Empathy, Expression vs Feeling

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Before i was Diagnosed i was convinced i did not feel empathy, but over time, and after my therapist explained that i do in fact feel Empathy, its just i can not recognize a situation to trigger empathy. I think this is most accurately described.also i have trouble expressing Empathy more than anything,.

I do hear a lot of talk around here about a complete lack of empathy and it confuses me, so to the people who say they do not feel empathy: do you think that maybe you do feel empathy, but have trouble Expressing and recognizing a situation to trigger it?

Empathy = being able to recognize another person's nonverbal emotional signals and respond appropriately - say, for instance walking into a room and noticing that someone is feeling bad or depressed, even though they don't TELL you that they're having a bad day, then knowing what to do that might make them feel better and doing it. A spontaneous hug, perhaps, or taking them out for ice cream.

Sympathy = knowing that another person is suffering and sharing their emotional distress, or resonating to their emotion - or even seeing someone joyful and excited and sharing their glee, like shouting and jumping up and down with them when they won something.

Empathy usually leads to Sympathy, but they are not exactly the same thing.


"Lacking Empathy" means that you might easily be around someone who is silently suffering or in emotional distress and not notice, because you just don't recognize the signals, or are so wrapped up in your own thoughts and priorities that you just don't register the signals, or even if you DO recognize their emotional state and don't know how to respond, or feel awkward about what you should do. THAT is a lack of empathy, because a neurotypical brain would know how to respond immediately, without even thinking about it.

^^It's similar to the concepts of cognitive empathy and affective empathy.

Aspies are more empathic when the suffering is physical.

Now that I have become better at recognizing other people's emotions, I automatically feel compassion for them. The normal way of dealing with this is comforting the other person and thereby achieving relief for oneself. But because I'm bad at comforting, it's all pent-up for me.

So my improved empathy only makes me unhappy.

The empathy thing is a myth. It's not that people on the spectrum don't experience empathy, but they have difficulty recognizing when another person expects them to be empathetic and thus are often unable to show it appropriately.

From personal experience, I know countless people on the spectrum who are extremely giving and empathetic and often go out of their way to make others feel appreciated. This only happens, though, when the situation is clear and explicit (i.e. a friend was diagnosed with a disease so the person organizes an event for them, etc.).

When it is less explicit and where ASD people have trouble is, for example, when the NT person is showing body language that requires a certain response from the ASD person and expects the person to "read" them, understand what they are feeling, and give an appropriate response. Often these cues are missed or ignored. Or, the NT person says something that requires an empathetic response, but the ASD person just brushes it off or doesn't make them feel better.

Usually I can feel empathy, maybe even moreso than NTs -I know a close NT friend of mine has called it 'spooky' how easily I pick up on other people's general thought processes/emotional states and tend to unconciously mirror them and am, and I quote, "Everyone's therapist". What I on't tend to be able to do, is know how to make them feel better. I can understand how much they're hurting, easily. But making it not? I don't have a f*cking clue. I know what works for me, but other people, purely by virtue of being other people, would obviously not have the same ways of dealing with things as me.

I will also say that life experiences have made me less willing to show empathy. Sometimes, when you're hurt, you have to shut yourself off from others' pain, because there is only so much one person can feel. I occasionally wonder if at least some other aspies do the same, and mistake this defensiveness for an innate part of themselves.

I can feel empathy, but I can't read facial expression, tone of voice , or body language, so I don't exactly know when to show it. I do show empathy when someone is saying that something bad happened.