The empathy lie

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Noémie M. Cusson, Alexa J. Meilleur, Boris C. Bernhardt, Isabelle Soulières, Laurent Mottron, A systematic review and meta-analysis of empathy in autism: The influence of measures, Clinical Psychology Review, Volume 120, 2025, 102623, ISSN 0272-7358, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2025.102623.

I experienced something that might be classed as empathy just recently

I've never met my mother and I've only communicated with her via a third party, through digital messaging as she refuses to acknowledge me...that's cool

Anyway last week I got a notification from ancestry.com that there was half first cousin that had popped up. This threw the question of who my dad is into a completely different direction. It means the man who's name is on paper cannot be my dad.

So I tried to get back in contact with my mother but as usual there was nothing. Just her cousin telling me stuff I already know

Anyway something happened, I started to see the situation from my mother's point of view. I realised that even though the information is concerning my life/birth, it's also her secret to keep. She has kept this to herself for over half a century so it is literally (imo) her absolute right to keep the secret of how I came to be

Believe it or not this realisation has set me free. I've been able to draw a line under the whole lot and move on from it

I believe this was empathy because I was able to absolutely put myself in her shoes and see it from her perspective and even though I'll never meet this woman (my mother) I feel a connection to her and I somehow know the story and I know what she has been through and what it must have taken for her to keep this to herself for all of these years

The world was a very different place in 1972 when she would have been carrying me and all I can say is, is that I'm probably lucky to be alive

And I'm actually glad that I am as well

You probably have more empathy than you think. You seem pretty empathetic here, even when you say you're just being natural.

I feel empathy, like yesterday when my husband phoned and asked if I was okay with getting the bus back, as he is still unwell with his legs and didn't feel like coming all the way to my dad's to pick me up (as it's some 25 miles distance). I didn't really feel like getting the bus, but at the same time I felt a feeling of relief for him that he didn't have to come out and drive all the way here and that he could just stay and relax in the warm instead. I literally felt his relief, and it made me feel good, even as I was waiting in the freezing cold at the bus stop.

I'd say it was probably the most defining moment of my life

That's amazing, babybird. Congratulations!

I've been thinking about functional lack of affective empathy.

For example, if a child is distressed, a responsible adult response is to identify that distress but not mirror it - because it is the adult's job to model effective self-regulation.

I think autistic children are less likely to have adults competently identify our emotions and regulate their own responses. In other words, I suspect we are less likely to experience an attuned or empathic response to our emotions, and less likely to inherit working models of empathy. Then as we get a little older I think that many of us are poorly socialised as a result of autistic traits.

At the same time, because we experience and express things differently or because we don't receive that level of attunement or modelled self-regulation, many of us aren't really taught to self-regulate. Unregulated emotionality is painful. So I suspect a fair number of us end up suppressing what we don't know how to regulate. And I am wondering whether this contributes to some of the patchiness we see in how empathy in autistic people is identified and assessed: at either end of a range, with not much representation in the 'desirably functional' middle.

And what we are told, eventually, is we lack empathy, we don't self-regulate. Pfft.

I took Lexapro for a year, then stopped abruptly over 2-3 weeks. On it, I became manic and my autism became worse. I started talking too much and not caring that I offended people. God-like syndrome!

When I stopped it, I became irritable, angry and dangerous to people, being to people on purpose. I almost got arrested twice!! I got myself fired, sued and evicted during the withdrawal period. Five years after stopping, I am still not the same person I was before.

I lost the emotional attunement I had before the medication. Like it damaged part of my brain maybe?

I started to react very badly to coffee too, but can't stop drinking it. Coffee may be my problem more than Lexapro now!

Anyway, trying Lexapro, and not taking it as prescribed or being dilligent with doses and tapering off over months - derailed and almost completely ruined my life!

I haven't been able to put animals out of their misery because I've been so crippled by an empathic response to pain. I've had to call someone.

That is horrible. There isn't any effective difference between that and cruelty.