Not asked about empathy

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During my interview for the autism assessment, the psychologist never asked about empathy at all. I was a bit surprised. One of the questions was if I try and comfort people (my Dad said no, but I sometimes feel bad about certain things.) I do have sympathy in some situations, but I never have empathy. Is it odd I was not asked about this. I mean, I thought she just read through the booklet, but isn't empathy one of they key things?

I'm still confused whenever someone says they have sympathy but not empathy, or vice versa, since I still don't understand the difference between the two. Sympathy is "sharing the feelings of others (especially feelings of sorrow or anguish)" and empathy is "understanding and entering into another's feelings."

But it doesn't surprise me that you weren't asked about it, since the whole "people with AS lack empathy" thing is slowly being understood to be horses**t. We just tend not to fake empathy, while NTs fake it all the time.

I thought sympathy was just seeing another person's point of view. As if you could imagine yourself in their position. I didn't think sympathy always had to have an emotional quality to it.

Like if someone had a fender bender with their car in the snow you could sympathize what it would be like if that happened to your own car.

I always thought empathy was really feeling or understanding another's emotional state. Like if someone just got some good news and you could tell they were happy about something.

When I say sympathy I am referring to the fact that I can feel bad when bad things happen. I read about people being blown up on the other side of the planet, and I feel bad that our planet is in that state.

When I say empathy, I mean that I cannot understand how those people feel. I cannot understand their motivations, their thoughts, their emotions. I cannot put myself in their shoes.

I don't know about aspies/auties in general, but for me, I definitely do not have empathy. I cannot put myself into the shoes of another person and understand where they are coming from. I can feel bad when I know something bad has happened. I do feel sympathy for EVERYTHING a person might consider to be bad. But, say, if someone dies, I know that is a bad thing, and I can feel bad about that.

i don't have either, the only person i ever feel bad for in any situation is myself, except when it comes to my cat kirby, the only time i have ever felt either is when we had to put kirby down after 14 years, and i had to make that decision.

hardest thing i have ever done.

it has been months now but it still hurts.

other then that i am generally pretty heartless, i normally have more feeling of any kind for my computers and other possessions. which is why i will never hack my consoles i can't bear to see them stop working.

All people (both AS and NT) have difficulty understanding those who have a vastly different experience and perspective than ourselves. It's easier to simulate in our mind how other people might feel in a situation if we can relate to the same situation. It seems that since people on the autism spectrum have a different perspective and experience (i.e. different psychological needs, experiences, etc...) we aren't going to be good at simulating NT's in our mind. Of course this is by default OUR deficit simply because we are the minority. I wouldn't exactly call it a fair assessment of the ability to empathize.

Yeah, reading other people's emotions is difficult for a lot of autistic people, but it's a skill that can be learned, and one of the ones I highly recommend focusing on. There are some skills you can drop because they're just useless NT-imitation, but this isn't one of them.

I have empathy towards real people, but I don't have empathy towards flakey people.