my way of showing sympathy... really!

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yesterday, we (me and family member) were watching a show on the science channel, about a young cheetah, who got its foot stuck in a tree and broke its pelvis, the mother tried to remove it, and when all else failed tried to play one more game with it before abandoning it. i felt really sorry for it because once it actually removed itself from the tree it was limping on three legs over to its mother.

and the way I show sympathy... is i smile and giggle... O.o I know, inappropriate indeed! But strangely, thats what I do... I don't cry, or shed a tear, I mean, if I try hard enough I could shed one tear... but i giggle... I am not laughing at it because its funny, I am giggling and smiling because its sad...

anyone relate?

I sometimes show inappropriate emotions. I remember one time when my neighbour told me that their dog had died I found it very hard to suppress a smile. Very strange indeed as I did feel genuinely sorry for them and I did like the dog.

I can. I have to remember not to smile when something bad happens. I smile for two reasons.

1. I feel such sympathy for anything that is hurt. It's like an overwhelming love and gentleness, I want to somehow make up for their pain by saying everything will be alright, life will be good now, I'll make everything perfect. It's the exact same feeling as giggling and laughing.Except the emotion is so intense.

2. Any problem is an opportunity. If I see an injured animal I get excited and almost joyful because here is a chance to make the world a much better place - I can't change the fact that animals get hurt, but I CAN fix it. That gets me excited. That cheetah could have been saved in exactly the same way that people are saved - we could have an ambulance service, support services, etc. Obviously to achieve this would require a complete revolution in how the entire world works - in order to make saving every sick animal economically viable, as it is for saving humans. I am under no illusions about the scale f the task, but scale is something we can plan for. People just lack ambition.

It is funny that NTs accuse aspies of lacking empathy, when they are the ones who happily ignore suffering animals. And it is funny that NTs accuse aspies of rigid thinking. It is, instead, focused thinking - not the same thing at all. I see NTs as very rigid. They see a sick animal, or other problems, and just accept it as unchangeable. I see ways to change everything. Every problem can be fixed. Of course, some problems require either hundreds of years (e.g. travel to other planets) or complete sacrifice of all other interests (e.g. solving global poverty) or a complete change in how we see the world (e.g. solving death), so everyone else says "it cannot be done." They say that because they psychologically cannot handle the implication, that they could have solved it but chose not to because the price was too high.

So yeah, I get excited by bad things because that is my purpose in life, to fix them.

I don't think it's inappropriate emotion at all. If I see a moment of striking beauty like that, I'll smile because the love behind that interaction supersedes the sadness, and it warms my heart.

I remember laughing at the humane society when my dad tried to put a leash on this dog he thought was cute so he could walk her. But instead she started to whimper and squeal and she bit my dad and ran back in the cage. I just thought the sound of it was hilarious so I laughed. My parents adopted that dog about two weeks later and they still have her. I don't know why I found it funny, the sound of it was made me laugh because I had never seen a dog act that way.

I also remember when my ex told me about how in these two tunnels on Sunset highway here, cars are not allowed to pass in the tunnels because there have been car pile ups in there. It would look like a child has tossed his toy cars in there and they were all piled up to the ceiling. I laughed because of the image he gave me. My ex thought I was laughing at all the deaths and injuries of those people. No I was laughing about the fact a child tossing his cars in the fake tunnel and making a pile up. I was thinking of honey I blew up the child, and he grabs all these empty cars and toss them in there. I didn't think of people being in the cars.

Sounds like what Amanda Baggs calls the dead hamster laugh.

I've had episodes of inappropriate laughter. It's something other people do not understand.

I may not always outwardly show empathy in any way (I actually have no idea), but I definitely feel it. The best way I can describe it is something like a feeling of weight being put on my chest. It kinda makes me want to say "uuughh" like I got punched in the gut.

Yes, the inappropriate giggles hit me, too. They're a family trait.

I think inappropriate emotions is quite common in autism. Maybe they are not inappropriate on the inside (you said you have sympathy, not that you are enjoying it), but appear that way on the surface. I don't laugh at things like that, but I do have stronger reactions to those TV shows than I would at, say, a funeral. Even though I am very sad at funerals. People just see me as completely non-emotional as I usually am.