ignorance.

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Families of those with Asperger’s want to know why their Aspies act the way they do. In my psychology practice I have Neuro-typical (NT) clients repeatedly ask me regarding their Asperger spouse, “Why can’t she see what I am saying?” Or they ask, “Why can’t he connect with my feelings?”

Aspies have a huge disconnect between thinking and feeling, or cognitive empathy (CE) and emotional empathy (EE). But what is the cause of this disconnect? That’s the real “why” question.

According to the latest neuroscience research discussed in Simon Baron-Cohen’s book, The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Evil, the cause is poorly working empathy circuits in the brain [1]. The Aspie brain has limited neurological mechanisms in place to understand or empathize with the NT. A way to understand the Aspie’s lack of empathy from a neurological perspective is “out of brain – out of mind.”

No matter how much we explain or teach or train the Aspie mind, certain neurological circuits don’t work as they do in the NT brain. The brain has a number of circuits that are all connected like Christmas lights. If one part doesn’t work right, then the rest of the circuits malfunction, too. These brain circuits are so tightly integrated that multiple circuits depend upon multiple other circuits to carry out sophisticated human behaviors and to comprehend complex thoughts and feelings. Our brains are truly amazing.

True empathy is the ability to be aware of one’s own feelings and thoughts at the same time you are aware of another person’s feelings and thoughts (or several other persons’). It means having the wherewithal to speak about this awareness. It also means creating mutual understanding and a sense of caring for one another. That is a lot of brain circuits to connect!

Let’s look at a sampling of brain parts in the empathy circuits to learn what they actually do for us. Realize that each part is not so functional by itself but needs the other circuits to carry out the complex empathy task of really stepping into the shoes of another person.

The medial prefrontal cortex compares your perspective to another person’s perspective.
The dorsal medial prefrontal cortex helps you understand your own thoughts and feelings.
The ventral medial prefrontal cortex stores information about how strongly you feel about a course of action.
The inferior frontal gyrus helps with emotion recognition.
The caudal anterior cingulate cortex is activated with pain, both when you feel yours and observe it in others.
The anterior insula is involved in bodily self-awareness, something that is tied to empathy.
The right temporoparietal junction helps you judge another person’s intentions and beliefs.
The amygdala plays a central role in empathy because of its connection to fear, thereby cueing you to look at someone’s eyes to help you gather information about that person’s emotions and intentions. People with Asperger’s Syndrome avoid eye contact unless they are specifically instructed to look someone in the eye. Think of all the information that is lost by not looking into someone’s eyes.
The mirror neuron system connects several parts of the brain. It responds when you engage in an action and when you observe others engage in an action. For example, these neurons fire when you gaze in a certain direction or observe another person gazing in the same direction (hence, “mirroring”). The interplay of these multiple and interacting empathy circuits is complicated. Your mirror neurons make you look in the same direction as the speaker, but you also need other empathy circuits to make meaning of why you are looking.
These are just a few regions of the brain’s empathy circuits. You can see that it’s a very complex system. If a single one of them doesn’t work, the whole network suffers, and so do our relationships.

For example, your mirror neurons may signal you to mirror a speaker and look in the same direction he or she is looking, but they don’t tell you why to look in the same direction. Your caudal anterior cingulated cortex may signal that another person is experiencing pain, but it doesn’t signal you to speak about it—or give you a clue as to what to say. The brain’s empathy circuits must work together in a complex system, sending signals back and forth, to create an integrated and highly sophisticated “lights on” response. Remember, it is not empathy unless you respond appropriately to the other person.

“Will Aspies always be like this?” Researchers and clinicians aren’t sure. There are some promising therapies. So far we really have as little information on successful clinical interventions as we do on the genetic and neurological structure of the brain. For now the bottom line is that NTs need to turn on the lights for their Aspie mates and children. Helping Aspies through the mysterious world of nonverbal and verbal empathy is not so stressful if NTs don’t take it personally. It is equally true that Aspie family members must accept coaching by their NT spouse as well as by the family psychologist. That requires a great deal of love and acceptance on the Aspie’s part.

