Sadism - How far does our lack of empathy go?

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AS isn't about lack of empathy. People with AS can empathize very strongly if they know that someone has a problem, it just isn't always easy for them to notice it.

If you feel like that you probably have a different issue, or something comorbid.

"empathy" and "sympathy" are two different things.

Autistics lack empathy but necessarily sympathy.
If anything sociopaths are the opposite.

Autistics have trouble figuring out social cues.
But are atleast as sympathic to suffering as anyone else.
Sociopaths are very adept getting into people's heads to manipulate them.
You cant do that without having great amounts of "empathy".
But sociopaths objectify the people around them and dont sympathize with them.

So empathy doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing? Like when women glare at me, it's because they know it will intimidate me, so they do it? For some reason it's what they want me to feel, so they do it?

Because if that is true, then I now know what you mean when you say ''NTs lack empathy''. If empathy meant ''good intentions'' or ''someone considering someone else's feelings'', why is there bullying?

Just out of interest, do you glare back at these women?

You should do - turn it into a game to see if you can make them look away first

If you channel all your internal anger re people treating you badly into the stare it never tends to fail - far more statisfying and better for the ego than pretending you haven't seen the glare, as if you're scared of them

These glarers need a nuclear level of glare back - it's the only thing they understand and it's exceedingly satisfying if they weren't expecting it back

Practise doing this and I can guarantee you'll feel a lot better for it - start putting these obnoxious idiots in their place because that's all they are - Heat magazine-reading, shit-for-brains idiots!

Interesting suggestion. Is it possible that the women glaring at Joe are intimidated by her appearance, and are doing this also?

I have had candid photographs taken of me when looking at others, and people have described my look in these pictures as intimidating, although this was not my intention.

I think you might have big a problem, but I am no expert. Some of what you do and what you go through reminds me a bit of myself. Though its worth absoluely nothing, I'm going to offer my oppinion.
You said that it makes you feel calmer to look at things that are terrible? Specifically other people experiencing pain?
Well, I think that you do this for the same reason I do something similar; by watching something so indescribably horrible happening to other people, it pushes your own feelings out and makes your own situation look pretty darn good in comparison.
As for Autistic people and ASPIEs, I firmly believed that we are empathic, just in a different way. I think that we need to experience the emotion or physical feeling that we are being confronted with before we can empathize. Pain is easiest to empathize with, because even if the cause is different, the feeliong is the same. Emotions are a whole other ballgame. And don't people have to understand the root of the problem before they can empathize? A lot of people brings bad things down on themselves and its hard to empathize with that.
I do think you should seek help. I had violent fantasy, but they were all the same, and often as not involved me on the receiving end. You might want to consider medication, but be very, very careful about that. Speaking from personal experience, it might make things a hundred times worse.
Anyway, good luck.

I think it's very easy to fall into the 'It must be something I'm doing wrong' trap

If you look up to see a person glaring directly at you, I fail to see how anything you have done yourself has caused the glare ie if you weren't even looking at them yet on making eye contact they are glaring, they are the ones being aggressive/intimidatory in my opinion. A simple way to test this is to look away and then look back at them again - if they are still staring/glaring you will know for sure that they are being aggesssive. Most people who wish you no harm will look away if you do the look away/look back thing as you are effectively saying 'Are you staring at me?' and they wish to respond 'No'.

In my opinion a lot of people use glaring as a way of trying to reinforce what they see as their social superiority to you - so if you look away you are effectively saying "Yes I agree you are above me in the social hierarchy and I cower at your glare" (lol). By giving them the glare right back with both barrels you are replying "You can f-k right off! I do not consider myself inferior to you; on the contrary it is the other way round!" This I find is the only effective way to put glarers in their place - they are too stupid to understand a more subtle approach and there's the danger they will think they've won the contest if you ignore them.

I can get so angry at the way people habitually attempt to dominate and intimidate others who have done precisely NOTHING wrong to them that in my ideal fantasy I'd pull a gun out and just execute these people on the spot - then humanity will be saved a lifetime of their exceedingly nasty behaviour and we'd all be a lot happier without them! Obviously I'm not going to do this in reality but one can dream!

Imagine a world with no glarers!

That is quite a good answer. They want me to feel intimidated, so they decide to glare, and if I glare back, it gives the impression that I have noticed them and will retaliate without violence or even having to say anything. I've found out that ignoring bullies or other intimidaters is acceptable to some degree, but to always ignore every nasty person sometimes can give off an impression that you're weak. Obviously ignore them in your mind, meaning don't let it get to you, don't get all het up about it for the rest of the day, but at the very time just give them back the same glare they are giving you, and if they don't like it then they know that they shouldn't of glared in the first place, and if they do like it then it can't just be me they're singling out, if they're like that they'd want to do it to anybody. Is that what you mean? Because I will try it and see if it works.

I know I don't look intimidating. In fact I look quite the opposite - very nervous and emotionally weak, which is probably why I get picked upon by other women. What I just need is more courage, if anything. More courage to actually look at a stranger in the eye and non-verbally say ''don't stare at me, I'm just as good as anybody else'', and I can probably get away with this once I get into practice, being that I know I don't act in an unusual way or do anything else that attracts negative attention.

Whenever someone glares at me, it makes me feel threatened. I refuse to look away from them. I'll usually mouth the words "Hi" and is always makes them look away.

What traits do you possess that make you think you're an Aspie? The way you've described yourself, your need to harm and torture animals, your views on people - folks that work in grocery stores aren't 'servants', they're people - seems to suggest you're on the Anti-Social Spectrum, not the Autistic.

I fail to see how lack of empathy has anything to do with sadism. On the contrary, sadism implies that a person feels a positive emotion in response to perception of another persons negative emotion (e.g. A persons suffering makes you happy, therefore you realize that a persons mental state is suffering). This thread should ask about sympathy rather than empathy.

I was diagnosed as an aspie. I can't read intention, which is why I currently don't drive. I feel like everyone is going to cut me off and it's a trigger for my thoughts. I have obsessive interests, I used to be obsessed with collecting things as a kid, I'm a bit of a hoarder, I get anxiety in social situations, I'm a bottom up thinker, I have ADD and OCD, it takes longer for my brain to process information, etc.

When I mention these things to my doctor, he thinks that I have severe depression. Because of the frontal lobe disconnect, my brain doesn't filter out those sadistic thoughts that I have.

Last edited by Shadewraith on 23 Apr 2012, 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Quoted for truth.

Empathy is not just the ability to read cues and determine someone's mental state. Empathy and sympathy are closely linked. Empathy is the ability to recognize and share the feelings of others- to put yourself in their shoes. It could even be argued that empathy is a prerequisite for sympathy, though this isn't necessarily true.

I still don't understand what empathy is, and how NTs are claimed to have empathy when they can be arseholes too.