Slowly starting to realize we don't feel empathy

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They largely use empathy tests as a means of diagnosing autism...wouldn't they need to completely redefine what it means to be autistic if they took that away?

Research on empathy among women with an ASD is scant. Research samples were male dominated and they were mostly young males. It's necessary to realise that the findings of those samples can't be generalised with any validity.

Hmm, good point.

Perchance the OP is using a pluralist majestatis, a.k.a the royal we

I used to have trouble with this when, in reality, I thought the world expected me to have no empathy like they don't, so I was doing to please others. Which, ultimately, is what keeps the world evil. Or is it just me?

Yeah well, people often say that I lack empathy, but to me it looks like those who say it lack it, too. In reality it's probably just about different experiences; while I can sympathise with them, I sometimes can't empathise because I've never been in the same or even similiar situation. However, even more often than that I end up in a situation where an NT is unable to emphatise with me, and I assume it's for the same reasons. The reason its us autistic people who are said to lack empathy more than an average NT is because we are a minority and so there are less people with similiar experiences to us than there are for NTs.

Sociopathy is a character defect. Autism is not.

Autism is not the only condition where empathy is impaired, it is in brain damage, schizophrenic spectrum disorders, a few subtypes of bipolar, some forms of dementia like Pick's disease especially.

If it makes you feel better, yes we do lack empathy, but that doesn't mean we lack sympathy or emotions.
Empathy is not a concrete thing, a person lacks it if they do not demonstrate it. A person can not BE ABLE TO PERFORM THE ACTION of empathizing for a multitude of reasons. In autism I suspect it's from a problem with cognition, coherance, and information, possibly blunted emotional effect from growing up in some cases like mine which can be psychological, not neurological. Not out of a character defect.

Why exactly though is the focus just on autism? Maybe because the social view has added a moral component, if it were left to the medical view of it being a disorder to be treated or researched/worked on, then maybe there would be a lot less harping on about this one trait (not a symptom as empathy is not a concrete feeling like hunger) would not be so focused on.

Maybe also not letting it define you can also get more sympathy from other people, but ah well too many people want to let it define them.

Me: You’re carastrophizing over the girl you’ve been posting about.

Again, everyone is different. Everyone has a different view of what empathy actually means. It's going to be hard to find consensus in this topic.

Personally, I'm pretty sure I don't feel empathy. I understand what it is supposed to be, but outside of its actual definition, I don't have any real concept of what it's like to experience it.

I've learned sympathy, and how to look sympathetic, but if someone is grieving for example, I've never felt any connection to their emotion at all. Same with joy, elation or whatever. I've never 'shared' an emotional experience.

I had a lengthy discussion about the difference between sexual intercourse and 'making love' with an NT friend the other day. She said making love is a shared, deeply emotional feeling, where both people are sharing the same moments of love and elation. I have no understanding of how a human could possibly share an internal emotion with another person, but like I said to her, I don't feel bad, I've never experienced anything like that, so I don't miss it.

I'm not sure what that tells anyone, other than how I feel about the subject.

Saying "we are completely unable to feel empathy" is like a dyslexic saying about all dyslexics "we are completely unable to read or write". Both false statements. Dyslexic people can actually read and write, just like autistics can feel empathy. If a dyslexic person cannot read or write, it doesn't mean that person needs to speak for all the rest of the dyslexic people on the planet.