Do we have more empathy towered other Autistics?

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I think so but I' m not sure.

But I am sure I experienced much greater empathy both cognitive and affective towered another person tonight then I can remember. It was a support group. What they do at this group is when the meeting begins everybody gives a short introduction explanation of themselves.. A first time attendee had extreme difficulty with this introduction hyperventilating and crying and was unable to make it through. After the initial introduction people attending their first meeting followup with a more extensive introduction/description of themselves. She was still having difficulty speaking in front of a crowd, so the moderator suggested she talk about how she got diagnosed or what led her to suspect she is ASD. She discussed wanting a diagnosis, said her current neurologist emphatically ruled out autism because she is able to speak. Somebody provided a name of a specialist to her. She went on describing social difficulties at her jobs and the conversation went onto the kind of topics we discuss here at WP . I began to sense that she was completely relating to what we were discussing. This person who could not get a word out just a half an hour earlier was speaking in a strong voice, was right in the center of the conversation, was laughing in apparent recognition of situations etc.

I felt her relating to us and the topics discussed in a manner she probably never has before, I felt her relaxing and becoming comfortable, in a very deep way. I was extremely happy for her

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 10 Oct 2014, 10:33 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I have empathy towards all neurotypes. But I don't go a lot on all this empathy thing because I hear so many NTs not always understanding how it feels for someone experiencing something that they have never experienced before. Like when my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and her friends didn't seem to fully understand how my mum felt having a mum with Alzheimer's. But then one day one of her friend's elderly relatives got Alzheimer's, and then that friend suddenly knew how it must have really felt for my mum, simply because now she is experiencing it too. Also it's a bit like depression. Those people who have never had depression just think you can just get over it, but it is not that simple when you truly have depression. It's even been discussed here before. If NTs had universal empathy then Aspies and depressed people and everyone else who struggles would be much more understood, and not criticised or bullied so much.

That's the way I see it. I believe that some NTs are more empathetic than others, and some Aspies are more empathetic than others. It can sometimes depend on the personality of the person too.

No, my empathy (and I can actually feel empathy, even if I have more sympathy than empathy in me) is dependent on my emotional connection with someone. Situation matters less than what the person in question means to me.
Sometimes situation makes me feel empathy, but that is far more rare. I can only remember two incidents of that happening, and only in passing.


Off-topic, but I have far more reaction to injustice towards aspies than I do any other human group.
If I hear of injustice towards someone I am likely to not feel anything. At most there will be a thought that it's unjust. But no emotional reaction and nothing beyond a shallow thought. It's put out of my mind a second later.
If it's about aspies being discriminated against, like losing their jobs due to diagnosis, etc, then I get really pissed off.


Identity and relationship makes all the difference in these matters. Apparently, identifying with (or wanting to identify with) someone is also the reason why people yawn when someone else yawns.

I never felt empathy towards someone in my i tried to feel empathy towards autistics thinking we're similar, there would be empathy between us but it never really worked. I never feel connection to anything/anyone to begin with this.

I think empathy is not something you can force. You feel it, or you don?t.


That was not an issue last night. I had never seen this person before.



I think what I felt last night was the same phenomena, but the positive side. Because of all the misunderstanding and injustice she had gone through and we go through, to see her being accepted and understood triggered it.

A little off topic but a think NT?s finally being understood and connecting for the first time in a long time are more likely to cry and hug each other, We tend to have deep conversations exchanging ideas. That does mean the empathy, sympathy, emotions is any less.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 10 Oct 2014, 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nah.

If you start feeling something when watching an autistic do autistic things that you recognize (probably because you do it too), you're feeling sympathy.

it is easier for me to feel sympathy to those who i understand or know. this transcends neurotype, it's easier for me to feel sympathetic to an NT i know well than an autie or aspie i have never interacted with. although i am not very good at being emotionally supportive, i do try and it seems to be good enough for those i associate with on a daily basis, although that's just outward and i have no idea how they REALLY feel.

empathy is a whole nother beast, but it varies. if it's schoolwork for example, and an ASD person and an NT are both struggling for the same reason than i don't see why i should discriminate between one or the other. i can clearly relate more to an autistic person however it comes to struggling socially and interpersonally. but lots of NTs have social struggles too. i may not relate as much but i don't dismiss them.

all of my acquaintances and friends are NT, with large social webs, so little empathy there.

Some autistics, but not others, are very easy for me to read. Since autism is very diverse, there are some autistic people who seem to think a lot like the way I do, and they're the ones that I almost feel like I have a telepathic connection with. Obviously, I don't; it's just that their movements and speech are so close to my own that my guesses based on my own experiences are very likely to be right.

But it is important to remember that even when you do meet another person who is very much like yourself, and you have that really easy time understanding them, you can still make mistakes and assume things about them that turn out not to be true. Just like NTs can make mistakes when they read each other, you can make mistakes with people whose neurology is very similar to your own. You have to remember that even though they have a lot in common with you, they are still not you and still have their own perspectives that are not identical to yours.

If I did understood her feelings that was cognitive empathy. While I did feel sympathy it was a lot more than that. I psychically felt her relaxing that is affective empathy. If you are confused by that I understand as you maybe you have never felt it. Pretty much a first time experience for me in that while I have felt empathy before it was nothing close to that intensity. I do believe recognition was a huge factor.

I've felt uncomfortable when watching an autistic individual in a documentary going through some pain that I'd also experience in that situation. Is that something like what you experienced?

To me, that seems like sympathy. I haven't felt it all that much.

I tend to feel uncomfortable when I hear that anyone at all is in pain; I don't need a video for it. I experience it for NTs and autistics alike. It's not a "mirror" reaction so much as a "this is wrong I have to fix it" reaction.

I'm aware my empathy style is atypical, like most autistics', but there are many ways it can be atypical. My indiscriminate empathy for everyone (and as a child for inanimate objects) is just the flip side of your tendency to have that reaction only for people very much like yourself. Actually, yours can probably be considered more "normal" than mine, because NTs also tend to have more empathy with people who are more like themselves.

At the beginning when she was having difficulty I felt similar but the emotion was much more intense when she was apparently relaxed.


This below made me very uncomfortable especially towered the end.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qQkozkn8Cc[/youtube]
But unlike the other night I was looking at her old Youtube videos with the express purpose of seeing Autisic traits.

Patience yes, empathy no.

This thread reminds me of one that I started in The Haven a few years ago. I have a hunch that we do. I also have a hunch that people fee a lot of empathy for those who are similar to themselves.