Both the NT and the Aspie need to look to the good intentions behind the clumsy behaviors and bad manners. Each partner needs to be respectful of, kind to, and patient with each other. The Aspie needs to recognize that he or she does indeed have zero degrees of empathy. And, the Aspie needs to stop expecting that his or her grasp of the facts should rule.

The NT needs to recognize that zero degrees of empathy can co-exist with feelings of caring. If an AS/NT couple is going to be successful, both parties need to work with the other’s systems. That provides you with a place to start creating a pattern of working together for the sake of the family, as long as you both have loving intentions.

Reference

Baron-Cohen, Simon. (2011). The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Evil. New York: Basic Books, Inc.









WE HAVE EMPATHY!somewhat.i know it effects everyone differently.

Baron-Cohen suggests the cause of an Asperger’s sufferer’s lack of good social skills is poorly working empathy circuits in the brain.

There's also this theory about how autistic people have difficulty recognizing faces; hence, they don't feel INSPIRED to socialize.

I often hit these problems of not understanding the emotions of my NT wife. Yesterday for example we were watching the TV news while eating lunch and an article started that I wanted to listen to; so I said "Shush!" to my wife while she was in full flow making some superficial comments about the previous news article. She shouted at me that she might as well not exist as I never listen to what she says. She was in a foul mood for the rest of the afternoon and didn't speak to me for several hours. I never try to ask her why she responds like that because she just goes into some sort of tearful rage that I don't understand. So I wait for the storm to pass and carry on like nothing ever happened. I said "Shush" rather than a more longer polite request of "please stop speaking for a moment darling because I'd like to listen to this news article" which meant I would have missed more of the beginning of the news article. Damn these complicated interpersonal communications.

"Shush" is so much more to the point.

The good thing is, when the wifey is upset, you could take a walk in around your beautiful area.

I can understand that theory, but there is an alternative possibility that because we don't understand the value of the information that can be gained from facial expressions, eye contact etc, we simply do not take the trouble to process that information properly. And since we don't share the NTs' need for regular human interaction, it doesn't really matter that we don't always recognise the faces of other individuals.

The 'shush - I wanna hear this' syndrome is something I am finally beginning to deal with after all these years. I believe it is a good illustration of the different priorities of NTs and NDs.

An NT believes that human interaction is more valuable than the ND's interest in facts/knowledge/information etc etc, whereas an ND can see no problem with the idea of delaying the social needs of another individual by a minute or two so that the ND can avoid missing an interesting experience.

I find it is the other way around..NT people (or Aspie people) rarely, if ever, understand me. I have met so called empathic types only to find it is a more a case of them projecting their beliefs and feelings on to me and getting it wrong rather than my not understanding their feelings.

I am awating assessement for an ASD due to having similarities to people on the spectrum. I have intense interests (although I have many of them rather than just one and they are not unusual, social difficulties and difficulties finding friendships/relationships and used to have routines but that was before the paleo diet)

This is what makes me worry about proceeding with a possible diagnosis. Theories that people with Aspergers are incapable of showing empathy makes people think I must be an uncaring ass. I have spent much of my life caring for others. I gave up a degree I was getting A grades on to care for my disabled mother and son.

I always knew what my son was feeling, even if his outward behaviour signaled other emotions. For example one evening he came home and was acting in a very angry stroppy manner. He walked in in a huff and slammed his bag down before stomping upstairs. On being asked "What is wrong sweetheart?" He replied with "LEAVE ME ALONE" and stormed into his bedroom. A lot of parents, including his father who was more NT than me, would have scolded him at this point for being naughty but I had the feeling he was more upset and hurt than anything. I merely told him that "if there is anything he wants to talk about or needs he knows where I am when he wants me and to consider letting me know what the problem is as I may be able to help him".

Some time later he came downstairs and openly told me another little boy had been bullying him and that he had been kicked in a sensitive place and had been too embarrassed to tell me. I gave him a hug and told it was ok and that we would speak to someone to have the bullying issue sorted out.

It was a good job I did not scold him wasn't it as I think the poor soul had had a bad enough day as it was.

