That's not how empathy works?

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I literally did laugh out loud when I read this. Thanks for the good laugh.

No problem, if there's one thing that I can do well- it's overthinking things.

It's funny you should say that. When I told my mom that my psych thought I might be an Aspie, the first thing she said was "But you have empathy!"

I do get very anxious when people around me are angry. I don't think picking up on other's emotions is too unusual.
The post above about the two types of empathy says it all I think.

Guys! Personal distress is not empathy, it is an egocentric reaction. The weird painful feeling or cringy feeling is not empathy.

Seems like a form of empathy to me. Once you understand the source of the feeling, I'd say that your empathy for that person strengthened.

When I feel stressed because someone is stressed or angry, I wouldn't always call that empathy though. I think powerlessness is a better word, if I'm feeling stressed because I don't know how to handle the situation. If I wish I could ease their pain, but I'm stressed because I don't understand, I'd call that caring, compassion, or perhaps pity, depending.

I would use the word empathy when I deeply understand someone's situation or if I'm directly feeling what they're feeling in the same situation. Otherwise, I'd use different language to express caring or concern for the person, without expressing understanding or shared emotion.

It doesn't seem like that first therapist empathized with you either.

This is what I was going to say. For me this is the case.

From the Psychology Today website (emphasis added):

So, if someone else in your vicinity is feeling distressed and you feel distressed — that is, you're feeling what they're feeling — how is that not empathy? Certainly seems to fit the definition.

And this definition of empathy is very widespread.

Empathy is contrasted to other feelings as specifically involving feeling what the other person is feeling. Not just being aware of what they are feeling, caring about what they're feeling, or wanting to help or comfort them because of what they are feeling, but actually feeling what they are feeling.

Mind you, this infographic is unusual in putting compassion at the top. Usually, compassion fits in between pity and sympathy, with empathy held up as the ultimate form of engagement.

Still, you may be right. If so, I have ask: what do you believe empathy would feel like?

What all these empathy discussions demonstrate is that the term 'empathy' is incredibly badly defined. It seems to mix up several different processes that work toghether to cause prosocial behavior.

What you can learn from for example Simon Baron Cohen's work is that even the 'experts' work with a very badly defined idea of what empathy is.

It's difficult to understand how NTs experience empathy, obviously it is to some extent different from how we experience it, but I think it is incredibly damaging for autistic people to go around thinking that we are somehow less caring. We display the same range of emotional empathy levels that NTs experience.

This.