I'm an Aspie, and I Have Trouble with Emotional Empathy.

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I seem to be able to cognitively figure out what emotions people are feeling now by just using a bunch of stereotypical mental rules of thumb to sort out how they're feeling. Usually if even a minor thing appears to be different about someone, I just ask them if they're quite alright and they tell me. I'm at a school where people are pretty blunt about what they want to say haha.

But something seems strange to me. I consistently read that people with Aspergers Syndrome have no trouble at all with emotional empathy, only that the cognitive (recognition) part of it is difficult. Even found a study on it with the fancy numbers or whatever.

Yet for me, one of the biggest troubles I have is that I'm extremely emotionally detached from other people. I truly and honestly do not emotionally care when I know somebody is in pain. I realize they're hurt and I help all the time; probably one of the nicest people in my school. I help though out of a need to satisfy the autistic System that I've grown up with to help organize my actions, and the System has no care for what I personally feel; what is right, is right, and must be done regardless of how small my investment is or appears.

It doesn't matter to me if my family is hurt, or people I know are hurt, or people who I used to regard as friends are hurt, or even people who help me are hurt. It actually feels like the only time I ever feel any emotion is when it either

a) pertains to the autism or
b) pertains to a crush

At which point, my emotional empathy suddenly goes into extreme overdrive and my emotions are just like those of a regular person. Only then, do I feel happy that others feel happy or sad that others feel sad.

A few situations involving crushes sometimes left me a in state of euphoria actually, and for the duration it lasted I could feel every emotion for anyone, just like a regular person.

But at all other times, I'm stoic and realistically cynical. It's been causing me and the System a lot of problems.

I'm pretty sure it has at least some basis in being an Aspie, and figured this was the best place I could get some ideas on what might be at the root of this. It's strange, even for an autistic person.

Last edited by Aqua_Dragon on 23 Jan 2012, 7:22 am, edited 2 times in total.

I can relate to most of what you said. I feel emotions primarily when I'm infatuated with someone, or when I perceive an injustice to be happening.

I can understand what other people are feeling from an intellectual perspective, but I generally don't "feel" for them in an emotional way. For instance I don't have any emotional response to seeing someone suffering, and I don't see any reason why I should. I don't need to feel an emotion for their situation to be able to care about them. I also don't see any purpose in caring or feeling for them if there is nothing I can actually do to help.

People think I'm coldhearted or selfish because I tend to have emotional reactions to things that seem trivial, like not getting to eat on time. But when something major happens, like a family member having a health crisis, I am very unemotional about it.

I relate really well with what you've said.

I feel little to no emotion unless something involves me, usually. Even when they involve me, sometimes. It depends.

Some examples: not feeling anything while doing classes on heavy subjects like the holocaust, doing research on the Armenian genocide, etc. even though I know and think that they were all horrible things.

Often when people are in pain, sick, when they die, etc. If someone dies, I need to be pretty attached to them to feel anything. If someone I am attached to has someone close to them die, it doesn't transfer over, although I occasionally feel bad that they feel bad, depending on how close I am to them.

I also have a hard time thinking of how others would feel, or trying to read other people's emotions. Horrible time reading emotions, actually.

Glad to know I'm not the only one at least!

The parts you both mention about injustice has happened to me about a total of three times over the last four years. It is extremely infrequent and the amount of intensity necessary for any kind of reaction to happen is astronomical.

Do you suppose it has to do with being autistic? Are we normally just stoic people and the autistic Systems we use make it even more evident? And how often are neurotypicals so unfeeling as this? These are all questions I've been wondering for a long while.

It wasn't until recently that I discovered that I have a similar problem reading people's emotions. There was a woman I had brief fling with that apparently was dropping many signs my way when we first met, that I didnt pick up on until wayyyy later (we had an open conversation about it, she thought it was strange that I didnt pick up on the obvious signs.) I later realized that the signs she was giving me is something that would easily be recognizable by any other normal male.

I find that I use the same patterns of thinking at work that I do when I try to think about social situations: I think there is some logic about it, some way things can be "planned" out, or how things will happen. I tend to think like this when I have something to gain, or am optimistic about the situation. Oftentimes, it never turns out the way I expected. The rational part of me knows this, but the logical part does not.

It's particularly difficult with women however. I can't tell if they take a serious interest in me or are just flirting for the hell of it. And when I find myself in these situations, I tend to overthink them after they occur...once again my "problem solving" part of my brain kicking in.

The biggest out cry that i have ever witness from the Autism Community occurred when Autism Speaks created a video, I Am Autism. The cognitive empathy and affective empathy displayed by Autists around the globe toward the children (in the video) was undeniable.

