Not Autistic because I have the wrong kind if empathy

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I recently had an AS assessment and was told that although I had several Autistic traits I'm not Autistic because I have cognitive empathy and don't have emotional empathy, which is the opposite to Autism.

I have read that psychopaths have no emotional empathy, but don't think I'm a psychopath I'm just very practical and 100% T (thinking) on Myers Briggs.

Has anyone had similar experience? I really fit AS when I read descriptions and take tests, but understand the empathy part is the foundation of autism and now believe I'm not Autistic.

What assessment did they use? Some are more accurate than others.

them's the breaks dude

I've always figured it was the other way around.

I've always thought autistic people have cognitive empathy, but lack (in relative terms) emotional empathy.

I've always had cognitive empathy.

I didn't develop emotional empathy until I was almost middle-aged. I can only experience emotional empathy when I've actually experienced the thing that I "should" be empathetic about.

so did i. i always can see the correctness in logical transcripts.



emotions are a sense i never knew beyond the most simplistic notions.
they are a mystery to me. people feel things and they have looks on their faces, but i never feel connected in any way to it that affects my thinking.

Half the time I go to any of these so-called doctors, I will be diagnosed with something, and the other half, they find nothing unusual or abnormal. The real problem is that society puts too much faith in doctors as some kind of infallible authority-figures. They are not. They are just puppets to a Medical-Industry just like Presidents are just puppets of a Political-System. The real decision-makers are the ones who own the doctors and institutions in which doctors work... medical-school is also just another form of an indoctrination-system (like television).

But most NTs can only feel emotional empathy when they've actually experienced the thing they should be empathetic about. That's what I'm always told over and over on WP when I question why most NTs struggle to understand things they haven't experienced, like being autistic for example.

I hate the word empathy. It's one of those words that has so many definitions, that I get confused. Usually the first thing that comes to most people's minds when the word empathy comes up, is "kind, caring, selfless, thoughtful, understanding". But if that's what empathy means as a blanket statement, then why are so many people with challenges (for example, Aspies), get so ostracized, misunderstood, overlooked, bullied, teased, and lots of other things throughout their lives? Why does Autism, Asperger's, Bipolar, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, Dementia, depression, ADHD, OCD, Fragile-X, Schitzephrenia, and many more things that not everyone has experienced in their lives, get so misunderstood?

I think your doctor has it backwards.

I was once told that previously, but it turned out my cognitive empathy is wonky too.

In my case, it was thought my emotional empathy had been delayed due to trauma.

I'm not really sure where to go from here. I know I am very different to most people and feel like a label will help me understand myslef and will help others understand me better too. I have a few options:

1. Ignore the assement outcome and say I have AS. This is highly unlikely as I like to be precise where possible.

2. Accept myslef for who I am. Also not going to happen.

3. Keep searching and researching.

What's wrong with researching?

No, it's definitely a lack of cognitive empathy rather than emotional empathy. Lack of emotional empathy is sociopathy (which doesn't necessarily make someone a terrible person, as they can have other drives towards doing good, I know actual sociopath and he fits Baron-Cohen's defination of 0+ empathy far better than any aspie I know, as well as the extreme male brain). Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, as autism isn't the complete lack of cognitive empathy (there is no such thing as that due to it's nature), and emotional empathy can also be impacted by deficits in cognitive empathy.

I really can't remember which is which,

I did this one empathy test and it basically said my empathy is s**t.

Your Empathy Quotient score was 17 out of a possible 80.
Scores of 30 or less indicate a lack of empathy common in people with Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome.

Ok now I know the difference, cognitive empathy is KNOWING when a person is feeling an emotion and understanding their emotions and emotional empathy is feeling what they're feeling.

I feel like I have horrible empathy for both,

But my psychologist explained it like this; " it's not an issue with the empathy, the issue is processing a facial expression and knowing what that facial expression is. An autistic person can't feel what another person is feeling if the autistic person can't read their face."

I would think autistic people would have worse emotional empathy for the reason stated, we can say "oh I know how that feels" but we can't tell when a person is upset without them telling us.

I think this is why I feel emotional empathy for objects instead of people, it's strange but I always felt bad for a stuffed toy or even something like a lamp if it were being abused to the point of crying, that's why I'm a hoarder.

Listen, modern psycholgy is not a real science. All psychological based statement/opinions should be taken with a grain of salt, they may be suggestive or indicative at best. So, please, don't take what psychologists say so seriously.

In my book, “cognitive empathy” is fake empathy. I have very much "emotional empathy", so if this is an essential autistic trait then I would definately NOT have autism (which would be fine with me, I don't care about labels). However, I do not have much empathy for people I do not know. For example, if there is a big human disaster on the other side of the world, I won't be sleeping any less because of that.