Empathy for me is conditional

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I believe I may have figured out how empathy can be better elicited for those of us with AS, so that we don't appear as aloof or weird or "selfish" as people portray us to be.

For NT's, I find that the ability to be empathetic with others is greatly facilitated by the NT ability to be more imaginative and more "big picture" oriented. For them, showing empathy towards another person in social situations is unconditional, short of thinking the other person is a complete a****le. For AS people like myself, empathy is more conditional depending on having experienced something similar in the past, for which imagination is not required. If someone recounts to me a sad story that I might have dealt with before, for example they forgot a coat in a restaurant and lost it, they got let go from a job under false pretences, they got sick with the flu during an important event, I can easily empathise with them by drawing something out of my experience arsenal. In fact, the AS capacity for long-term memory is an advantage here.

Just some simple banter like "oh, yeah, I know that really sucks, I've been there, I'm sorry you had to deal with that." and I actually feel for them. It totally makes me come across as NT even though I am Aspie.

It's emphathizing with unfamiliar situations that can stymie me, though. An Aspie may tend to have lots of these, by my reckoning, because due to relative lack of social exposure in their lives, their "bad experience arsenal" may be narrower than that of an average NT. That's where you have to search your memory for the closest matching situation, as I don't advocate simply building up your arsenal of bad experience in some masochistic desire to appease NT's

and, hey, my methodology & theory may well prove true based on the dynamics of this discussion group alone - after all, we all emphathize with each other from our struggles in life having AS.

I do not think NTs are like this:

I have observed numerous ways in which NTs fail at empathy or apply it so badly as to be worse than useless. Many of those are based on false attributions.

However, I do think you have a point about having an experience to relate to. I have seen a blogger make exactly the same point - she described the tendency to describe your own experience to say "I can empathize with what you're going through" as an autistic thing. Since I do it all the time and at the time I was still a bit unsure, it actually helped a bit to see that.

I still feel compassion toward people who are having troubles, but I may not always understand those troubles or know what to do/say.

This.

The inability to express or display emotion seems to be routinely equated with a lack of empathy. Just not true...

Actually I agree with this a great deal.

But I have a great deal of empathy for people who are often in repressed groups and real injustice. For example I know what it is like to be discriminated and harassed on the job, and I am pretty empathetic towards that. I know full well the crap you get when people see you are queer. And I am very empathetic towards people with disabilities, even if I have no clue what that disability is like. For example one of my friends is deaf, we get along great, and I think it comes from some level of understand of how condescending people can be when you have a disability. I have another friend who is legally blind I got along with great as well. She can see immediately in front of her, but had social problems because people constantly misinterprate her. It is funny is NT take alot of social rituals not being followed very personally.

I can go on, but you are right, and I had to explain this exactly what you are saying to my partner. It was hard for them to understand. That I can only extrapolate from my own situation and things related to it, not people who had radically different experiences from my own, if it is not within my own personal realm of understanding I don't get it. In fact I have found these people with radically different experiences are often the type of people that many NTs often are not empathetic too, they really struggle to come arount to it. I mean there is a certian degree of tribalism with regards to NT empathy, they can be empathetic only to a certian point, outside the norm I think their empathy and potential for understanding is somewhat limited, and thier willingness to accept people for who they are is significantly reduced.

I think you are right in the fact the person has a narrower viewpoint, but I don't think its for a lack of struggling. I just think we are limited because our struggles are so different in life. We are limited in empathy in some ways because of this because we are in a very different context.

I have to agree with draelynn here. Maybe my situation isn't representative of most Aspies, but I do feel empathy for people even though I haven't been through what they had (I'm understanding empathy as, for example, feeling sad when realizing the other person is sad...please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).
I do accept, though, that whenever an Aspie has gone through that same experience or a similar one, the reaction is more NT-like...I personally believe that has more to do with a somewhat deeper level of empathy achieved by the true understanding of the problem, which if you think about it, is very similar to what happens among NTs who have gone through similar experience (as in, a mother that lost her child will empathize more with another one than any person who didn't, simply because when thinking of that other mother's situation, she automatically -be it conscious or not- reminisces hers)

On another note, when we're talking about differences when the circumstances are the same on NTs and Aspies (when the person who's expected to empathize never shared the unpleasant experience with whoever they're speaking to), I think the difference isn't one of imagination, but of capability of placing oneself in another person's shoes. It's way, way harder for Aspies, unless they have the personal experience of what that feels like having gone through that themselves.
Oh, and let's not forget than when facing a situation we never experience but that we know is hurtful or plain annoying, we are at disadvantage to read facial expression, and therefore learn how relevant that event really was to the person we are dealing with.

