Does crying over empathy mean I don't have AS?

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I just watched Temple Grandin, and I cried at parts. It wasn't riddled with sad moments, IMO. More about the struggle and triumph. And other movies have ripped me to pieces much more than this. But three things have consistently made me cry in my lifetime. 1.) Any kind of cruelty towards animals, 2.) Empathy towards others, 3.) When people are nice to me (empathy towards me; a rarity.) The nice-to-me thing didn't come into play during this movie, obviously, and the animal cruelty parts didn't really get to me either; I think it may have softened me up at best. But the empathy thing... I really choked up on some of her struggles.

Now I'm confused again, because it is stressed again and again - even in the movie - that connecting with other people and understanding emotions is pretty much the opposite of Asperger's. I'm still convinced I have Asperger's, but now there's this great big cog in my thinking. Why do I cry over empathy? Am I excluded again?



There's no question in the following part so you can discontinue now if you're bored; thanks for reading this far:

The movie also brought to my attention another Asperger's symptom that I have. I *LIVE* in metaphors. I come up with a metaphor for EVERYTHING. It's ridiculous. I had been thinking that this was more of an "obsession"-related symptom for me; something I'd latched on to as if I liked doing it. But after learning about the way Temple's mind worked, I see now that the associations I'm making are in and of themselves a symptom of Asperger's. I'm just looking at it more directly now, instead of taking the long way around and coming to the same conclusion. In the film, she saw images of things she'd learned. If someone said shoes, she would picture all the shoes she'd ever seen. My memory isn't as strong, and my brain isn't as direct-to-the-point as hers, but I think that's where the metaphor thing comes from. I hear one thing, and instantly picture 4 or 5 RELATED things, where I draw my metaphors from.

God, that was tiresome to write out. I couldn't use a metaphor to make it easier.

I believe from all the research I'v done it's that there is a Lack of empathy, not no empathy. And as its a spectrum, more people can be in touched with their empathy than others. And I don't believe there is no empathy, it's just some are not intouch with social cues, so they wouldn't realise that it was a sad moment etc.

And I think it can also be empathy on social level that some have a lack of.

If I start crying my son use to never notice, but we always would play "Happy" "sad" "crying" faces, now when I cry he'll say "what's wrong?" So I'm not sure how he is feeling, but I see there is a concern. And now if I get hurt and yelp he'll say "Are you okay?" So those are forms of empathy I'd think lol.

Interesting bridge to cross so early in my stay here. I'd wondered how to bring this up....

Maybe I'm narcissistic and that sets me apart. I used to feel bad about being narcissistic, as once illustrated to me in an episode of Buffy, paraphrased: "You have a superiority complex. You think you're better than everyone else. And you have an inferiority complex ABOUT your superiority complex, because you feel like your self-imposed superiority keeps you from being one of them, like you're not good enough." More or less. I kind of felt like that a lot in my 20's.

Except now in my 30's I don't have the inferiority complex anymore. I think I'm better than other people. The inferiority only pops its head out every now and then when I'm extremely lonely, which can be chocked up to more narcissism, really. ("poor me," feelings) I guess I've gotten worse. Whatever.

I bring this all up now because I'm still very confused about empathy really. I know it means understanding other people's feelings. I'm actually pretty good at that overall. I just don't care about their feelings a lot of the time. People and I - we're not exactly connected. "You're devastated and crying because you're upset about Issue X. Well that's silly. Anyone can see you just need to handle Issue X this way. Now stop bothering me about it until you've fixed the problem." Tough love, ya know?

So I don't have the same lack of understanding of empathy. I'm just a bit of a di*k I guess. Does this make sense as an Aspie?

Oh, and I realize I might sound like I contradicted myself when I said I cry over empathy, but don't care about others. Most of the empathy I cry over is when it feels as though it relates to ME - the narcissism thing. I cried a little over Temple Grandin because I could relate personally. Which is what I thought empathy was.



Oh wait, I think I get it now.

I have a lack of empathy for many situations and people, but not all of them. Basically just what you said. Hmmm... thanks for helping me work that out (?)

Wow... marveling at my cumbersome brain. My subconscious has to work SO HARD.

And now I'm back to being confused because none of what I just wrote makes sense, except now everyone just thinks I'm a jerk. Greeeat. Someone please explain to me what I'm thinking.

<---- He's even smirking like a jerk. But he was just excited about a computer program at the time.

Not all people with AS have the same symptoms. As far as I know, I have normal empathy.

Are you sure? Aspergers seems really... spectrumy. I thought Aspergers was a spot ON the spectrum. Still learning. So I can still be as messed up as I'm sure I am in all the other categories, but okay in one or two and still be an Aspie? Because the other stuff... whew! It's a doozy....

These are the issues that have me confused till this very day. Would I recognize someone is sad because of, say, their loved one dying in a car accident? Yes. Would I cry or grieve with them? No. Am I crying or grieving inside but I just don't display it? Nope. Does this mean I lack empathy or sympathy or is it something else?

I honestly can't tell if this clarifies things for me or just keeps the confusions-train rolling. It makes sense, but not....

Are we dead? Is this limbo? I think that needs to be asked at some point.

There is no simple thing called "empathy", according to psychologists.

Empathy consists of a number of separate abilities, in some of which we Aspies may have strong abilities (maybe even stronger than NTs) and in some of which we usually have poor abilities.

For instance, there is so-called "emotional empathy", which means being affected by what we see and hear - people crying, people (or animals) in pain, etc. Aspies are often quite sensitive to this kind of empathy, and may even be overwhelmed by the other person's (or animal's) display of emotion.

