I can't be possibly lacking empathy, can I?

Post Reply New Topic

If anything, I think I'm practically the opposite of a psychopath... when I was a child I was really sensitive to animals' suffering specifically, although I also felt sad whenever I saw people rejected etc. (probably due to my own experiences)... but recently I've been going into overdrive, even when it comes to people's suffering (which further solidifies my anti-natalistic stance, actually)... especially children's... and I think this is because I keep imagining what kind of state people I'm reading etc. about are in... which is in turn, I think, a result of the usage of hallucinogens (I once theorized that every one of them is practically an empathogen whether explicitly in that category or not... so dissociatives achieve that by simply enhancing the mind's ability to fantasize e.g. and perhaps not necessarily oxytocin).

Sometimes, honestly, I overwhelm myself when I try to think of all the potential suffering of billions of people and many more animals... but I'm only destroying myself, because I can't really do much about anything, can I?

Through the same channels I realized, more remembered really, that the planet is covered in communication networks, organic, man-made and purely arbitrary ones, to facilitate the exchange of knowledge not only between continents, but languages and even species. You may not feel able to do much about anything, but there's quite a lot to be done concerning everything.

click daily at www.thehungersite.com it's free and gives food.

We don't lack empathy, just might have more towards one thing(s) than other things. For me, I can feel more towards animals than people around me. Even when I think I'm emapthising well with people I'll say soemthing and either be called selfish or realise that's the way I sounded.

The difference between autism and psychopathy is that psychopaths understand emotions but may not experience them. One study pointed towards them being able to turn them off and on when it was needed. In autism it's do to a lack of understanding.

You just reminded me a program about how drugs work in the brain is on tonight. Last weeks was MDMA which I think can produce a hallucinogenic effect and also make people more talkative and very 'huggy.' They said it was due to oxytocin but also huge amount of serotonin too. Such drugs can lead to delusional thoughts too. I have bipolar so most drugs create those higher than God ideas in my mind. Even without drugs I can have that type of euphoric over confidence.

I was once so distraught by the suffering of others at the hands of powerful governments who didn't care, that I had to ignore those feelings. I still feel deeply about it but I can better manage my emotions.

I guess we're just Betazoids.

I think this concerns ethenogens more than stimulants or "uppers', halucinations produced by serotonin re-uptake generally aren't the classic visual sort, but rather synaesthetic experiences predicated on the cause of said mood perturbation (chemical or otherwise).

As a child I thought I was too empathetic. I think the supposed lack of empathy isn't in fact lack of empathy but lack of communication. Apparently professionals are starting to see that we're in fact not all sociopaths (in the department of empathy) but simply lack understanding of appropriate ways to respond to emotions and often misunderstand what someone is feeling and why. It's perceived as lack of empathy even though it simply means that there's a communicational problem. One thing that doesn't help is the fact that some autistics only see things from their own viewpoint. So when someone feels differently about a subject that'd make the autistic feel or think a certain way, the autistic wouldn't believe it, or would say these person's feelings are invalid. Basically a lack of ToM but not necessarily a lack of empathy.

That's definitely not what a psycho would think. That's how a normal person with empathy would think. You might even have too much empathy... I used to be like that. my empathy would spill over and i'd even care for the well being of inanimate objects because i thought they were alive.

But that was years ago. Now i have no empathy, I'm not sure why but I don't care for other people, even if they are close to me like mom, dad, my brother or my best friend. I fake it on demand. And i fake it when i feel it will pay off in the long run, I dunno why i do that but i just do. Most of the time i question if I'm a psycho...

Those who feel empathy the strongest seldom have the courage to express it. They are ways around this though but i am not in a position to expand on that yet.

I for one prefer the route of scaring myself out of my mind via my exercise habits. Since I got back into that, nearly all my friendships improved, with people AND cats.

Empathy isn't sympathy. Empathy is being into, and understanding, other people's stories day to day, year in and year out. Remembering and thinking about what is going on in other people's lives is empathy. Feeling sorry for the hurt, the sad, the damned, isn't empathy.

The Buddha says, "Life is suffering". What does "suffering" mean? The sutras say: "Impermanence therefore suffering". Everything is impermanent and changeable. The Buddha says that life is suffering because it is impermanent and ever-changing. For example, a healthy body cannot last forever. It will gradually become weak, old. sick and die. One who is wealthy cannot maintain one’s wealth forever. Sometimes one may become poor. Power and status do not last as well, one will lose them finally. From this condition of changing and instability, although there is happiness and joy, they are not ever lasting and ultimate. When changes come, suffering arises. http://www.buddhanet.net/cbp1_f6.htm

Here's a little about empathy http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/empathy.html
Great novelists are super-empathatics. Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, Alice Munro. Lionel Shriver.

There is distinction to make betwwen cognitive empathy and affective empathy.
Cognitive empathy is what allow you to understand and decode other peoples, this is the kind of empathy that is missed by aspies.

Affective empathy is what bring you to have compassion for other, this is a kind of empathy that aspies don't lack.

There's lots of little things you can do. You mightn't be able to help millions of hungry people, but you could probably find ways to help one or two. Most towns have food pantries; you could donate or volunteer. Once you've started out, you can usually find other useful opportunities.

You have plenty of compassion. I don't know how good you are at reading other people in real-time; it's totally possible to care about others but have a really hard time with figuring out what they are thinking. Many autistic people stick to expressing compassion in material ways, such as helping someone or giving something away, since those are easier to arrange than the fuzzy social kinds of caring.

What you call cognitive empathy is what I thought was sympathy: You grasp, that the person has a problem, feel sorry for him/her and try to come up with some sort of solution or help. That is an intellectual, but not emotionless process.

Affective empathy, I thought, is when you immediately, by the sight of the other persons expression, are struck by the same feeling, psychologically and physically.

It happens to me once in a while, but mostly I have the "intellectual-understanding-first" model.