Empathy, Sympathy and AS - what's the actual consensus?

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I don't think I have ever empathically shared a feeling with anyone in real life, unless we have been similarly affected by the same external stimulus in which case I don't think that is empathic, but rather coincidental. On the other hand, I have had overwhelming reactions to characters on screen (I almost couldn't watch the first 20 minutes of Where the Wild Things Are).

Sympathy, on the other hand comes easy, provided that I go through a rational exercise to establish why a person is feeling something. I can feel disappointed that my friend is sad because he lost his job, but I can't share the feeling.

Autistics are perfectly capable of empathy providing they have, as other people also require, understanding. Normal people almost always have that understanding because they intuitively tap into their social surroundings, potentially feeling empathy towards anyone they interactive with socially. By contrast, autistics only grasp the social through great effort and so are taken not to be capable of empathy. However, they can be very empathetic towards people they truly get to know because this understanding for the autistic isn't intuitive but logical and analytical, and so possible to apply with extreme care.

Empathy for the autistic can be strong for someone they know but not for people they don't know. Consequently, no empathy for random people but watching a character develop across a TV series or getting someone's life story in a documentary will provide perfect grounds for analytical understanding and hence empathy.

This is one I've been wondering about lately. I never thought about the empathy thing before (diagnosed 10 years ago) then I heard recently from a psychologist I saw that I'm meant to have trouble with it. I was surprised by this and said "but I feel empathy". Then I thought, "well maybe I feel it but not at the same levels as everyone else" My dad says I used to had trouble 'putting myself in someone else's shoes' but maybe I could and didn't care and he may have been talking about my teachers. Sorry but kids just don't empathise with their teachers, and IF they do they don't act on it.

As for acting, I often don't act on empathy. But many people don't or can't act on it. This is because of many reasons. They could be uncomfortable, not sure if they know the person well enough, or be unaware of how to act due to lack of experience with that particular situation. I remember on Seinfeld once, Jerry's current girlfriend was crying over a movie and he wasn't sure how he should act about it. So I don't think the lack of acting on empathy is really so abnormal. Especially in males!

People with AS are more likely to feel uncomfortable acting on empathy even if they know what to do. Speaking for myself I usually know what's required I just have doubts about myself and people's reactions to me. That's purely a self-esteem thing not an AS thing.

Oh and there's a test you can do called the Empathising / Systematising Quotient test. It tells you what side of the brain you use more. Most AS people are way way on the S side. I'm not sure how accurate it is though. I got balanced brain as a result which is funny cos I am both left and right handed. ie. I write with left, catch and throw with right. Or 'cross dominance'. Dunno if it's related, but some say left handed people have a higher chance than rightys of being diagnosed with AS. Don't remember where I read that!

I think it has to do with something called theory of mind, or putting yourself in someone else's shoes. This is exactly why relationships for people with autism are so tricky. It does not come automatically to us, in terms of social skills. They must be taught. And the sooner, the better, but take it slowly and take it one step at a time. Work on one thing one week and work on something else, the next week.

anti-apathetic thread....not a pathetic one at all

Usual Aspies have sympaty and care (for real problems) but don't have empathy. Here I am.

disclaimer- not sure i have AS

i have trouble and sometimes dont. the thing is, sometimes the trouble is too much of a reaction. when michael jackson died, i was at camp, and bawled for maybe an hour uncontrollably. scaring my room mates. i was just thinking how his fans must feel, because i am a serious fan to danny elfman, and if he died, i would do that and more. so imagining how i would feel and projecting it onto michal's fans unleashed my empathy.
i also once burst out crying in public when i saw a dead kitten. its mother was sitting next to it, waiting for it to wake up. and right after that, a kid fell down in front of me on the same street, and i burst out laughing like a maniac.
i can and definately do feel deeply for people, it is often when i am alone.

now other times i just cant muster empathy or sympathy.
once my friend was having a crying episode at school, she called me into the nurses office because she wanted comfort. i felt bad for her in my mind. i could see how she felt, but i didnt feel emotional. i was sort of awkward and stiff. and i felt pretty detached. but i DID care because i knew i was supposed to, and wanted her to be happy again....it just wasnt really emotional. the emotional stuff for others comes out occasionally but not usually. when it does come it's very intense.
but for enemies and things, strangers, i usually have a hard time feeling empathy.

the main thing is, if i can relate to it, and know how it feels, i can have empathy. if i dont understand it, and it's never happened to me or anything like it, then i cant empathize.

ok, I revisited the second part of the definition for empathy...

I have a hard time wrapping my head around this, so I rearranged it:

the objectively explicit manner might be the catch to feeling empathy, then, if the capacity for empathy requires a subjective assessment of what amounts to projection of how one would feel in another's shoes.

I don't think the short definitions my husband and I came up with are wrong. to be empathetic, you have to be able to feel what someone else does... you have to have the capacity for it. learning to put ourselves in another's place and make a subjective assessment of how they must feel might be a different process for autistics, but I still don't think it can correctly be labeled "lack of empathy". perhaps "delayed empathetic development", perhaps limited or contextual empathy (one AS I know only empathizes with people he cares about. it's possible he's entirely capable of general empathy, he just doesn't care enough to make the effort). I have a vivid imagination, so I can imagine what it would be like to lose my child, so I can empathize with the horror of someone losing theirs. yet in other areas I might be considered to have a lack of empathy because I don't automatically understand how another person feels until they explain it.

I really doubt that normally empathetic people are always empathetic. in fact it seems that they choose to feel empathy only when it is politically expedient, which begs the question of why the autistic version of lack of empathy is considered disordered.

Interesting question.

I can feel really bad when bad things happen to people (or cats dogs .. whatever) that I care about, but I have no idea if I feel the same feelings that they do, as if it happened to me.. how should I know?

It could be that you actually DO feel those feelings, but only for those that deserve it, perhaps you just don't really like most people enough to give a damn?

Yours sound more like something in the sociopaths spectrum, hard to say really...
like most of my ex's, or my cat.