Board index › Coping in life › The Haven

I feel that my feelings towards others are abnormal.

Page 2 of 4 [ 52 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Previous topic | Next topic

Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

09 Nov 2020, 6:50 am

Quote:
Your score was 61 out of a possible 80.

Scores above 30 are generally not indicative of an Autism Spectrum disorder.


I answered HONESTLY. Am I not autistic then, or am I just a rarity, being so we ALL are supposed to lack empathy? :roll:


_________________
Female


magz
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 1 Jun 2017
Age: 41
Gender: Female
Posts: 16,283
Location: Poland

09 Nov 2020, 7:14 am

Quote:
Your score was 25 out of a possible 80.
I'm not a great empath, either.


_________________
Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.

<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>


Teach51
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 28 Jan 2019
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,808
Location: Where angels do not fear to tread.

09 Nov 2020, 8:04 am

Joe90 wrote:
Quote:
Your score was 61 out of a possible 80.

Scores above 30 are generally not indicative of an Autism Spectrum disorder.


I answered HONESTLY. Am I not autistic then, or am I just a rarity, being so we ALL are supposed to lack empathy? :roll:


My aspie female friend has empathy. Not having empathy does not necessarily mean lacking feeling, just not always being able to metaphorically put yourself in someone elses shoes. That's my understanding anyway.I find that often non- autistics cannot do that either. Someone who has not been divorced, or widowed, or gone bankrupt cannot imagine how it really feels for someone else.
I am not "normal" either, I feel other people's pain as if it were my own, I was born that way. There is no "normal" it seems, just different.


_________________
My best will just have to be good enough.


kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

09 Nov 2020, 8:40 am

I read your "original post."

Honestly, I've encountered what you've experienced amongst many people, including myself (especially when I was young).

As long as you treat people decently, and don't take it out on other people when you get in a sort of a bad mood, you're okay in my book.



Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

09 Nov 2020, 11:36 am

Teach51 wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
Quote:
Your score was 61 out of a possible 80.

Scores above 30 are generally not indicative of an Autism Spectrum disorder.


I answered HONESTLY. Am I not autistic then, or am I just a rarity, being so we ALL are supposed to lack empathy? :roll:


My aspie female friend has empathy. Not having empathy does not necessarily mean lacking feeling, just not always being able to metaphorically put yourself in someone elses shoes. That's my understanding anyway.I find that often non- autistics cannot do that either. Someone who has not been divorced, or widowed, or gone bankrupt cannot imagine how it really feels for someone else.
I am not "normal" either, I feel other people's pain as if it were my own, I was born that way. There is no "normal" it seems, just different.


Then how come people in this thread sound like it's only Aspies that can only put themselves in the shoes of those with similar experiences? It really grinds my gears.


_________________
Female


Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

09 Nov 2020, 11:48 am

magz wrote:
First, there is no "right" way to feel about people. Feelings are feelings, they are signals you receive.

What you describe seems a lot like poor cognitive empathy. It's something completely different than being a narcissist or bad person. Rather, we may think of it as some kind of emotional-social dyslexia. It's hard to read emotional situations of others.


That is a better way of putting it. What the OP described doesn't indicate lack of emotional empathy at all. I'd say it's pretty normal. Empathy is not black and white. Not everyone feels empathy for everything all the time, even the most empathetic of people. Some people just do not feel the same as what you're feeling but then in another situation they could understand 100% how you're feeling.

Also NT guys express empathy less than NT women, and I read somewhere that guys have a harder time putting themselves in the shoes of others too (although not impossible).


_________________
Female


Mountain Goat
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 May 2019
Gender: Male
Posts: 15,014
Location: .

09 Nov 2020, 1:15 pm

madbutnotmad wrote:
Just out of interest, i just did the Empathy Quotient test, as listed above.
I got 20 out of 80, and i answered all the questions honestly, including loads of questions
that i thought if anything proved I was very empathetic.

A score below 30 apparently means that i have lack of empathy, although, i thought i wasn't that bad
in comparison to many of the NT people i know. Although the NT people i know, many of them probably are
sociopaths.

Lucky i didn't tune into the dark way they see the world, as someone with ASD who also is into the dark side of life,
isn't a great combination. This is what people who don't like me don't understand.

The person i am is the nice version of what i could be. So, as daft as i may appear to some, those who have crossed me in my life should thank God that i wasn't like many of them, who prey upon the weak and innocent for entertainment.

I am bad enough as it is, an ASD person with little empathy needs no dark influences.
I hate to think what would happen if someone with ASD did get into the dark side of life.
Probably not a good thought to stay on.

I prefer to bring light rather than stamp out light to create darkness.


I tried that test as wrll and the results really puzzled me. (See below my writing as I can't remember what they were. Like you, I answered as honestly as I could. One odd question says "Knows what other people are thinking. Yes/no."
I answered "No" because no one knows what another person is thinking. We are not telepathetic. We can't read minds. No one can.