Then there is "cognitive empathy", which is more like emotional and social IQ. This is the ability to understand what other people are thinking and feeling, beyond what you just see and hear. This means having a grasp of how other people will respond, and how to influence them. It means the ability to intelligently or intuitively guess what other people will feel in any situation. Aspies are typically weak in this area. We often have high emotional empathy but low cognitive empathy.

So ... you are probably noticing your high emotional empathy. Also, you might be more cognitively empathetic towards another person on the spectrum than towards an NT, because you may have a greater insight into how a fellow member of the spectrum feels. Maybe that applies to watching the movie Temple Grandin.

That was pretty epic, what you just did there. Not to take anything away from other posters on the thread. But thanks. That helps a lot.

One question: If I think I know how people are going to react, and it's because I think they're not firing on all their cylinders as fast as I am, does that make me cognitively strong because I'm PREDICTING a set of common reactions, or cognitively weak because it's a generalized prediction, based more on thinking that I've cracked the code to the game, rather than cracking the code to the individual? Or is it one in the same because the individual (an NT in my example) isn't really that much of an individual at all if *I* - an Aspie - can figure out their reactions.

Or possibly I'm saying something so extreme that a certain reaction will be expected; meaning that the statement or action I've taken is designed to GET that specific reaction, and I'm controlling the game from the very beginning to FORCE that reaction.

I'm trying to wrap my mind around what you just said.

I think there are enough common reactions in people that it doesn't make you dumb to be predicting those. It's not as though NTs don't have problems predicting the reaction of one particular person. That only comes with time and getting to know the person
better.

Oh, and excuse my snark but saying something purely to force a reaction can often be referred to as either trolling or just plain being an attention whore.

Well that totally squashed any constructive dialog between us!

Being somewhat snarky myself, your salutation just forced a reaction from me. You can be the pot or the kettle. Take your pick.

Something that'll warp your mind:

"NTs" often don't have empathy for those with an ASD, as they can't read those with such.

That was actually right on One -a-N(love tux avatar)

and what you stated Redrobin reminds me of my boyfriend. Because that'd always come up, when looking into aspepergers. Empathy, and he'd always say to me things like. "I understand if someone close of someones dies, that is sad, but I don't feel any saddness over that, is that a lack of empathy?"

When my grandfather passed away , was the first time I saw him actually show some emotion towards others emotions, because everyone my father etc, were crying very badly, and my boyfriend said it was sad to see how much love they felt, and everyone was very emotional. It made him feel sad. But usually in other instances, i feel bad for people I'm not even close to, he would never have that connection, even to those close to him, unless it was me or our son.

I think like I said Lack of empathy. But the way you explained it makes sense, especially for my son i can see (At a young age ) and my boyfriend, very obvious emotion they really do get, but when someone is more or less implying a feeling or their body language my bf doesnt get it. Though he does understand when someone is angry/disengaged, but that is by signs like crossing arms, looking away etc.

My boyfriend thinks hes pretty awesomesauce too houseofpanda , it's okay to feel that way sometimes. As long as it dosnt destroy your relationships.

And sometimes though you may lack the natural ability to have those different forms of empathy i think through experiences you can probably obtain and get better at understanding others. I think it's great you connected to temple grandin~ It probably was def empathy you were feeling mixed with a bit of well connection, you could relate, and could put yourself there. But that's with all things, even myself I empathize even more so in situations I relate too

What do you mean by Nts sometimes don't have empathy for people on ASD?

There is a spectrum of empathy in ASD people (as aspergers is on the spectrum too, it's included under the general ASD heading). Thus, you WILL have SOME shared feelings and emotions with others in certain situations where you realize what is happening. If you see someone obviously hurting, you will probably hurt for them too. If it is a more subtle thing though, you probably won't notice it because you are blind to it. For me, I have to learn specific people in order to relate to them. So, someone I have worked with for a few years I can generally empathize with fairly well. However, if I am around someone new then I probably will have a tough time with it. It isn't that I don't wish for shared contact but rather that I don't know how to read them.

For example, a co-worker of mine was seemingly romantically interested in me. However, while I could judge that something was different about the way she was responding to me, I did not pick up on the attraction-even though I was attracted to her. To me, I saw a range of possibilities for what she was thinking that went from love to hate and so I was confused (this has happened several times to me with different people). A co-worker who is NT though immediately picked up on it being an attraction and told me why (I asked). I had noticed some of these things but could not put together what they meant. Thus, I didn't know how to feel and share that moment with her. Now that I have been told what to look for though I am more ready to understand these situations in the future. Therefore, I WILL share the emotion next time but not from intuition but rather from an intellectual appraisal of the situation. In the end, the emotional response is the same as it would be with an NT, but is arrived at in a different way.

If I can go off on a tangent here, this is why it is exceedingly difficult for many ASD people to find love. It is not that all of them do not desire it but rather that the nature of the situation requires instinctual reactions that are lacking. For a man, this means that the woman expects him to know what she is thinking through subtle signs she sends out. When he does not respond to them she thinks he is not interested when he is but can't tell she is. Someone who is ASD, ESPECIALLY one who has had a lot of bad experiences with romantic rejection, will wait for the other person to show them they are interested in a way that is blunt and to the point. The romance game does not work that way though and so they never connect.

I'm confused by that statement? I don't think he meant he is trying to force people to have reactions...by manipulating them ..with attention, or pissing them off with trolling. He meant more along the lines of maybe he talks a certain way because he knows a certain reaction will come out of it (??)

I dunno but that just seemed really rude to me that comment.