echoemotica

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That is the autistic tendancy to adopt someone else's emotions. Little is written about this (google only returns 2 hits), but I relate to Stephen Shore's account.

I do this and often find myself in emotional pain because of other people's emotions. It is generally with people who are close to me that I do this.

My way of experiencing emotions is proably different from some of you and definately different from NTs. I experience emotions in the here and now, or if very strong, for days afrerwards, but I don't associate emotions with past events. When my father died, I know I was devastated, but the memory is now like a movie with no emotion. All my emotional events are like that.

My parents sent me to group therapy when I was 16 because they thought I was doing drugs. I seldom did anything other than smoke an occasional doobie. But drugs wiere the "thing" and they were on the bandwagon. People spent so much time trying to get me to "open up." I could recite any past event, but I didn't have any emotions about it. The only thing I felt was anger at them for harrassing me. They never did figure it out and I got to the point of refusing to participate at all.

I think these 2 differences with emotions make me feel the most alien.

Anyone else?

I voted "not sure," because although I understand what you're saying, I think I experience this a different way...Like, when I see people on TV weeping over tragic events, after a natural disaster or their child's missing or something, I find myself feeling intense pain right along with them. I oftentimes will obsess over the event and/or person, and have extreme difficulty getting it out of my mind. However, when it comes to those I know well (with the exception of my children), I feel almost nothing if they cry or become angry -- in fact, if someone expresses anger toward me, I must try with all my might not to laugh, even though I realize the seriousness of the situation.. And this may sound horrible, but I really don't feel extreme grief when someone close to me dies. I miss them, yes, but I never feel what others seem to feel...I didn't even cry at my dad's funeral, for example.

I believe, however, that I would not want to continue living if, God forbid, something ever happened to my kids.

Absolutely. Not always... but if I'm with a friend who's experiencing a strong emotion, I'll feel it too. If they're grieving or hurting, I'll feel that grief or hurt.

Sigh. Waayy too much this happens. It's really bad because I have really crappy theory of mind and so I expect others to be as empathetic to me as I am to them. Which never happens.

If I were not so depressed today because of horrible social stuff going on, I could really post a very long coherent response to this. Hopefully this thread will be here in a few days when my brain is functioning again.

Sometimes I just can't differ myself from the others <_< It's unpleasant...
I hate those echo-things cause i feel like i have no my own personality at all. The fact I'm obsessed about being diffrent and i always want to stand out doesn't help. I know I'll always have some other's behaviour, but still... ;/

But it's sometimes a good thing, like, a higher state of emphaty. Sometimes i don't know what's wrong at all, just see someone crying and i'm crying too. Or I see they're happy and i get happy too. I wonder if any NT can get so empathetic like i do.
...or i see someone laughing and i start to laugh even if i don't get the joke XD (well this isn't a positive thing ;/)

Yikes..I didn't know what this was called and I didn't know it was an autistic tendancy, but i do have it..I think to some degree...but right now I lack the ablitly to elaborate on it..I will come back to it later.

Alien Concept... I don't get it. I don't get alot of this. It's all new to me. I know I definitely pick up on negative emotions. Always negative ones. When people are happy around me I tend to stew in my own cesspool of negativity anyway...

Glad my own injury lawyer from years ago was more confident... even though I just went for a settlement. I feel like if I sue someone I'm a bad person. Especially with all the frivolous lawsuits going around... Not to say yours is frivolous.

And with my recent "enlightenments" about what I may be, I noticed just how much I catch myself with disclaimers and the like. As if I've been adapting do a disorder I didn't even realize I had. Can't get to far ahead of myself. Need to talk to family and a professional first.


And I'm babbling again. I'm sorry that i"m babbling. I'll go away now.

I feel your pain.

I thought I was just neurotic. Nice to know there is a term for that.

I found a definition for "empathy" that makes sense in Steven Shore's book "Beyond the Wall: Personal Experiences with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome," on page 191, expressed by psychiatrist, Dr. Rosen:

With 'empathy' as I understand the word, you remain who you are, but you feel some of the other person's feelings without losing your own perspective. You can move back and forth fluidly, almost simultaneously, between yourself and the other person. One uses a broader context that just facial signaling - this is the way that person must feel because this is the way I would feel if I were in that person's shoes.

It's that kind of transaction that is very, very hard for AS people even though it can be very intellectual. That often doesn't get put into worlds for 'neurotypical' persons; they just sort of do it. And with AS people, the best they can do is to reason it out, "What would it feel like to me if I were doing this?" ......... A neurotypical person might be feeling, for example, romantic sadness or something like that, where as people with AS might be feeling, 'I have to get out of there; his is dangerous.' This makes empathy very hard for them.

I think this empathetic shifting thing that Dr. Rosen talks about is distored in AS, just like sensory information. We don't shift in and out. We pick up intense feelings and either try to shut them out or we have them ouselves. There's no shifting back and forth for me.

When I worked outside my home, people's feelings made me very uncomfortable and I had to shut them out. It took a long time to learn how to emulate NT empathy by just saying the right thing for the circumstance.