Crying over sad movies

Post Reply New Topic

Trying to find out what traits I do have and I don't have, I asked people on another forum about empathy... because I can't really understand the different between that and sympathy is very much and I was wondering if I have empathy or not.

Someone said that if you cry over sad movies, you have empathy. I do have emotional reactions to movies and tv shows, but is this true or not?

I find empathy to be a bit complicated, because people can be empathetic in one situation but not empathetic in another. That is my own experience, anyway.

Where I had nearly no empathy for others as a kid, and I had myself convinced that I didn't care about anyone or anything, I had still found at least one movie sad. Both my parents have pointed out my lack of empathy, saying it wasn't right.

I've developed more at least, but still find it isn't enough to feel empathetic for as much as I should. Still, it is better than nearly none at all!

Sounds like you've got a lot of thinking ahead to determine just how your empathy is.

I've been thinking since 2007 when I first learned of Asperger's, because of the Aspie I worked with... seriously, he said I was the strangest person he ever met... I'm still trying to learn why.

Oh, and I must be strange, because I tell relatives and people that I've been told by someone I'm the strangest person they ever met, and instead of saying "of course not!" they usually chuckle and try to change the subject

I don't really get "into" movies. The little details are rather enthralling I have a feeling that in both movies and in life that my constant focus on the irrelevant inhibits my ability to empathize. I find death more disgusting than saddening, and I am so beyond getting involved in/understanding other people's feelings.

I cried over Finding Neverland because it reminds me that one day my mother is going to die.

I have cried over some movies but not perhaps ones other NT ladies may have cried over. for example I was watching the Titanic in a cinema and most of he cinema was crying at the end and I didnt feel like crying at all. I knew there was something different about me back then.

I don't think I have cried at sad movies; I just don't usually like to watch them. I cry at happy endings, though.

Here are a few that got to me:

-Ghost (a long time ago--I think I was about 9 or 10)

-Click

-Awakenings

-On The Beach (and the book scared the hell out of me)

I realized I didn't have an avatar set, lol

Well, that doesn't come any closer to solving the mystery that is me. Weird all my life and I still can't accept it or figure it out, lol

I've suffered emotional responses due to movies... but movies are MEANT to do that. Real people are not.

I cry at some movies. Movies that make you cry are engineered to make you cry. There is a careful selection of music (or silence) and the actors are carefully orchestrating a scene that makes it very clear what is happening and how it is painful. Often the characters will say very poignant things that are engineered to stir up your feelings. It's different from everyday life because there are no musical cues to help you know what's going on and people rarely say poetic or poignant things to drive home the tragedy of their situation. Often, people say nothing at all because they assume you understand how tragic their feelings are and will empathize with them. In short, they expect you to "read their mind" and feel disappointed or angry when you are unable to do so and cannot offer them the sort of comfort they were expecting from you.

Movies are very different from everyday life.

I'm going to cut and paste something I wrote yesterday in my cousin's facebook that pertains to this topic of empathy and whether we have it or not:

Generally, researchers in the past said that there was a lack of empathy because autistic people did not respond the same way non-autistic people did.

What's now realized is that there are two kinds of empathy: cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Autistic people are hindered in cognitive empathy due to mindblindness. That is to say: how can one express empathy if one does not realize that suffering is occuring?

Because autistic people have greater difficulty in reading emotional messages from other people's faces, bodies, and voices and because autistic people have greater difficulty understanding many "typical" responses to situations (e.g. if an autistic person prefers to spend a lot of time alone and never feels like they get enough alone time, it's harder to recognize that someone sitting alone might be lonely) the *expression* of empathy cannot be realized because there is no *cognition* of a situation of suffering.

But when researchers have controlled for that by thoroughly explaining the situation to all subjects, autistic and non-autistic, they discovered that, in general, people on the autism spectrum actually have a greater empathetic response (as measured by body readings such as breathing rate, heartbeat, skin reaction, etc. as well as measured by self-reporting of feelings of empathy) to the stress and suffering of others than non-autistic people.

In short, autistic people are impaired in the area of cognitive empathy but exceed non-autistic people in the area of affective empathy (although the non-researcher may not realize this due to the "flattened affect" many autistic people have, making it nearly as difficult for non-autistic people to read emotions from observing autistic people as it is for autistic people to read emotions from observing non-autistic people.)

I cried when I watched Forest Gump, and I cried after watching Imagine.

I frequently cry during sad parts of movies. The most major fits of tears I remember were caused by The Butterfly Effect.

And Sparrowrose has said everything else I could've thought of to say, but better than I would've said it.