The language consistently used to describe the plight of the children in the video was in the first person, "that is not me", "this is not representative of me", "i cant believe they are trying to cure me" etc, all made in reference to children in the video. Why ? I believe many people(with Autsim) depending upon their early development need to have direct experience with a situation or subject matter much more so than neuro-typicals inorder to empathize in a way described by others.

Also, in my humble opinion, disruption in emotional affect( displaying an array of emotions as a whole) results in an appearance that a Autistic person lacks empathy. In which case, lack of empathy is not an accurate term in describing this phenomenon in the Autist.



*Just an opinion and should be taken as such.

TheSunAlsoRises

Last edited by TheSunAlsoRises on 23 Jan 2012, 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have the same problem to. I rarely feel what others feel.

Trust me, many neuro-typicals rarely feel what others do too. It's not exclusive to people on the spectrum.

TheSunAlsoRises

Well that is a relief and now they can get rid if that as an autistic trait for "lack of empathy" and say it's a human trait. Also it would mean I am maybe not a sociopath after all.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt185020.html

See that thread for more info, but your case isn't that rare amongst Aspies. I only have very little emotional empathy myself.

People confess 'lack of empathy' in what would be considered inappropriate situations to their religious leader, psychologist, or keep it to themselves.

I consider 'lack of empathy' as a carry over phrase used to describe the behavior of children with Kanner's Classic Autism in relation to psychologists and caregivers. The image of a young child engaged in their own interests without responding to social prompting comes to mind.

Research is primarily based on children on the extreme end of the spectrum, as a result, you have the appearance of an inaccurate trait attributed to the entire spectrum over the lifespan.

So, no, you don't lack empathy and no you are not a sociopath.

TheSunAlsoRises

So then, does being autistic exacerbate any natural stoicness, or is that completely unrelated at all? That's what I'm wondering. I have not found other people who are quite the same way as far as being so emotionally detached.

Or is it just as Dianthus says? That it's not so much a matter of being "naturally emotionless" (I use that term extremely extremely loosely), but rather is just that the natural autistic "logical system" makes it harder to emotionally care?

The early stages of social development when infants instinctively orient toward their caregivers and others are disrupted or delayed in Autists. This disruption or delay alters the interplay between both cognitive and emotional affect as a child attempts to navigate the social world. As a consequence, the paradigm in which Autistic children develop social relations has been shifted or even reversed in most cases.

I suspect cognitive and internal emotional affect processed in a certain order and various degrees could cause delayed reactions (meltdowns). Also, i suspect a pattern exists between the different categories on the spectrum.

*Just an opinion and should be taken as such

TheSunAlsoRises

I have infrequent bouts of empathy and not empathy. I could probably try to explain it in a better way but won't, I tired.

I think it has a lot to do with stress. When I'm under stress and especially if people put me into that stress I will not empathise with them. It's out of my control. Today for no reason at all I wanted people to really tear my opinions apart. I get like this sometimes, I think it's remnants of ODD. So very rarely I go looking for a fight and I'm brining this up now because I feel my mind is in the same state when I lose empathy for other people.

Normally I think I do empathise but find it hard to verbalise it. Sometimes it's hard to empathise if it's not an autistic issue but it's never been if I didn't know a person. I'm pretty damn loyal to friends and family but I've always cared for people outside of that circle.

I don't like it when people become 'overly emotional' over things I don't feel any emotion for. I get weary of arguments that are emotionally driven. It may make me seem cold but it's just that I feel emotions like a type of heat and living through many Australian summers I know the more exposure to heat the worse it gets.

I can have delayed empathy too because when around people I always seem to overlook things. Alone I can reflect and see things I missed, or assume I missed them.

I can feel great empathy for things that have nothing to do with me : eg documentaries on the Holocaust, animal cruelty, stories of bullying., news reports of disasters. But sometimes I can have little empathy or care for things that happen to people around me, especially if I don't care much for the people involved, or I can't relate to their experience.

For example a relative posted online an oblique comment that made no sense at face value, and when I said I didn't know what she meant (bad move) it turned out she is battling with courts , psychologists, and one of her ex-husbands over sole custody of one of her kids. I can't relate to her experience as I haven't been divorced (let alone twice) and don't have kids. I also find it hard to be sympathetic towards here as she wasn't very nice to me growing up and has shown zip interest in my life. She also picks really bad guys, despite people telling her they're bad news.

On one level I feel bad that I have no sympathy for her situation, an the other I think, "Well why would I?"

@The Sun
It seems a bit much to say that the early infantile difference is what determines the breakdowns.

@pensieve
Think it might be what opal and dianthus says? That you just don't see a reason to emotionally care for that?