Almost complete lack of empathy.
I'm wondering if anywhere here can explain why people, like myself, lack empathy. I don't really care to change this aspect about myself because, for me, it's better to be detached from people.
The only people I care about are my fiancee and my best friend. I also care about my pets a great deal. My parents support me financially, but I don't care about them. They say they support me emotionally, but I don't believe it and it their words just roll off of my back. If they were to die tomorrow, I'd be more concerned about how I'm going to do without money or a job rather than the fact that I lost my parents. It would be less of a concern if I was functional enough to hold a job or even drive. When I hear about people, even children, being killed in the news, I don't feel anything. I can watch people get tortured in movies without flinching and have even seen real footage of people committing suicide or murder. It just doesn't bother me. Sometimes I even find that kind of thing entertaining.
I'm also extremely selfish. If my fiancee wants to do something without me, I feel left out and I start to get jealous. She's very insecure about losing me too, but I still feel like she's going to betray and hurt me, so I feel like I always need to be around her so she doesn't. She does need her space and time away from me, but I don't and I always want to be around her. I really don't need anyone else in my life. I do want to change this about myself because I don't want to lose her and I do truly love her, though in an unhealthy way.
I only have one friend, mostly because I don't care to meet anybody (though I've tried at the recommendation of my doctor) because I generally dislike and distrust people. When she doesn't want to do anything with me, I really don't get bothered. I care about her and she's the only person I tell everything to. I feel like if I lost her, I'd lose something important to me.
Other people around me I could care less about. I don't care about their problems, what they think about me, or what they want. If they got in the way of my goals, I'd get rid of them because it benefits me. I don't want to cause harm to them, but if they caused harm to me, I'd go to great lengths to make them miserable. I'd even torture their families while they watch if I knew I wouldn't get caught. If someone can get me what I want or help me, I'll use them or try manipulating them. I care as much about people as I do the ants on the sidewalk that I step on.
I'm curious to know why I think this way. I think that I developed this way of thinking in my early teens, but I wonder if my brain was already wired like this.
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Radda Radda
The only people I care about are my fiancee and my best friend. I also care about my pets a great deal. My parents support me financially, but I don't care about them. They say they support me emotionally, but I don't believe it and it their words just roll off of my back. If they were to die tomorrow, I'd be more concerned about how I'm going to do without money or a job rather than the fact that I lost my parents. It would be less of a concern if I was functional enough to hold a job or even drive. When I hear about people, even children, being killed in the news, I don't feel anything. I can watch people get tortured in movies without flinching and have even seen real footage of people committing suicide or murder. It just doesn't bother me. Sometimes I even find that kind of thing entertaining.
I'm also extremely selfish. If my fiancee wants to do something without me, I feel left out and I start to get jealous. She's very insecure about losing me too, but I still feel like she's going to betray and hurt me, so I feel like I always need to be around her so she doesn't. She does need her space and time away from me, but I don't and I always want to be around her. I really don't need anyone else in my life. I do want to change this about myself because I don't want to lose her and I do truly love her, though in an unhealthy way.
I only have one friend, mostly because I don't care to meet anybody (though I've tried at the recommendation of my doctor) because I generally dislike and distrust people. When she doesn't want to do anything with me, I really don't get bothered. I care about her and she's the only person I tell everything to. I feel like if I lost her, I'd lose something important to me.
Other people around me I could care less about. I don't care about their problems, what they think about me, or what they want. If they got in the way of my goals, I'd get rid of them because it benefits me. I don't want to cause harm to them, but if they caused harm to me, I'd go to great lengths to make them miserable. I'd even torture their families while they watch if I knew I wouldn't get caught. If someone can get me what I want or help me, I'll use them or try manipulating them. I care as much about people as I do the ants on the sidewalk that I step on.
I'm curious to know why I think this way. I think that I developed this way of thinking in my early teens, but I wonder if my brain was already wired like this.
very interesting, have you gone to a psychiatrist? i am not sure why you put this on general autism though but one part of that sound like autism this part
I found much of what you wrote quite disturbing, but particularly this:
I'd suggest you speak to someone in a professional capacity about these feelings rather than discussing them here.
The only people I care about are my fiancee and my best friend. I also care about my pets a great deal. My parents support me financially, but I don't care about them. They say they support me emotionally, but I don't believe it and it their words just roll off of my back.
Why would you think it's healthy to have empathy towards people you really don't believe about that they support you emotionally? You are capable to empathy towards certain people and I guess it is because you truly care about your fiancée, best friend and pets.
