Male Centric Autism Narrative and Undiagnosed Autistic Women

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Ganondox, your description in your op could have been written to describe my experience. It is so frustrating to have my disability marginalized because of my ability to cope with it. The psychiatrist I saw last said I was so high functioning, he wouldn't had spotted it had I not been previously diagnosed. He said he has seen people struggling with autism more severe than mine. How does he know how much struggle? He went on to discuss anxiety and depression as if they appeared with no cause. Same old same old

They present as a kind but extremely naive girl. That is a layperson description, not how an autism expert would describe them. You need to keep in mind it's laypeople who decide if the girl is going to be evaluated, not the specialists. They do demonstrate effective empathy in a way that at least some people notice, but they don't demonstrate high cognitive empathy.

"If they showed normal empathy at a younger age, but fell behind in understanding others as they and their peers got older, then it seems that is the autism spectrum effect, that they have more mildly affected socially and they are noticed as autistic later." They didn't have normal empathy at a younger age, they always had abnormal empathy, it just didn't cause problems until later in life when circumstances became more strenuous.

"If they were polite, obedient children without functioning problems beyond normal childhood problems, but appeared shy and submissive and not obviously lacking in some social/communication/cognition area, then adults would think they were shy and submissive, but otherwise normal." Yes, exactly. Thing is similar boys would probably be picked up because 1. they may be less likely to polite and obedient for reasons independent of autism severity and 2. being shy and submissive is seen as more normal for girls than for boys.

Empathy is defined as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of others". If someone cries when someone else is crying, that means they at least can feel what others are feeling, even if they're too shy to comfort them. As opposed to not noticing at all that others are upset.

Suppose someone was crying, and someone patted their back and said "it's okay" not because they really felt anything, but because they knew it was what they should do. Would that be empathy, or just a sense of duty?

Yes, some children with autism can seem not to have empathy, but that doesn't mean they don't have it.

Or even not "too shy to comfort them", but "no clue what to do". Feeling, and knowing, and feeling able to do, are all different things. Even realizing that you should comfort someone who is crying is a very different thing than sharing the feelings of someone who is crying, and you can easily share feelings without having any clue that comforting is an appropriate action.

What is abnormal about empathy in children who show normal empathy behaviorally?

While it works as an approach, behaviorism is wrong as theory. Different mental states can lead to the same behavior. Anyway, they may actually demonstrate abnormal behavior, it's just no one notices it is abnormal.

I was (I think) a polite and obedient child but do you feel following rules is really the equivalent of functioning well? In some ways I did function extremely well, on the other hand I had no idea what was going on around me socially when I was a child.

As an adult, people have taught me to ask after how they are doing, and to make statements of caring (because I do but did not know how to show it well). Empathy can be taught, the outward manifestations anyway. As to why I feel it, I think I went through w lot and don't want to visit that on other people.

I have found it can be useful as well as kind to display empathy, when I can. I do it because I want to, I do it also because the consequences of doing so are often positive.

So I am curious, btbnnyr. Do you have any interest in learning this behavior/social skill (showing empathy) at this time in your life, or does it seem to foreign to you? It's just, you seem to be fascinated by something that fundamentally is no different in how I see it to learning to say hello and goodbye and considerably easier than trying to take turns nicely in conversation for me because I do genuinely care and prefer to show how I truly feel and be seen for me.

Last edited by Waterfalls on 04 Jan 2015, 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

None of the people I know who I'd put into this class, male or female, show empathy normally behaviorally. They all are extremely empathetic, but they all show it abnormally, and it is recognizable that they show it abnormally. (I know I don't show normal empathy behaviors. My students who are like this who I'm thinking of I known in the range of 9-16.)

Possibly, its harder for a layperson to identify the abnormalities, but only in one of the people I'm thinking of are they things that aren't extremely easy to see; his they could be passed off as his anxiety. He's also 16 and I didn't know him before he was a teenager.

(And yes, most are male.)

Whelp----GEEZ!! When I read the OP, I felt I agreed, mostly, with the OP, and that I was going to post on here that I am an empathetic female----I've been diagnosed, though. After reading every post on this thread, I have been vacillating between understanding and not understanding, and thinking I'm empathetic and not empathetic..... So, I'll just tell you the way I am, and whomever can tell me, whether I am empathetic....

