Empathy ftw

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So, I kept wondering about what is usually said and pointed out us one of characteristics of AS. Lack of empathy (at least my research brought me to this conclusion). Well, can't really tell what is the true point here but, for one, I can tell that I feel empathy BUT it is different story when it comes to expressing it. Yes, suffering, social injustices and all that nauseating stuff (which points me to conclusion that this really is the wrong planet we live in), bug me, sometimes to extremes. I can ponder about all that and feel distressed (talking about existential crisis), life's uncertainties don't add well to personal uncertainties I already feel. However, there beside, can stand someone I know really well and he/she is having nasty and ruff times to go through. And, while I cognitively understand that, I cant sympathize on emotional level, it makes me feel uncomfortable and difficulties arise in consideration of right approach. It makes me sad because I would like to help and offer some comfort but usually all that I present is a rather cold picture.
Later, I grab phone and type little encouraging messages but that's not it. Well, at least I am not much better in receiving condolences either, in fact that might be even worse.
The point is, feeling, but not being able to express it leads to further ''living in my own world'' thing.

Honestly, I can't even tell why I wrote this. Obviously, lately, I am going through some scribomanic phase.

I think this is the crux of it for a good number of us. My husband has noted that I don't seem to have a "filtering mechanism", I seem to absorb every emotion that is in the room...x10. I also can't begin to process all that emotional input (or even a portion of it), so expressing my empathy appropriately is pretty far out of the question most of the time. I'm either totally cold or I overreact. Over the years, I have learned some standard responses to express empathy but because I have had to rehearse them, they always feel fairly fake, and I can't imagine how that would help anyone.

I remember one time my young son fell and hurt himself. He started crying loudly, and I just stood there, dazed and staring at him. I could tell his injury was minor, and that he would be okay; I also knew he had scared himself, and I felt sorry for him, but it didn't occur to me to give him a hug until my husband came to see what was wrong and asked, "Do you need Mommy?" and he nodded. Wow, did I feel stupid...

No, you can't. Empathy is not a feeling, Empathy is a social skill.

Sympathy is a feeling.

Empathy is the ability to read nonverbal social cues and intuit or interpret what another person is thinking or feeling instinctively - and knowing how to respond appropriately.

If you walk into a room and see someone you know standing and staring out the window, can you tell by their posture and the expression on their face whether they are:

A) Watching the kids walk home from school
B) Remembering a happy time with an old lover
C) Doing math in their head
D) Contemplating suicide

If your answer is "Yes, if not the specific thought, I could at least sense the difference in tone," then your empathy skills are normal.

If your answer is "It wouldn't even occur to me to wonder, unless they mentioned it," then your empathy skills are weak to nonexistent.

And once you knew, would you automatically know what the appropriate response should be? Would you respond appropriately, without having to think about it, or be prompted in any way?

Or would you just stand there, with a blank expression, feeling awkwardly like you ought to do or say something, but with no clue what it should be?

That is the test of EMPATHY.

To resonate emotionally with the plight of another person, is SYMPATHY. Nobody ever said autistic people don't experience sympathy. We're just lousy at expressing it, because of that Lack Of Empathy thing.



I find situations like that to be a combination of sensory overload and poor empathy skills. My sensory processor is so slow and so overwhelmed, that my brain can't even think of what an appropriate reaction might be, it just sort of freezes up, like a computer with the spinning icon in the middle of the screen, flashing "SYSTEM NOT RESPONDING"

In rooms full of people, I think that feeling of "picking up every emotion in the room" (with which I'm very familiar), is probably the autistic brain's sense of being overwhelmed by too many simultaneous nonverbal cues that we're not really equipped to interpret anyway. The only other explanation would be that we're psychic, and I don't know of many Mental Health Professionals who would be on board with that, even if it were true (and I'm not ruling it out).

Willard, this is a really clear explication. Thanks for elaborating.

I remember being perplexed about this very point when I was young and a teacher told me I had a great ability to empathize with others, and so I went to the dictionary, because I wanted to know how that was different from "sympathy". And I remember reading the definition of "empathy" and thinking, "I am crap at that, she got it wrong!" Sympathy, yes...got that down (at least in point of caring--not always so with understanding). But empathy falls apart because it requires the adequate expression of that sympathy.



Absolutely! Great description. I've always felt like some sort of crappy radio antenna that can pick up on every station around...and broadcast them back simultaneously, totally unable to keep one band separate from the next. That isn't empathy, of course...just really crappy reception.

Thanks for input and some clarifications since there seems to be a lot of confusion about this - is it cognitive or emotional thing or both, to what extent. I certainly agree about sympathy, and that autistic person can feel it, but on the other hand, what matters as well is how others describe us, and how we present ourselves, and it often seems we are cold and distant while in fact, as you and Naturalist wrote, there is overload - and that is the term I've been searching for.

Now, considering the test above, I believe it can be difficult to anyone - to recognize, because our current emotional and cognitive state masks our perceptions. If a person in the test has a fairly neutral expression, we might describe his emotional state regarding context. There is, Kuleshov effect http:
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gGl3LJ7vHc,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_Effect

Interesting thing.

If I would take into account what you said about empathy, it would seem I have quite of ability, or at least I think I am good at ''knowing'' what others are feeling and what would they feel in certain situations, what their intentions are and so on. But my problem is that it could only be believing I know, while in fact I might have no idea. Especially when I think about how I used to believe, as I child, that how I behave and what I do is normal. From my perspective, there was nothing wrong with my actions, but it did not explain why I was always aside and outsider even though I tried to fit in. It seems to me that most basic, most fundamental thing of autistic spectrum is connection with outside world, between internal and external, and the problems are not due to later onset mental health issues but are inborn...