_________________
Verifying you are human. This may take a few seconds...


Whale_Tuune
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Apr 2018
Age: 27
Gender: Female
Posts: 598
Location: Narnia

09 Nov 2020, 2:17 pm

SBC's definition of lacking empathy is not the colloquial one. He means "lacking in ability to recognize emotion", where most of us think of it as something like "lacking innate feelings of care or concern for others."

Honestly, he shouldn't have used such a fringe definition of empathy, which he ought to have known would be taken out of context, when he kept publicly insisting that "Autistic people lack empathy." :roll:


_________________
AQ: 36 (last I checked :p)


HighVamp913
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 1 Oct 2020
Age: 22
Gender: Female
Posts: 374
Location: In my head, Florida

09 Nov 2020, 2:30 pm

I thought I was going crazy. I feel like this too. I want to help people, want them to be happy, and comfortable. But if they are telling me something I also couldn't feel empathy unless I been through it. It's weird, I care, but I can't "feel".


_________________
~Taste the rainbow~
~Saturdayz for the boys~
~ADHD at its finest~
~I'm folding the dishes~
~Overthinker~


Pepe
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Jun 2013
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 26,635
Location: Australia

09 Nov 2020, 8:21 pm

HighVamp913 wrote:
I thought I was going crazy. I feel like this too. I want to help people, want them to be happy, and comfortable. But if they are telling me something I also couldn't feel empathy unless I been through it. It's weird, I care, but I can't "feel".


I have had too many experiences like that also.
It makes me feel empty.

We are not bad people.
It is part of being autistic.
What can you do? :shrug:



Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

10 Nov 2020, 12:36 am

I think I have some sort of phobic paranoia about psychopathy. Usually there's a phobia for everything, but when I typed in "fear of lacking empathy" in Google it didn't give me a name. So I'll just call it empaphobia, or something.

I think I get all highly strung when people say that autistics lack empathy for others for 2 reasons;
A, I feel a lot, in fact I feel too much and can be hypersensitive to other people's feelings, and B, if you look up psychopathy it will always say that psychopaths lack empathy. I know Aspies may say that psychopathy or sociopathy isn't a bad thing but it's still something I don't want to be and the way it is worded makes you sound like some sort of heartless maniac, even if it doesn't mean that.
I mean, if I said to a friend, "I'm a psychopath/sociopath" they'll probably think differently of me.

I scored high on the empathy test and the score did not surprise me either. I seem to have most of the traits of being an empath.


_________________
Female


Pepe
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Jun 2013
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 26,635
Location: Australia

10 Nov 2020, 12:54 am

Joe90 wrote:
I know Aspies may say that psychopathy or sociopathy isn't a bad thing


You would say it *IS* a bad thing, if you were a victim of them as many times as I have been. 8O

Psychopaths don't *have to* be bad.
They choose to be.



Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

10 Nov 2020, 1:17 am

Pepe wrote:
Joe90 wrote:
I know Aspies may say that psychopathy or sociopathy isn't a bad thing


You would say it *IS* a bad thing, if you were a victim of them as many times as I have been. 8O

Psychopaths don't *have to* be bad.
They choose to be.


I've been a victim of a psychopath before too. He was an evil, wicked person who preyed on vulnerable, young girls. He deserves to be locked up, only he gets away with his evil deeds because he's so good at lying that he can even convince the police that he's the victim instead of the villain. Everyone called him a psychopath who lacked empathy. I don't want to be compared with a guy like that, just because I have an ASD (he wasn't ASD).


_________________
Female


magz
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 1 Jun 2017
Age: 41
Gender: Female
Posts: 16,283
Location: Poland

10 Nov 2020, 6:18 am

"Lack of empathy" of autistics and "lack of empathy" of psychopaths happen on entirely different levels.
The former is difficulty understanding what other people feel.
The latter is not caring for what other people feel.
Completely different things.


_________________
Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.

<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>


Mountain Goat
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 May 2019
Gender: Male
Posts: 15,014
Location: .

10 Nov 2020, 7:49 am

I am concerned how people feel, which is why I am puzzled why I got a low score on empathy.


_________________
Verifying you are human. This may take a few seconds...


magz
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 1 Jun 2017
Age: 41
Gender: Female
Posts: 16,283
Location: Poland

10 Nov 2020, 7:56 am

Mountain Goat wrote:
I am concerned how people feel, which is why I am puzzled why I got a low score on empathy.

Because the SBC's test measured cognitive empathy - ability to read other people's emotional states.
Being concerned about them happens on different level.
It's like being deaf vs hearing but not caring. A deaf person can care very much for what someone says - but still may have serious difficulty receiving the message.


_________________
Let's not confuse being normal with being mentally healthy.

<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>