For me, it's not related to whether I've personally experienced someone's troubles before, but whether I can rationally empathize with being upset over it.

For instance,
I was accused of being "uncaring and cold" because I was unable to find anything to say to my mother when her mother (my grandmother) died, and she was just devastated. To me...it's just someone she loved is no longer conscious. She didn't suffer...she had lived a long life...I couldn't express empathy because I couldn't rationally comprehend why she would experience those types of feelings. In all honesty, it won't be different when my mom dies...I'll be glad of all she's given me, and the times we spent together, and a bit sad that there won't be any more. But as long as there's no suffering, it won't be a great tragedy.

Contrast that with my reaction to when my bf would come home from work with red/numb hands from the cold, and I'd cry because his hands hurt him, and wish it was me instead.

Feeling sad when the other person is sad is not the same type of deeper empathy some NT have. It understanding deeply the perspective of the other person. Like I said, NTs only do so good of a job at this.

I get this to. I think it is the fact our emotional processing is fundimentally atypical. I never got people who cried at weddings, or why people even went to funerals. I can go on.

Mmm, you two make interesting points....I hadn't thought of that, but I realized I act like that as well...(the wedding-funeral thing, especially....or crying as a kid for someone killing a beetle. I remember being mocked forever for that xD)

This too.

Well thats the thing, we are atypical. I used to cry as a kid for things most NT kids did not cry about. I still get squeked by some sensory things more so. I mean we (autistics) are described to have complex inner lives, and I think that when it gets down to it, alot of it is we are self reflective, not necessarily reacting in the same way to the same things.

Like Bethie I too feel that it depends on my logical analysis of whether I believe they should be feeling what they are feeling about the situation.

For example people often talk about their difficulties at work and I find it hard to be empathetic. I break down logically the situation that they are upset about, and try to think about how I would feel about it. The answers I get are simple- "why don't you just quit", "why don't you just tell them", "I am CONSTANTLY struggling with WAY bigger issues, I can't see why this is a big deal".

These responses are not helpful and can hurt NTs.

I recently asked my therapist if I'm meant to look at someone who is sad and think that I can relate to being sad because I have been sad before. Or am I meant to look at what has actually happened to make the person sad and be able to relate to that? I find it an interesting way to look at it. It is option two that brings out the inappropriate logic response.

For me, closeness is a factor in funerals. If it's someone distant I can understand why people are sad, I can feel for them and feed sad that they are experiencing that loss because I know what it's like. But it doesn't affect me the same way.

Someone close to me, I couldn't show emotion at a funeral. It's too public, it's too ... I don't know what the right word for it is. It feels too theatrical, too crass? It's not the same as throwing yourself on the coffin sobbing screaming "Why god why?!", but to me it feels as wrong. I couldn't do that, I couldn't expose my emotions like that there any more than I could my nudity! It's mine, it's too private, to have someone intrude on it, it.. even the thought of it feels like touching a live wire. The shock of it is too much.

It's interesting what a wide variety we have here. Considering how much the experts like to tell us how limited and two dimensional we are we seem to have such different approaches, reasoning and reactions. Good thing they'd never believe us if we told them, they might try to further categorize us and split us all up!

I mourn, but I am unable to mourn like other people. It does make me sad when someone is gone, but not in a profound way. That may be different with a few people, but it hasn't come up yet. I have actually mourned more openly for pet cats than I have for beloved relatives.

I don't really know what's expected of me, what I am supposed to do. If I am supposed to do anything at all.

I don't recall crying at a wedding, but I did cry upon looking at a good friend's wedding pictures. There were so many reasons for that, however, and not all of it had to do with it being a wedding.

Oh, I would become hysterical because these terrible boys at recess would hurt frogs or stomp on snails.
I'd run frantically and tell the teacher, desperate for her to STOP THEM RIGHT NOW only to be met with confusion and a bit of patronizing chuckling.

Ugghh I feel you. I hate it when people get all horrified you can't relate to their suffering, but then laugh in your face when you look for some empathy towards yours. *sigh*

About mourning...it's complicated. I remember my granfather's death due to a long, horrid cancer disease, and my mom going nuts with pain. I tried to confort her by telling her she should't be so sad, as he was better off dead than having those terrible pains, and I was actually relieved he was through with the suffering. She got furious and didn't talk to me for a while D: Only later, when I was done processing my own mourning process, did I fully realize how that might have sounded to her...oh well.