How do stimulants affect your ability to empathize?

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LabPet posted: I do not know.....Maybe ancedotal, but I've noticed so many Wrong Planet inhabitants are coffee drinkers (you know who you are). Caffeine is a powerful stimulant and especially for those who consume a lot. Caffeine is also relatively under-rated since, as a culture, we don't regard coffee as a "drug" per se. But perhaps truth in that it may help, yes? For me, coffee makes me really nervous I am quite sensitive to the effects too. ---
LabPet - Coffee is sold in the food section of a supermarket as a food (coffee aisle, tea aisle, soft drinks aisle, energy drinks aisle) yet in the pharmacy section of the same supermarket, coffee is sold as a FDA approved medicine (alertness aid)(often 100 mg - caffeine) such as: NoDoz, Tirend, Awake, Keep Awake, Vivarin, and so on. There are a number of well-documented, reported cases where coffee - caffeine compounds - (not a cure) work better for a few of those with ADHD (not all of those with ADHD) than Ritalin/other stronger stimulants/alerting agents. (Renshaw, M.D., Brothers, M.D.). - http://www.rsna.org/rsna/media/pr2005/Coffee.cfm - Coffee, for some (not everyone), jump-starts short-term memory - http://coffeescience.org/alert - (mental alertness) - The chemist who discovered caffeine was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery over 100 years ago (because caffeine is viewed as an important chemical). That's my understanding. - pgd

Caffeine tends to make me look a bit more extroverted but I would distinguish that as being different from "empathy". Also I am leery of discussing empathy without defining it -- sometimes people mean "ability to tell that other people are having certain feelings or pick up on emotional overtones" and others mean "outward display of socially appropriate responses to others' feelings".

I don't think I have an innate inability to detect other people's feelings, though it can get very confusing when there are a lot of people around me, especially when they are expecting me to figure out what they are feeling *quickly* in real time. That can be hard just because I have so much information coming in at once.

But: I do have consistent difficulty "displaying" what most people seem to think is "appropriate affect" and in that sense I have certainly been perceived as "lacking empathy" even though I personally consider empathy to be an internal sense rather than an external set of behaviors.

So, all THAT said, I think that stimulants (caffeine, and I also take adderall for executive functioning/ADHD-like stuff though my primary diagnosis is AS) probably make me "appear" to have slightly better "people skills" mostly because the CNS stimulation makes certain kinds of interaction and processing less tiring and hence more sustainable.

Im on Ritalin and before I started Ritalin I was and still kind of am addicted to caffeine. I used to take caffeine pills just to feel less depressed and feel more alive because it helped me to open up and talk to people even tho it made me extremely hyper I was more outgoing and fun to be around.

Now that I am on Ritalin that helps me focus more but makes me feel kinda depressed not at all like plain caffeine makes me feel. If I have like a soda or coffee with the Ritalin it makes me feel happier but depending on how much I have it can make me start to feel hyper.

With empathy and the caffeine it from what I can remember made me a little more empathic but more so just made me want to talk to people and laugh and have a good time.

With the Ritalin my empathy depending on my mood is different. If I am mad I am not empathic at all but if I am in a good mood its a little better. It helps me talk to people at work but it doesnt help with wanting to talk to them much especially if I dont know them and doesnt help at all with eye contact not that it would. With family and people I know I may open up more depending once again on my mood but over all I am still the same with or without Ritalin just more focused with it. To be honest I have a hard time figuring out why certain things bother people that dont bother me and vice versa and I think I always will.