Empathy myth

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I scored a 56, and I was declared AS rather hastily 6 years ago on basis of issues with verbal communication with peers (fear of rejection that left me without friends), panic attacks, disorganisation, and problems (since resolved) that I had with eye contact. You do not necessarily need to lack empathy.
I don't even have any obsessions, either. All my other AS family members have at least one. Go figure.

One personality trait AS does not make.
As for the survey, I felt that some of the questions were probably background for research purposes. The answers are being recorded to their database. Otherwise, the name and gender fields would have been meaningless.

I got 13. But I think I have issues reading others intentions. This is not the same as lacking empathy.

I scored 11

Your score: 11
0 - 32 = low (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)
33 - 52 = average (most women score about 47 and most men score about 42)
53 - 63 is above average
64 - 80 is very high
80 is maximum

Basically I have almost no empathy at all.

However, I'm not considered at all as a person who lacks empathy. People say that I'm rude and blunt, but not unempathic. Of course, I care about the people around me, but this a personal choice, not an emotional need.

I'm not sure your psychologist is very aware of the difference between having empathy and caring for others.

I scored 17.

got to question 56 and then i gave up. there are too many questions.

I have a problem with tests like these. There are so many questions involving social interactions, what other people tell you about yourself, how you react in social situations, interactions with your friends, etc.

You have to have a social life to answer these questions. All I have to go by is a few family members and occasional interactions with a couple of their friends.

So I could only answer a lot of these questions according to things my relatives have told me about myself. I scored 17.

Empathy is the ability to intuit the other person's state of mind, what makes them click, etc. Compassion is wanting for them to feel better. The former can be used for different purposes, compassion being only one of those possible purposes, manipulation being another.

I don't feel like retaking that empathy test, but first time I did, I got a 9, second time a 14. (My empathy changes with my mood apparently) but I think a lot of people are confused on what empathy is, especially because you also got that sympathy word floating around...

Empathy vs. Sympathy
Definition:
Empathy: Understanding what someone else is feeling because you have experienced it yourself or can put yourself in their shoes.
Sympathy: Acknowledging a person's emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance.
Nursing:
Empathy: Relating with your patient because you have been in a similar situation or experience
Sympathy: Comforting your patient or their family
Scope:
Empathy: Personal, It can be one to many in some circumstances
Sympathy: From either one to another person or one to many (or one to a group).
Relationship:
Empathy: Personal
Sympathy: Friends, family and community ( the experience of others) .
Example:
Empathy: I know it's not easy to lose some weight because I have faced the same problems myself.
Sympathy: When people try to make changes like this (e.g. lose some weight) at first it seems difficult .

Going by that I found, I am definitely NOT empathetic at all. I have very little empathy. I DO have a lot of sympathy, though. I'm good with sympathy. I can /understand/ what people are feeling/going through if they tell me, but only intellectually , most of the time. Rarely ever emotionally.

....unless it's fiction, then I usually have a bit more empathy. I'm a lot more empathetic when it comes to fictional characters than it does real people...

I seem to pick up on the mood and emotional state of people around me. Took me a very long time to even begin sorting out between mine and foreign emotions, so much of my developmental years I learned to effectively ignore any/all emotional ques. It still can get me confused and I still operate primarily on reason and ignore the emotional prompts while in the moment, only after the fact do I ever retrace my steps and process and sort through what I was feeling, and what I was picking up from others.

Essentially, I am extremely empathetic, but am only further confused by it. So typically act as if emotion wasn't relevant.

No one is really privy to that information though, so I am sure I appear to onlookers as cold and unempathetic. And since my empathy is not functionally valuable, as it must be sifted through to identify the source, I may as well simply lack it entirely for all the good it does.

But I am getting better with time and experience. Maybe if I live to be a wizened old man it’ll come in handy.

32

i was joking in my previous post when i said i got to question 56 and gave up because there were too many questions (there are 60 questions in total). i found it funny.
anyway i got a score of 9 in that test.

after i got my result, i intended to hit the "back" button to answer the question "does it upset you to see animals in pain" differently (i answered "definitely agree") in order to see if it was either incremental or decremental to my empathy score, but i left that for later, and i accidentally closed the page in the meanwhile.

there are many more examples of lack of empathy that i can cite. i spoke long ago about not being infected by laughter or yawns, and now that all seems to be common knowledge among people who have considered what empathy is.

i do not flinch when i see someone injure themselves. most people will grimace in concert with another person who injures themselves. i am left on the outside of that feeling. i simply witness their process of injury, but it does not hurt me.

when someone wins a lottery i do not feel any inkling of joy on their behalf. i may approve of the fact that they won, but that is as far as it goes.
when someone jumps out of their seat and screams in euphoria because their football team scores a goal, i am unmoved. people cry at weddings, and i am bamboozled as to what causes them to cry.
girls fan their faces when a very good looking man (moreso a celebrity) pays attention to them, but i look at it like an insect may appraise the situation.

people who feel depressed for reasons that i would not feel depressed about fail to attract my sympathy.

people who are elated that they think they are on the track to fortune are left to traipse that track without my company.

i simply can not merge my mind with other peoples minds, and more sadly, their mental processes can not effect my mental condition.

so many people say "ohh....my...god!!" (with a pause between each of those words) these days that i am irritated by it. the trend toward acronym-ification ( OMG) is further repulsive to my mind.

they say it as a stock phrase with little encouragement from what befalls their minds.

also, people use the word "awesome" so often that i pay no attention to what they are talking about.

i know that my absence of empathy is injurious to my happiness because of a few things i have seen that requir empathy that i admire.

one example is stevie wonder song called "love having you around", i played it and recorded my version of it (although the file is on a dead computer in another room so i can not share it), but my version of the song was considered by everyone else to be mechanical and robotic, even though i copied every note correctly,

here is that song by stevie wonder. it is very empathic and NT, and i find the musicality of the song to be genius level talent, but my copy was just an architectural facsimile of it.

listen:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlkDRW3tiW4[/youtube]
it is so basally satisfying to a part of my musical personality. i love it.

but i also like the opposite sentiment like frank zappas "centrifical forze" because i also identify with that.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INiUOa095Q8[/youtube]

here is an example of my own rendition of a song that is a religious song, and so i guess you can see that i have no empathy because i just play note after note in a fashion that is more copied than inspired.

here is the real song that is spine tingling
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11467456
it is very beautiful and so is the girl who sings it.

here is my rendition which shows that all i can do is approximate in a robotic fashion what i admire in others,
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=8762779