aspies and empathy

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same as me

I think I have empathy - a lot of it, but maybe all I do is apply the way I think I would feel in that situation to the other person. So I cant feel sorry for someone about something I think is trivial, but I can feel a lot for someone if its something I would consider important. What to do with the empathy is a problem though. I would tend to just keep it inside and end up appearing cold. And sympathy is another matter altogether. I either dont do it or I try and it comes out sounding fake.

This a very interesting topic.

I did not feel any empathy as a child, and little feeling towards family members when I was under the age of twelve.
When I first discovered the historical event known as the Holocaust (Hashoah in Hebrew) via reading about World War II I imediately felt the deepest sorrow. Seeing photographs of piles of those murdered by nazi vermin invoked rage within me (for the first time) and unmitigated sorrow for these victims. Later I learned about the Euthanasisa progamme the nazi butchers implimented to test gassing techniques on patients in psychiatric facilities in the third reich. which were used later to develop gas chambers to murder millions of Jews the nazis weren't able to eradicate through random shootings in their murderous campaign we know as the Final Solution.

I myself am not Jewish. I have been studying the theories and practice of genocides perpetrated by human beings for the last forty one years. I have always empathized with the victims of such evils because I realize that it could have been me. I speak out against racism and hatred because I realize what can and did happen because of it.
There are, I believe, two types of empathy. One of the posters in this forum described the kind expressed with individuals, ie listening and understanding and even helping a person in need. I am not able to empathize in this way, though I understand the mechanisms in the empathic expression.

I hope this response clarifies what empathy means to me.

Yes, when I was about to be diagnosed, the psychologist was in doubt whether I had Asperger's or PDD-NOS, because on the one hand he thought it looked a lot like Asperger's, so it wasn't "not otherwise specified"; on the other hand he thought I had too much empathy for him to be sure if it was Asperger's.
But that was the diagnosis I ended up getting... because I had so many different stims (14, both remaining and previous) that it weighed up my lack of lacking empathy, haha.

I have empathy but my stone-cold demeanor would convince you otherwise.

Emotionally absent and socially apathetic

Empathy is something I had to teach myself as a teenager/young adult. I tend to be spontaneously empathic toward those with higher needs, such as severely disabled individuals, small children, elderly individuals and animals. When it comes to friends and family memebers that have all of their faculties, I have a low tolerance for poor choices and therefore little empathy. I tend to be what would be considered overly logical/rational about most situations, but that is what makes sense to me.

Em...pa...thy?...Huh?

I have no almost zero empathy, but I fake it by being a good listener and helping with problems when I can.

hi there
i am not sure i even understand empathy i am sure i have zero empathy but if i new what it was i might have more than i think

I feel lots of empathy for people...and show it. Sometimes, I lack an understanding though of how something I've said may be offense to someone though. For me, this dx (diagnosis) of AS is very new...it seems a little weird to me that I can be a trained mental health therapist and also, a trained K-12 teacher of English and just now at at 37 have a diagnosis. I have suspected for almost a decade that I have AS, when I first worked with elementary school kids with Aspergers Syndrome, but didn't seek a formal diagnosis then...it didn't dawn on me that I'd really have it, since most people are dx'ed in childhood (I didn't know that it didn't show up in the DSM-IV until 1994 until very recently.)

Thanks for listening!

If anything, I am overwhelmed at times by feelings, including empathy. My face and body language rarely show it though, and it is this outward appearance of blankness that often causes people to see me as arrogant, cold and aloof.

It's funny you see this in others with Asperger's as well, CrazyCatGirl, as I was reading a thread on a Social Anxiety Disorder forum a month or two ago that was discussing how lacking those with AS are in emotional and social areas.

I tend not to have empathy for things that are far away (like darfur). Though if I see it right in front of me, I'll help. I tend to feel more empathy towards animals though. If I saw a child get hit by a car I'd call 911 and try to console parents, though if a puppy got hit by a car, I think I'd shatter. Maybe its cuz when animals get run over, we just leave them in the highway to be further flattened. When was the last time you saw a human baby roadkill?

I dunno though.

Never, oddly enough
People usually say I'm too obsessed with my friends though, as I don't have the boundaries. My friends don't mind though, they'll tell me if I'm going too far.

Last edited by ebec11 on 05 Apr 2008, 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, my favourite kitty was run over and I saw it - so horrible!

This is just a theory of mine and I'm sure it varies from person to person but I think that aspies are capable of empathy. It's just that our differences make it difficult for non aspies to empathize with us and the other way around. They say that we are incapable of empathy even though they are also deficient in that area. Rare is the truly empathetic human. Common is the plain old pathetic human.

I think I have a lot of empathy. I cry at chick movies! It's just that my empathy meter can shifts wildly from zero to 100 and be aimed in the wrong direction.

I can usually understand what people are feeling, but I don't always understand why. Especially when girls get emotional at my lack of understanding, like I'm not understanding on purpose.
I also sometimes feel guilt at other people's sadness, as if I caused it and am making it worse by not knowing how to comfort them. I also sometimes get annoyed when people show too much empathy towards me; sometimes I'd like them to act towards me the same way they act towards NTs. I don't usually hug people but I don't mind people hugging me (except for overenthusiastic huggers).