As to people being empathic towards me..never met one. I don't believe in beating oneself up and worthlessness for example yet if I were to post "did not lose weight this week" on a site like facebook or mention it to someone in passing I would get a slurry of responses along the lines of "Don't be so hard on yourself, try not to beat yourself up over it, you are not fat you dont need to lose weight your weight looks fine to me"....

OK

1 I am clinically obese...I need to lose weight before my health suffers. I apreciate the whole world is obsessed with its over sensitised ego right now but telling someone who is in obvious need of losing weight for their own well being that their weight is fine just becuase you think their ego can't cope with the truth is dangerous and rather stupid. I am sorry but it is. You don't need to be rude about it either though...but it would be best to gently encourage the person to take weight off in a healthy manner, NOT tell them their weight is ok when it clearly is not!! !! !! !!

2 I never mentioned my feelings about losing weight in my post/statement. I merely pointed out that I had not achieved any wieght loss this week. People have jumped on a bandwagon and assumed what my feelings are about the matter, alongside making assumptions about my reaction.

a) I may feel disappointed about the lack of weightloss but i fail to see what beating myself up will accomplish. could someone please explain to me what use such a response has and why people assume I will resort to it? My response is to feel the disappointment and then move on to the question "why am I not losing weight?" before heading off to make my analysis and apply any changes I may need to make. AT times. later down the line if i am unable to find the cause or a solution, I may express frustration, but I still see little point in beating myself up. Is it going to change anything? The answer is no so it is a rather odd way of responding and makes little sense to me although I accept that people do it. Why...probably because society has brainwashed them. It seems to be common in our culture and is somewhat of a norm.

b) Not one of those empathic NT people understood my feelings or my response. They merely projected their beliefs on to me.

i actualy am beginning to wonder if people who believe they are empathic or can show empathy are actually delusional because I have never met one who has understood or even recognised my feelings at all. A lot of projection based on what they believe and feel but no real empathy encountered yet.

People share similar beliefs. For example jane might feel that failure is bad because her parents taught her to feel ashamed of it, and jack might feel failure is bad because society has told him it makes him worthless and both of them have become afraid of it. They spend a lot of time worrying about it and beat themselves up regularly if they experience it.

On the other hand I have no fear of failure itself. I may not always like the consequences if failure occurs but I see it as a learning curve and a natural part life that happens sometimes. It also part of my trial and error process that I sometimes use to problem solve. To provide an example I once failed to achieved the desired outcome on a biology experiment to make salad leaves putrefy. For some reason they just would not rot. Mine was the only experiment in the class that went wrong.

On seeing this my first response was to feel disappointment, my next response was to think to myself "Blimey, what did I do, buy the worlds longest life lettuce or something?" which was promptly followed by a titter as I was amused by my own internal comments. Lastly I thought to myself "Why has this happened" at which I was distracted away from my disappointment by my own curiosity.
My approach was successful, I solved the dilemma and after producing a write up which I was told was 'brilliant' by my tutor I went on to get an A grade for the course. So...no problem then. Issue solved.

This is not the expected response to failure and it is not the response people seem to think I experience. In fact they don't understand it and will ask things like 'Do you not feel shame' or 'Do you not have feelings'.

If you read what I wrote again you will see I experienced several feelings...disappointment and amusement. As to shame, I was not taught to feel shame over such things. At such times, if I became upset, my mother would simply say "do not fret, if you at first you don't succeed try and try again". I must have taken that to heart....because that is what I do. I investigate, analyse, tweak and so on until I get as close to the results I desire as I can.

I would be more likely to feel shame if I were to deliberately hurt someone as I am very upset by seeing other living critters suffering. EVen if the reason they are upset does not make sense to me, emotionally I feel what they are feeling hence how I knew my son was upset. I did not feel anger from him even though he looked angry, I felt pain, upset, hurt so that is what I responded to.

I believe that people merely project their belief systems and related feelings (my feelings respond to my belief system, not to the belief system of others so sometimes my emotional response will differ from theirs) on to each other. As they share similar belief systems they happen to be close enough in their emotional reactions and responses to be able to appear to be empathic as a result. If they were truly empathic they would be able to understand a reaction that is different from theirs and yet, in most cases, they are not. Even though both people above feared failure for slightly different reasons, their shared belief that failure is a bad thing (and I debate the nature of failure as I see it as neither good nor bad...it is what it is and the consequences can be positive, negative, nutral or any shade of grey in between) caused a similar response when they failed, which was to beat themselves up and to dent their own self esteem.

