NTs attitude towards aspies!

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Why do NT people seem too lack a lot of empathy and understanding towards people with aspergers? Besides i thought NTs were suppoused too have more empathy than us and be able too relate better too others. They should learn too put themselves in our shoes because it can be very scary having too live an alien world.

Obviously in this world you are going too get many haters who laugh at people who are on the spectrum. Surely NTs should be trying there best too help disadvantaged people too live a better quality of life and instead they choose too bully us. Perhaps NTs unfairly compare us too people who are starving in africa and don't see why we should be complaining?


your thoughts on this?

I think you're talking about Jerks. For a long time when I looked back on my life I always thought "Why didn't anyone help me more or try to understand me?" And I think for the most part they didn't know how to interact with me any better than I did with them. It wasn't that they didn't want to but that they didn't know how too. Sure, some of them where just plain old jerks and they do stand out but most people where very nice but there was just this barrier.

Not all of us are like that, to assume such is ignorant, that would be like me saying "all Aspie's are the same." Everyone, NT or AS is different. Yes there are a lot of jerks out there, but don't let a few jerks sum up how you feel about all NT's a lot of us arnt that bad, You just have to find the ones that are good, kinda like weeding out a flower guarden per say.

I've always wondered how NTs can get away with being thought of as having empathy and Autistics don't. Everybody who has empathy (Aspie or NT or other neuology) can usually only empathise with other people who have had similar experiences to them. For example, a person who has been through divorce issues can relate better to another person who has been through divorce issues, but a person who seems lucky and has always been in a long-lasting relationship with a good partner might criticise instead of trying to understand how it feels for them. (Obviously this is not always the same with everyone but I am only generalizing here). A mother with a child with Mental Retardation may feel more secure talking to other parents with children with severe conditions than with parents with typically developing children in mainstream schools who don't have an idea what it's like to bring up a mentally handicapped child. When people on the spectrum want to share their anxieties and other issues and the way they think and feel things, they use forums like WP, and usually we can understand one and another and know how eachother are feeling about issues we have in common with. Or an NT with an Autistic friend or relative or whatever may be able to understand a bit about it too. When an NT with social anxiety talks to me, I can know exactly how they feel too, but I find it harder to know what goes through the mind of a person who is outgoing and always will be popular.

So why do they say that Autistics lack empathy, when NTs generally can only understand NTs of similar issues/experiences, the same as Autistics can generally understand Autistics of similar issues/experiences? How come NTs are ''allowed'' to misundersand us but we can't misunderstand them? How come people give me horrible glares in the street and make me feel uncomfortable, then if I react by giving them the impression that I'm uncomfortable, they don't like it? How do they expect me to feel when somebody is staring at me? They don't seem to care.

To have the statement ''NTs have empathy, Autistics lack empathy'' that true, there needs to be NTs understanding and being able to put themselves in everybody's shoes regardless of neuology, and Autistics having no empathy not even for eachother. OK, maybe people on the severe end of the spectrum lack empathy for everyone, but that's a different matter to what I'm explaining.

It was an NT who got the stupid idea that people with ASDs lack empathy.

What was his/her name?

^ Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen

Ahh, yes, that guy. I don't know why, but about a day or so into my first 2-3 weeks of intense research into Aspergers I made a judgement call to not trust his research or opinions. I can't really explain it. I've tried reading abit of what he's written since then, but I still can't shake the feeling that I am reading something a clueless guy wrote. I think the eye test is part of it, since it's flawed in so many ways(discussed elsewhere on this forum).

Borat's cousin.

Most of Simon Baron-Cohen's research reads like psychobabble. Men R From Jupiter, Women R From Gliese 581, Planet D.

I halfway thought that too

I do sometimes have to question the idea that NTs have more empathy than Aspies. Was browsing a forum recently concerning homeless people and the way they are treated, and over 70% of the comments were snarky and completely unempathetic of the homeless plight. I cannot dream, in a million years, that most people on WP would dismiss and make fun of people this way - many WP comments are well-thought out and detailed, not snarky like in many presumably NT forums. However, surely there are exceptions in both the NT and Aspie world.

Many NTs may act the way they do towards those on the spectrum because they are scared of what is different..... a lot of people act scared; they may not even realize they are interacting with an Aspie or even know what Asperger's is. It is a mystery why so many of us were bullied in school and later in life.

Besides, who says there's only one type of empathy?

i know that it exist the cognitive empathy, affective empathy, sensory empathy

All of my autism school teachers and counselors and therapists and helpers have all been NT. I have been teased, bullied and assaulted during my life by other autistic kids more than NT's.