into your boby the form of another body etc.

i have few concerns for any person, and a few more for a few animals i know, but beyond that, i sleep very soundly in my isolated cloud bed.

So - sympathy is to imagine yourself in, or understand another person's situation and then possibly agreeing with them. While empathy is to imagine yourself being this other person, seeing things not just from their point of view but through the lens though with they observe the world.

Empathy brings understanding, sympathy impels action. A country wants it's people to empathize with the enemy, but you don't want them to sympathize with the enemy. You like it when people sympathize with you - because that means that they will actually do something to help you. Being empathized, however, is something you probably don't want - I mean, who would want their enemies to understand them? Unless of course, you don't want to destroy your enemies, but rather make them into friends, i.e. sympathetic to you.

I'm thinking this whole empathy thing is a load of balderdash.

I don't think there is anything intrinsic to AS that impedes this "empathy". Rather, I believe that NT's are possessed of a functioning herd mind that gives the illusion of empathy. That is, is they have a set of instincts that tell them how to behave as a human social animal. The same as a dog's instincts tell it how to be a pack animal - human instincts tell it how to function in society. Thus, all NT's have one mind in common, the herd mind. When NT's think they are empathizing, they are just thinking with their herd minds. They think they understand the other person's being - but what they don't realize, it that in a sense, they ARE the other person. From this point of view, people on the spectrum are the only distinct individuals on the planet, with NT's being one giant hive person.