They would not be familiar with my lack of self flagulation and my curiosity as a response to my failures in life but I live to understand. Learning and understanding is of great importance to me and I spend a lot of time reflecting on things in order to develop my understanding regarding them. Learning is the love of my life (I am often very excited by it and I have never lost my curiosity even at 39 years of age) ergo I put great passion into it. I was (before my brain fog years) very good at it and was advanced for my age as a child in numerous ways (capable of completing and understanding work meant for much older children than myself). I was considered to be exceptionally bright/extremely intelligent and was enrolled in school early due to my level of ability. Psychological testing further confirmed my advanced level of ability as a teenager when I went to see a psychologist about my not being able to fit in socially and my associated emotional response (emotional outbursts due to bullying). I could not relate to my same age peers due to not being at the same stages of development as them and so was failing to make and maintain friendships with them. That problem still persists and is why I am awaiting assessment for aspergers. My social isolation is resulting in my being rather depressed during which I experience hopelessness rather than worthlessness as, as I pointed out above, the latter is something I do not believe in.

I am pro human rights and i find this notion that any living being is worthless to be offensive and upsetting. It devalues that persons life and takes away their right to be treated in a fair, human and just manner. It is at the base of things like prejudice and discrimination and I personally find such things detestable. If I were not so depressed over my lack of romantic nookie and loving fun (no sexual partner to enjoy and share life with) I would protest against it (alongside joining the campaign for shark finning which I would urge people to also consider please...the practice is barbaric and in human and needs to be made illegal. The sharks fins are often removed whilst the shark is still alive and the still living critter thrown back into the water where it is unable to swim, sinks to the bottom of the ocean and bleeds to death. Please stop such practices by joining the campaign at sharktrust.org if you are in the UK, thank you. Humans really do do some reprehensible things..how would they like it if I cut their arms and legs off and chucked them into some water to drown? The sharks fins do not even taste of anything and are nothing more than a novelty. The soup they are collected for is flavoured with chicken or beef broth!) but alas I seem to be distracted by my own misery (and CFS like symptoms if I stray too far away from the principles of the paleo diet) and my motivation to even bother getting up out of bed is flagging. If I do get up, and oftentimes I do as it is sometimes better for me to stay busy and get some exercise, I am slow to get things done and I have terrible concentration issues right now. I feel like I am going through the motions but I am not really getting into whatever I am doing. My passion feels as though it is ebbing away from me and slowly dying.

Anyway I refuse to take on such belief systems (worthlessness) out of a moral objection to them. Unfortunately they have taken over society these days.

Have the NTs considered there may be other ways of looking at things and that they are torturing themselves with their feelings for nothing?

For example I see my paleo diet (whereby I don't eat processed foods, grains or dairy if I follow it strictly but with limited amounts of dairy if I don't) as a whole new adventure in food. I am excited by it and what I am going to try or experiment with next. Most people think I must be feeling awful as they see it as an exercise in deprivation. I dislike keeping the company of that type as to me it seems as though they keep pissing on my parade. Here I am having fun with something and they keep trying to turn it into a bad experience.

Well I think the paleo diet is wonderful and with the energy and vitality it gives me when I follow it I love it. Yes I am aware that it can be viewed in sense of deprivation and may leave some people feeling destraught because they are seemingly addicted to their grains and processed sugars and don't know if they can carry on in life and have any joy without them but I disagree with their conclusions as I am aware that that is just one way to view the situation. There are other ways of looking at it as i have outlined above.

I see no reason to take on the deprivation view point, it would only result in my torturing myself for no reason. Why make things harder for yourself than they need to be?

In conclusion I sometimes find myself wondering if the empathy thing is nothing more than a myth. I also don't appreciate being called a 'logical thinker' as though I am cold and have no feelings by my therapist whilst she empathises with the so called empathic types for having to put up with someone as disordered as me...That is not what she said directly but that is how I felt going by her tone of voice and they way she expressed herself by implying my logical cold nature was down to my ASD/disorder.

