Feeling Other People's Emotions

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This is the one thing that makes me think I'm not really Aspergers: I can actually feel emotional responses to other people, to some extent.

Usually what I feel is negative, like when someone is angry or intimidating--what my father calls a :"feeling of evil". I also hate it when other people are upset or sad; I feel uneasy or sad myself. I hate put-downs because if one really hits home the other person gets upset, which upsets me in return. At other times I misread cues and feel I'm being persecuted for no good reason at all. I've embarrassed myself greatly that way.

However, I have a really hard time interpreting faces or even the emotions I do happen to feel. I'm wrong more often, it seems, than right, although I do well enough one-on-one, even though I don't keep eye contact.

My father, like I said, can feel people the way I can. Conversely, my mother thinks it's some type of telepathy, a science fiction concept. My mother fits nearly every criteria for Aspergers.

I grew up thinking it was normal to have a special interest and to talk about things intellectual, to read a lot and not to socialize much. When I was really young I was dismayed that my parents never wanted to do these things, but as I ws more and more exposed to other people I developed phobias of people and stayed more and more isolated, all the time feeling horrible that I didn't have the in-depth interests and wide range of knowledge of the rest of my family. Despite having one of the highest IQ scores in my class I felt stupid, but I digress.

I've been diagnosed officially as Aspergers and my regular psychiatrist agreed with the diagnosis enough to prescribe Risperidone, but my therapist, who has known me longer, thinks that if I am Aspergers it's a light version of it.

When I went to college, people either thought I was stupid or rude because I didn't know how to get along with others very well and pick up on their nonverbal--and many times verbal--cues. I've actually had people get angry when they decided I was mentally deficient and then I scored higher then they did on tests both in class and standardized. I've had people think I was trying to play some kind of trick on them; that still confuses me and for the longest time frightened me and made me doubt myself and my ability to get along socially anywhere.

Everywhere I've gone I've made at least one friend; I married a man I met in college and am still good friends with a girl I met in grad school. I've been in really stupid scrapes socially and lessened my chances of getting a job.

So, am I just a stupid NT or truly Aspergers?

ETA: My father never let on he could feel these things the way I did until after I went off to college; even then he never told me directly but through my mother.

That's empathy. If you still can't read faces/body language, that's still a form of NVLD (Non-Verbal Learning Disorder). The common phrase around here goes, "If you've met one person in the Spectrum, you've met one person in the spectrum," which basically means that if you are diagnosed AS, what you have is your individual brand of AS. For many of us, we have issues with empathy, or expressing/interpreting our emotions. To be in the diagnosis, it's more like you have 65%+ of the characteristics. With that, you're in the spectrum, but it's not so severe as to be disabling . . . but, still enough to be socially awkward.

I have the same problem. I feel people but have always had problems thinking people. My reactions towards those I feel aren't good people are much like a dog that barks and growls in the presence of something wrong. Others don't get it so I am told to leave while the other person gets to stick around. Then they see in the near future after the person did something really wrong that I wasn't reacting in that way for no good reason.

The lack of empathy I had as a child was more like I couldn't put myself in other people's shoes but when people hear "lack of empathy" they think it means you have no feelings, you care nothing for others.

I don't respond to others emotions. I give a non-emotional response. In a sense it has saved me from those who manipulate people by playing with their emotions. Only after the event transpired did the feelings register.

When superficial people rely on superficial cues and THEY see with their own eyes you standing in front of them giving them an unemotional response, they perceive that as lack of empathy. They don't see you getting emotional behind closed doors after the event occured and you are able to replay it over in your head. They don't see your emotional response therefore it doesn't exist. It's a delay.

OP: There are threads about that here, though I'm too busy ATM to find them.

Whether what you describe is empathy or not is a question. My personal theory is that people feel empathized with when you respond to the non-verbal signals they are intentionally/deliberately giving off. If you pick up on signals that are underneath those surface signals, I think that's considered something else. I've read of other people mentioning being good at picking up on evil people when no one else notices (because they are fooled by the person's surface act), and have had that happen, myself. (When I talk to people I'm too mentally busy to notice that stuff, though -- it's a bit complicated.)

I'm more than able to feel other peoples feelings. Maybe a little too able.

As a kid I had an extremely strong sense, based mostly on seeing their eyes, of those who were pure and kind and those who had become attached / corrupted by the world. I remember the older I got the more and more people fell in the second category, especially once high school started.

Eventually my own eyes started to show the signs of being in the second category. Now I'm in my late twenties and we all seem to be in this second category and I realize that this purity is basically what people call the innocence of childhood. There are a few rare souls whose eyes seem to be in the first category despite advanced age, for example: -



Aspies brain's are supposedly wired up differently in terms of interpreting eyes and facial expressions, but I still have a pretty good feel -- based mostly on eyes -- for which people I should avoid bringing into my life and which people I can trust. In the above man for example I sense great love, kindness, and feel 100% safe.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... heory.html

This.

There are two kinds of empathy:

Cognitive empathy is the ability to predict what other people might be thinking or how they might react. This is typically impaired in people on the autistic spectrum.

Affective empathy is the ability to perceive what other people are feeling. This is less likely to be impaired in people on the autistic spectrum, is often just as sensitive as it is for NTs, and for some people, may be much more sensitive.

Also, something that might help: search for "intense world theory" or "intense world syndrome" which is one particular theory about what autism is, and some of the material discusses and intense, overwhelming awareness of other people's emotions.