I could relate to ALOT of what Tuttle said: I cry when others cry, I hurt when others hurt, I'm happy when others are happy, etc. Some examples: When someone gets the job they've been wanting, I'm very happy for them, and tell them so, and maybe send them a "Congratulations" card; when there was the commercial on TV where the old lady fell-down, and said: "I've fallen and I can't get up", I bawled like a baby; in second grade, when my teacher fell down and hurt herself, everyone laughed but me, and I was sad / worried about her, the rest of the day; when a lady from my church had a stroke, I rushed to go with her / to follow the ambulance cuz I could only think of how scared / lonely she would be, by herself----my aunt said: "I wouldn't've gone----she'll be fine by herself----they'll look after her" (I was AMAZED that she said something that I thought was so awful----as in, selfish, IMO).

I've always been extremely sensitive to what others are feeling, and will drop everything I'm doing to help others----far too altruistic, for my own good, I've been told. I'll do almost anything to alleviate someone else's hurt----even if it means sacrificing something, for myself. I've been through alot of terrible things in my life, and I know how badly it feels, to hurt, so I don't want others to hurt, and will help in any way, I can. As far as whether I was born this way, I don't know----I know that I was taught, at a very young age, that: "If you make it through, reach-back and grab your brother's hand, and help him through, TOO", and I've always tried to do that.

People sent tremendously empathetic private messages to me after my triple bereavements last year.

Does that mean that their behaviors showing normal empathy are faked?

But do you know what others are thinking and feeling?

I have no interest in learning social skills that require me to make fake shows of empathy.
I prefer to help others practically instead of showing emotional empathic responses towards them.

But, what if that's not what THEY want. Sometimes people just want someone else to HEAR them, and tell them it's gonna be okay, for instance.

I don't know what they want, unless they tell me.

If someone is upset I like to show them pictures of cats. And like to ask them if there's anything that can help. And like to do specific things I know will/might help in that situation that are practical things. But if I don't know what to do and someone is negatively emotioned, then I like to show them pictures of cats. Pictures of cats make things better. (And tells them that I care which is convenient if all they want is "someone cares", but pictures of cats work better than someone caring - there's actually a lot of reasons that someone being shown pictures of cats works well, it changes someone's thought process into something cute and different which swaps them off of looping in negative thoughts for one.)

Also, its always the same reaction to do every time. I don't need to plan different things, I just always have pictures of cats. And cats are cute and make me feel better. Cats make everything better. Yay kitties!

No, I can only guess what others are thinking and feeling using my own experiences and observations to guide me. Also I can't easily predict what people will feel or how they will react, but if I've seen a pattern before, I can look for it again. For me I more notice reactions and respond. That part isn't intentional, I can't help seeing momentary expressions of if I happen to be looking at someone, and they show something negative, and that's confusing because it won't match the words and subsequent behaviors tend to get weird when that happens.

I think it through, though. What understanding I may be able to have isn't easy or automatic. But neither is it fake.

I felt genuine concern for example that you keep responding and seem intense about this issue. That may or may not be accurate. I then generalized that when I am intensely interested or curious or not understanding people's thinking this is almost painful to me and may, though isn't necessarily, be uncomfortable for you as well. So I wanted to try to provide more information that you might consider because of knowing how it makes me uneasy to have things not make sense. But I really don't know how you feel, just how I would feel and that you're responding a lot and how you're writing. I'm upset when I'm confused....I feel concern, maybe empathy for you. The only ungenuine thing about it is I don't really know how you feel and I suspect we are very different in person. On the other hand, as I have alexithymia and it is common in people on the spectrum, not sure it could ever be easy to articulate exact empathy.

And I also believe empathy can exist without being perfect, without being completely accurate though it's better when it's closer.

And, I believe empathy has practical value, I have spent and continue to spend too much of my time without receiving much of it not to see its value.

So now, I am curious again, do others make clear to you on a regular basis as they did and do with me that they don't think you're good enough to be part of the world, or are you considered entitled to participate? Perhaps experiencing so little empathy has contributed to who I am. But it may also be the unsettledness from people's confusing micro expressions and behavior that has impacted me. What do you think?