Um....I am not cold, but I do have alterantive beliefs, probably because my moral development etc was different to that of my peers. I see things differently!

Both are important.

I do not crave for a lot of relationships (social obligations and interactions are tiring and I need time to recharge between social encounters) but I do need and desire some bonds in my life. Presently due to circumstance I have none at this time. This makes me very lonely and I find myself craving the love and affection and closeness of another. I am also horny a lot and would like sex.

On the other hand, as I adore learning, I also value the importance of developing ones understanding of the world around them and the need to be aware of the relevant information to do so.

They can both be valuable and wonderful experiences.

I want the best of both worlds...unfortunately I presently have neither. I never got back to my degree and I am, as usual, single. Ergo why I am so depressed right now. I feel as though society has deprived me of everything that matters to me...learning and love (I am a romantic type). The two things that meant the world to me above all else and I cannot attain either of them. I am in a lot of emotional pain over it and I feel almost complete despair over my situation.

Somedays I wonder what I exist for. I don't know what my purpose in this world is. What am I here for. I seem to just be passing the time until I die. Is that really all there is. Is that what life is...a distraction in between conception and death?

All i can try to do at this time is struggle along in false hope whilst I try to find some meaning to it all. But I am struggling to do that. The hope has gone, false or otherwise.

Without love and learning my heart feels as though it is breaking and my soul is being destroyed. I am so bitter and angry, I don't recognise myself anymore. Gone has the kind heart that wanted to help people. Starved of love it see's no reason to help or even to exist. Yes I can learn in my own time even if I can't finish my degree but I can't get my desired job in teaching and/or research and I do like to put what I know to good use rather than just collect information in my head just for the sake of it.

I wanted to help the world become a better place and help people.

I wish I had not lost faith that things can change.

To many disappointments in a row to recover from. Too many years of being isolated and alone and too many memories of abuse and bullying from other members of my species along with the knowledge that when I fell ill not a soul was there for me regardless of the fact that I had stood by them when they needed someone.

I am tired now. I am really tired and I no longer believe I will get my happy ending. I don't think this society is ever going to give me a break. I'd probably be better off dead if only I actually had to courage to kill myself.

For now I will settle for pretending the outside world doesn't exist whilst I tuck into the Ultimate Carry On movie collection. Absolute classics and the disk has 30 of them to distract me from my blues for a while.

Bumble - I believe that I can totally understand (empathise with?) every part of your post, but I daresay that is impossible!

I would like to respond to each of your paragraphs one by one, but it would become tedious. You talk of suicide, and you say that you wanted to make the world a better place. I would be content to die whilst saving the life of somebody else, especially if I could be certain that the person whose life I saved would go on to make the world a better place. It's a bit like the ending of Saving Private Ryan.

Don't worry too much about the feeling suicidal, the wrong time of the month is approaching. It's not unusual. It is often accompanied by a thumping migraine right at the back of my head and an alternating mixture of hypersomnia and insomnia as well.

If I can stay awake enough today to make it to the supermarket i shall pick up some sources of omega 3 that don't need to be cooked to chow down on.

Have wild salmon in, but don't feel like cooking. I feel like I can't stay awake today. Aunt flow tortures me every damned month. I still get depressed about my lack of relationsihps in the month but I don't feel suicidal over it. The suicidal stuff is definitely flow related, not that I can get any drs to take me seriously.

I am playing with diet to see what happens and if it can correct it. Drs are useless and the only type of medical person i would see these days are holistic alternative therapists.

I'm sorry but your wife doesn't sound very nice. She should know better.

I stopped giving a dam what NTs think along time ago. It's gotten to the point where not only do I not have empathy for them (exept for a select few), but I simply wouldn't care if they got killed right in front of me.They're aliens and they are prejudging jerks with a gross sense of entitlement.

I don't like it when people shush me. It can really piss me off.

One of the things I have learned to do is to try to imagine that I was doing the thing the other person is doing an someone did the thing I did to me. I have found that I often would not like it!

I would let my wife talk and get that news item from the web--it's more up-to-date than TV anyway.