That bit is good. It sounds as if you're simply not the super emotionally person who would tear themselves apart to meet other people's needs that are hardly important to your life.
I don't think being selfish is the central issue here. It sounds as if you are very strongly bond to your fiancée. Not sure if that bond isn't a little too overwhelming because for you to get so jealous about trivial things, you must be really emotional and feel extremely attached to her. Your emotional security may not be the strongest? I mean, you even said that you do not feel as if you can trust your parents to support you (perhaps for good reason and they did something to make distrust them or even dislike them, who am I to tell?) so it doesn't seem all that surprising.
It sounds to me as if you do not lack empathy but that for some reason you are extremely concerned about emotional security, about not being left out/left alone and being truly liked/loved/cared about in order to avoid that you believe and cherish someone who only lies to you about that they care for you when they really don't care about you as much as you are led to believe that they do.
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Autism + ADHD
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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett
Empathy is a bit strange. People can have empathy, but if the resulting behaviour is always real?
I do not have empathy for a lot of people, I have it for a few friends, for my direct family and for a few others I encountered in my volunteer work or on internet. These are people I know do not fake their feelings towards me and that I care about. But for most people I just fake it, by using the social rules I learned through the years. Sometimes people perceive me as cold, but most of the times I seem to fake it enough
But to be honest, what happens to most people I do not care about a great deal and do not take the problem.
NTs may be feeling empathy, but they probably just ignore it and do not behave accordingly.
(for so far my black Sunday outlook on myself and society)
I tend to feel empathy only in an abstract, general way, and not with much intensity. I will hear/read about people getting hurt/killed and feel a little sorry for them and their families, but not real strong feelings. I also don't have strong feelings of empathy for relatives, and have to "fake" it at times. I don't like having to fake empathy for them, but they would get more upset if I didn't. It's part of the price of being part of a family. Since they help me out a lot, I have to do some things to maintain a family connection, although any real bond is beyond my ability to form. Except for family pets, I have never been able to bond with anyone. I would have liked to, but I don't seem to be wired for that.
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.--Henry David Thoreau
CockneyRebel
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While I would probably hurt people if I knew I could get away with it and often fantasize about it, I do still have emotions. I love my fiancée and my cats. I also care about my friend. I don't think I meet the full criteria for being a sociopath or psychopathy. I never hurt animals when I was younger, but I did enjoy watching videos of people committing suicide, being burned alive, or executed. I also seem to have a knack for manipulating people into giving me what I want or making them believe what I want them to about me. I don't do anything illegal, mostly because being thrown in jail isn't in my best interest, but also because I would lose the few things that are important to me.
However, my doctor does think that there is something wrong with the way my brain handles norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. Medication doesn't seem to work either, so it's a small possibility that I carry that gene. The thing about it is they've tested MMA fighters who don't have it and Buddhist Monks who do. So even if I did have the warrior gene, it wouldn't mean much to me.
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Radda Radda
Last edited by Shadewraith on 25 Mar 2012, 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Does not compute.
Isn't lack of emotion the primary requirement? I didn't think sociopaths could love or care for anyone except themselves. Okay, I might be selfish in my relationship, but I do care about her happiness and try to do everything I can to make her happy. I also have read that they have little regard for the law or the consequences of their actions. My reasons for caring about the consequences are selfish, but they're there.
I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm just trying to get answers. Is psychopathy black and white or is there a "mild" psychopathy? I doubt it, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Does WP have a resident psychopath?
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Radda Radda
Last edited by Shadewraith on 25 Mar 2012, 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm just trying to get answers.
I hope Asp-Z reads this topic. He explains this better than I do. It's what he would call "high functioning sociopathy." People like this do have emotions, and do care about selective people, but are still sociopaths when it comes to people outside that circle. You admit that you would be hurting people, I assume without remorse, if only you could get away with it, and that you lie and manipulate people to get what you want. I wouldn't call you a psychopath – since to me, psychopaths enjoy hurting others, while sociopaths simply don't care – but at the very least, you're leaning strongly in the direction of sociopath.
As for "autistic psychopathy," I'm not sure when Asperger's was ever referred to as such, but it wouldn't surprise me. "Psychopathy" seems to have been a catch-all term, not all that long ago, for all sorts of mental disorders that few people understood.
edit: typo
Last edited by Jory on 25 Mar 2012, 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.