The empathy lie

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Thank you for sharing. I think it is important not to be reduced to statistical measures. I was diagnosed with level 1 Autism - with an emphasis on support rather than a lack of empathy or insight. I think the best thing we can do is find creative ways to leverage our unique adaptations.

Humans are all psychopaths, but some humans have just learned to suppress their psychopathic tendencies and make it look as if they're capable of feeling empathy. Humans are just naturally evil and cruel and destructive and abusive.

Other people's emotions and non-verbal actions can cause me to feel very edgy, even if I totally understand how they're feeling and why. But it makes it look like I don't.

Here's an example. When I used to work at a care home, I understood greatly about dementia and I expected any behaviour from them without judgement, because I understood that they didn't know any better and I also understood why they said and did the things they said and did. However, I still became nervous and anxious whenever they yelled at me, even though I knew it wasn't anything personal. I remember one yelled at me and it startled me, then I had to go into a bathroom and cry. But I still knew that she had dementia and I understood how she was feeling and I definitely knew it was not personal, but those stupid tears still came. Ugh, I hate it. It looks like I'm taking everything personally and not understanding what they're going through, but it's NOT that at all. I understand totally, but it's just other people's emotions and actions seem to have an effect on me. Maybe it's because I'm never sure what to do in response. Instead I'm like a jumpy, nervous mouse all the time.

I'm very sensitive to tone of voice and facial expressions. It's not what people say but the way they say it that can set off my stupid tears. Oh God I hate being like this. Makes me feel like a "don't touch me (metaphorically)" victim narcissist or something. But it's not like that. I know people's intentions. I can read body language and work out social patterns. But dealing with emotions without becoming emotional myself is just so difficult.

There is not just Empathy but various types.

Autistic people often have emotional empathy while lacking Cognitive Empathy.

So while is hard for Autistics to undertand others with cognitive Empathy some are able to relate with others feelings when a situation makes them feel that emotion inside them.

Psychopathy and empathy are not mutually exclusive.

Some would even argue that psychopaths have "more capacity for empathy" than autistics.
But that's very much likely because of how that damnable word is defined and whoever assigned whatever values to it.
Along with other stupid things like the typical interpretation of mixing up sociality with emotionality or vice versa.

I wonder if upbringing can have an effect on this as well

I think its quite easy to make an already sensitive child into an overly sensitive one by always pointing out how they are making other people feel

I knew a woman who used to tell her son that everyone was looking at him and laughing at him every time he cried or made a noise or had some kind of tantrum or whatever

He was a wreck later on in life because he thought he was more aware of other people's feelings than anyone else was

Of course it does.
In many cases, I think, NTs do not resonate with many autistics. And in turn, many autistics wouldn't know what it was like. Thus many would struggle with empathy.

And not just that.
Early social adversities and trauma does affect empathy itself.

Usually one would branch in either becoming people pleasing hypersensitized socially vigilant types, or socially inattentive and emotionally desensitized alexithymics.
It's just what the human part of the human mind does to protect itself, especially as a dependent child.

And then there's the other two extremes of either of the two reactions; one might ended up be full of understanding and full of compassion -- they go towards the path of forgiveness and healing -- they're the types who wanted to be human or affirm their humanity... And the other can be one of driven into antisocial tendencies and destructive outcomes, all to cover up their pain, insecurities, or whatever those are.
Either can happen to anyone for the same reasons -- both have the same catalyst, same circumstances of very different outcomes.

Yeah, alexithymia itself can be either or both an autistic's innate emotional/social profile and/or a person's (ND or NT) outcome in upbringing or circumstances which is very commonly happens in many cultures, particularly with male upbringing. It is unfortunately normalized in many cases, especially in the past as far as I was able to look at that.

Back to definitions: empathy is the ability to identify with the feelings of others. It’s like reading a book. It is not something one feels, it needn’t involve sypathy.

Psychopaths have cognitive empathy not emotional empathy.

Autistic don't have cognitive empathy but do have emotional empathy.

Not sure about psychopaths, as I'm not one, but I can quite confidently say that autistics can have cognitive empathy, because I do, and I did as a child too. Unless I'm not really autistic, just ADHD.

Science says that matters and that is more true than not.

YET

Society mixes up the two. "Empathy" means "caring" or "having a heart" or even "compassion itself".
Culture doesn't care. "Empathy" means "you know 'the right way' to say, act, think, feel".

And humans, especially as a collective, are not driven by facts and logic that science finds.
Even if science had rectified that it's not really the autism but alexithymia -- society doesn't care or is yet to catch up with the damn fact.

Empathy is literally living on the edge of the collective unconscious and caring so much you become the vessel for all the emotions society doesn’t want and casts upon you, until you learn you feel so deeply you then evolve to help heal yourself and others. Empathy is walking in not just another’s shoes, but being that person on every level, losing the boundary between self and other until you yourself become self and other. You become a visionary, a seer, an artist. You see beyond the Veil of consciousness and unconsciousness and develop a powerful subconscious awareness that becomes an extension of your soul, what artists call the Muse, what Seers name the co-walker. None of my doctors save one has the personality of the Empath. We are disliked as much for our personality as for our autism, and believe me, in this town, my co-walker and I are loathed for both. It’s a very difficult path, and not for the faint of heart. Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychoanalysis, did many lectures on the Empath integrating the Shadow Self. Empathy is a character trait that is very rare, and many Empaths are destroyed by society just for having it.

This is actually spiritual empathy.
This is what those who are labeled as empaths actually supposed to have.

Not cognitive empathy nor necessarily affective empathy.
Supposedly, all humans have this without exception, and is something that can be cultivated in certain meditative practices.

Weak empaths tend to be swept away and become victims of abusive relationships. Because they're prone to dysregulation, too impulsive to a point of exploitation, all with the compulsion of attempting to soothe and heal others and neglecting themselves.
Strong empaths can mess with antisocial personalities like sociopaths and narcissists. They understand boundaries, their limits, and know balance.

But that's not the point of this thread.
It doesn't matter whether or not an autistic has such trait in spades or not.

I don't think society understands that actually being good at this is not a common trait, nor the sensitized forms either.
But it is expected to be common and also misunderstood it too often for a different type of emotional literacy and more of a form of social literacy.

Really? How is that possible if they are not aware of it? [i.e. if they are not cognisant of the evidence?]

The opposite is possible, as the information psychopaths get from their empathy is not experienced in the same way as their victims; pain is transformed to pleasure, for example.

I think that Kanner coined the term Empathy just so he could separate us from the rest of the world.

Of course they do; they are practically ruled by their empathy, and the ambition it triggers. It pretty much defines them!

Autistics, on the other hand, having low empathy, find the thinking or emotions of others a closed book, and so is of very little interest, and has little impact on how they live their lives, nor how they treat or interact with others!