Just read the study from 2009: Aspies have TOO MUCH Empathy

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This study was from 2009: http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/633688

What's the thinking on this today? I'm not sure about myself. I know I have had empathy for others and it drives my behavior, but I go back and forth believing I am Aspie. But an Aspie friend of mine bows out of social interaction because he has "the blue screen of emotional overload and can't find the reset button."

Where do we stand on this today? Was this groundbreaking in 2009 (for NTs, anyway). And what do you experience as an Aspie?

I have not been diagnosed, but I strongly identify with the over-sensitivity described in that article.

Not diagnosed either but part of my problem is intensity of emotion, both in terms of feeling other peoples emotions and in regards to my own. I also have physical sensitivities as well which don't help either (certain materials, bright sunlight, noise in crowds etc although I am ok with loud music so I usually get around noise outside by wearing headphones when I go out and won't leave the house with my mp3 player lol).

For various reasons I find that socialising overwhelms me, so whether I have an ASD or not, sometimes I need to isolate and spend time alone so that I can relax and recharge my energies, otherwise I end up having a huge eppi which is shortly followed by almost complete burn out and a massive episode of depression due to exhaustion.

Quite frankly dealing with my emotions, others emotions, my other sensitivities, making social chit chat (which hurts my head more than taking an exam) and people's constant need for interaction...is complete wipe out for me, so I prefer not to socialise too often.

It's not that I don't care about people or their feelings, I care very much, I just cannot deal with it all.

This is what I struggle to make therapists understand and much of it is the basis of the social anxiety that I was diagnosed with (I am much less concerned with embarrassment as I think people judge on ridiculous criteria and the last time I did something embarrassing such as walking into a lamp post I found it funny rather than mortifying (hey it was a head on collision because I didn't even see it with perfect timing that made the people at the nearby bus stop burst into laughter lololololol snort).

Unfortunately therapy or medication does not work. Meds make my emotions even more intense and the therapist cannot understand that I find socialising tiring and that I can struggle with small talk and chit chat etc...they seem to think that if I just relax it will come to me naturally. Errr I am 36 and I still can't tell, for example, if a man is flirting with me even after reading body language books, asking people what to look for and trying out experiments to try and figure it out myself!

I get the theory but in practice....argghhhhhhhh

Yet if I say that to a therapist they start talking to me slowly as though I am stupid! Ok I don't get the social stuff much but academically I am a straight A student most of the time, so really there is no need to talk to me like a 5 year old with a below normal IQ. Academically I am probably smarter than the therapist talking down to me!

Many social interactions can be confusing for me in a number of ways and I have to spend so much time trying to figure stuff out it gives me a headache

Then I have deal with noise
Thinking of things to say
Deal with the bright lights
Drop my inner obsession with being more amused by my own thoughts than the conversation
Trying not to flee so that I can get back to my latest hobby
Trying to hear what people are actually saying amidst the noise
Then there is emotional stuff on top of all that.

It's complete overload is what it is!

I stay home a lot instead of socialising these days...

PS sorry for any bad grammar and punctuation tonight! I know there are errors in my post, I am just short on time at the moment.

Many years ago, after a co-worker suggested I might have Asperger's, I went online and read a very broad description of AS. It seemed to emphasize a lack of empathy and made it sound that those with AS were hyposensitive to emotions. I immediately dismissed that idea that I could have AS, on this alone, because if anything, I was HYPERsensitive and emotional.

Fast forward five years or so...I ended up doing a web search for 'hyperemotional' and 'hypersensitive' and ended up here on Wrong Planet, where I learned that many with AS might in fact be too empathetic and be hypersensitive to emotions. Once I read that, I decided to research further, and found everything else fit me perfectly.

My boyfriend showed me the following video last night, and I only made it halfway through before bursting into tears. I was literally sobbing, gasping for breath, with my head in my hands. It took several minutes for my boyfriend to console me. For the next hour or so, if I thought about the video, I started crying again.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aJgeHi-nLM[/youtube]


Can aspies be too empathetic and emotionally sensitive? ABSOLUTELY. I don't even have any particular connection to the movie "Up," but this video killed me.

Any news article relating to deep subjects will make me a walking time bomb for days, especially if it involves veterans or animals, I just break down and snap.

I have a professional AS diagnosis and I definitely feel others' emotions to a much greater extent than I would like. Anytime I have ever interacted with another human, to any significant degree, they have confided in me (I'm a good listener) and left me overwhelmed. I then completely withdraw from society for very long periods of time as a defense mechanism. I cannot maintain friendships as a result.

I did manage to snag a wife, though.

I really don't think people are using empathy when doing this:-

I had one person say to me "Don't worry it might never happen". Totally wrong advice that sounds from they point of view, than another. Maybe you could guess the correct one. But the advice was the wrong way round.

That's how it is for me a lot of the the time. If it isn't extreme, I feel nothing. It kind of shifts, depending on the person or situation and who's involved. Sometimes I don't react enough, other times I overreact. I wish there was a balance, honestly.

Being around people is overloading for me, but I don't know if I am feeling other people's emotions. I don't walk into a room and feel anyone's emotions. That sounds bizarre to me. I just feel generally overloaded by people and environment, which is almost always a fluorescent lights plus background noise nightmare. Maybe the overload is partially due to strong emotional arousal in the presence of people, but I am not feeling the various emotions that they are feeling, and I have no way to know what those emotions are if they don't tell me directly. Yes, I do withdraw from people and prefer to be alone a lot of the time to avoid sensory overload of both people and environment and stress of interactions having to talk and listen to others, but I don't know if this is hyperemotionality or excess empathy.