how do you experience and plan with your "empathy"

Page 1 of 1 [ 12 posts ] 

__Elijahahahaho
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

Joined: 9 Jan 2024
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 247
Location: GERMANY

21 Feb 2025, 4:09 pm

For me it's complicated.
I don't respond to normal things that make other people sad, like a dead pet or something.
But I do respond to deep things.

I used to think jets and weapons were cool, but I didn't really have the ability to
"think through", what they were for. Now that I understand a bit better, I don't really
like them so much.

But I am still very excited by the engineering.
I am pretty torn because I am missing job and business opportunities.
I am overthinking things and paralysed.

Having low "short term" empathy can be very good for some professions, as my
relatives have shown.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 30,618
Location: Right over your left shoulder

21 Feb 2025, 5:23 pm

I used to think weapons and weapon systems (like tanks, fighter planes, etc) were cool.

I still do, but I used to too.


_________________
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
They have a name for Nazis that were only Nazis because of economic anxiety or similar issues. They're called Nazis.


CockneyRebel
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Jul 2004
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 117,530
Location: In my little Olympic World of peace and love

22 Feb 2025, 12:45 am

I've always loved tanks and bombers. I also like swastikas and iron crosses. I also like the Stahlhelm. I like to wear cloth hats that look like that helmet. Nobody's perfect.


_________________
The Family Enigma


Edna3362
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,866
Location: ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔

22 Feb 2025, 3:37 am

I don't "plan empathy" like how I don't plan socialization.

Because it's very dependent on how regulated enough I'm. And it's often not enough.

Unless I can control my emotions and thoughts, even reactions and habits from 1 to 100 in a snap, no.


It's easier for me to shift from thinking about something randomly entertaining but not enough to zero in, into sympathizing...

But not from whenever I feel like hitting something and burning the world into whatever social accomodation.

Also... It doesn't matter how much I feel or put myself in people's shoes or interpret what they want.
Wrong time wrong place to me, is wrong time and wrong place to me as much as I ever truly understood that emotions have no true concept of time and place.


_________________
Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.


__Elijahahahaho
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

Joined: 9 Jan 2024
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 247
Location: GERMANY

22 Feb 2025, 7:50 am

funeralxempire wrote:
I used to think weapons and weapon systems (like tanks, fighter planes, etc) were cool.

I still do, but I used to too.


hahaha



__Elijahahahaho
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

Joined: 9 Jan 2024
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 247
Location: GERMANY

22 Feb 2025, 8:08 am

Quote:
I've always loved tanks and bombers. I also like swastikas and iron crosses. I also like the Stahlhelm. I like to wear cloth hats that look like that helmet. Nobody's perfect.


Yeah I mean.. you are right. I am fighting myself over all this random stuff from external influences.

I always liked spitfires and drone-boats, I also think rousing speeches are cool.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 30,618
Location: Right over your left shoulder

22 Feb 2025, 11:19 am

__Elijahahahaho wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
I used to think weapons and weapon systems (like tanks, fighter planes, etc) were cool.

I still do, but I used to too.


hahaha


Being more serious, I hate the purpose they're intended for. I have kind of a split in my thinking about tools of warfare, because on the one hand every dollar spent on them is a dollar wasted, essentially stolen from the tax payers, but on the other hand not having them is a vulnerability that others might attempt to exploit.

I'd prefer a world where those concerns didn't exist, but that world doesn't exist.


_________________
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
They have a name for Nazis that were only Nazis because of economic anxiety or similar issues. They're called Nazis.


gwynfryn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Aug 2004
Gender: Male
Posts: 610
Location: France

22 Feb 2025, 11:45 am

My EQ is pretty low but that's alright, as I don't have much interest in what other people are thinking or feeling. It doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic when peoples' problems or difficulties are made known to me.

People get empathy and sympathy mixed up; they often go together, but not allways, and they are not the same thing.



lostonearth35
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Jan 2010
Age: 51
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,940
Location: Lost on Earth, waddya think?

22 Feb 2025, 12:28 pm

I don't like weapons at all, especially guns. On the other hand, I wish I could carry something around for self-defense in case some maniac at Walmart decides to start going stabbity stabbity. In Canada we're not even legally allowed to carry pepper spray.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 30,618
Location: Right over your left shoulder

22 Feb 2025, 12:34 pm

lostonearth35 wrote:
In Canada we're not even legally allowed to carry pepper spray.


As long as your pepper spray identifies as dog repellent you're good.


_________________
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
They have a name for Nazis that were only Nazis because of economic anxiety or similar issues. They're called Nazis.


nick007
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 May 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 27,774
Location: was Louisiana but now Vermont in capitalistic military dictatorship called USA

22 Feb 2025, 4:46 pm

I'm not sure how I can plan empathy & I never thought of doing that before. I'm not really sure how to respond to sad things either except for saying I'm Sorry & listening to people when they want/need to talk. I do a bit more with my girlfriend but I'm closer to her emotionally & we understand each other better than anyone else. I'll give her a hug or pat her head or just sit next to her with my arm over he shoulder in addition to saying I'm Sorry & listening but I also sometimes join her in her ranting.


As for weapons, I have a knife/blade collection that includes some other melee weapons. A lot of it is fantasy, fighter, or medieval type things. I don't think many from my collection were actually used a lot in real life. I also have some dummy military practice grenades. I don't like the violence they're used for in real life but I don't really dwell on that. I guess I think of weapons from a collector's perspective looking at the coolness factor. I think of the shows & video-games weapons are used in instead of focusing on the real life stuff. My girlfriend thinks my collection is cool too so that helps :D I signed LOTS of various online petitions for things related to reducing violence & voted for some things as well.


_________________
"I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem!"
~King Of The Hill


"Hear all, trust nothing"
~Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #190
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ru ... cquisition


ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 72
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,268

Yesterday, 4:42 pm

__Elijahahahaho wrote:
I don't respond to normal things that make other people sad, like a dead pet or something.
But I do respond to deep things.

With me it's usually a matter of whether or not I've been through their sad experience myself, so in the case of somebody losing a pet, I feel sad for them because I've lost animals that I'd felt bonded to. I've got a bit of social imagination as well, so I can sometimes understand a bit about how people feel when I've not had the same experience, but it doesn't always work. But I've not noticed much empathy shown to me when the reasons for my joy or sorrow have been anything that's particularly outside the experience of other people, so I'm not sure whether Aspies are all that different from neurotypicals in that way.

I don't know what the OP means by "planning empathy." For me, empathy is just something that either happens at the time or doesn't happen. I suppose over the years I've learned to consider a bit more carefully when I can't immediately understand why somebody seems to be feeling good or bad about something, instead of just deciding that there must be something the matter with them. For example, a lot of people love professional football. I had to look up the psychological reasons for that on the Web before I could see what the hell they saw in a load of overpaid tossers kicking a ball about. Mind you, that hasn't made me feel the same way as they do. I'm just a bit more diplomatic about it now.

A lot of my learning started at a time when I felt my circle of friends was getting dangerously small. I wanted to know more about what made people tick, so I started looking at psychology. Around the same time I was lucky enough to get to talk with a Relate counsellor, and I learned from her that feelings were important, and not the redundant, outmoded load of slop I'd come to assume they were. But it took me a long time for the message to get through to me. It was strange in a way, because as a child I think I knew full well that feelings were important, and that happiness was very important. So I was kind of re-learning what I'd known deepdown all the time.