When someone tells you her husband died

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Is it normal to feel something? I don't feel anything when someone shares feelings to me. If I see someone getting hurt I feel something or get some kind of reaction but if you tell me something bad happened to you I won't feel any empathy whatsoever. I have to see it. You can tell me you have schizophrenia, you just found out you have cancer, you lost your job, and on top of that your whole family has been killed. I won't feel a thing.


If I see someone in pain I will feel it but I have to see it. Finding out about it in any other way besides seeing it does nothing.

Is that the way it is for most people? Is it normal?

I know how you feel, i have a lot of trouble empathizing with people, i can fake it but not once have i actually felt sorrow or pitty for someone.

I don't think my sorrow is the same. It is more like I just feel more empty and nothingness but not that I feel that it is extremely bad.

I did feel something once when a girl told me that both her parents had died on one weekend, one in a car crash, the other by suicide. But it was more like thinking "oh god, what would I do if that ever happened to me?" and wondering how she could stay so calm about it.

Other than that.. pretty much. I don't feel anything when I'm just being told. I have to experience it myself. I didn't even feel anything when my mother told me that my father had died, and it stayed like that for weeks. I actually had to start missing him in everyday life to start grieving, the pure fact meant nothing to me.

I only feel sadness if the person who died had an important role in my life, or if the death was unexpected.

Thus, if I was married right now and my wife died, then I would definitely feel very sad.

I can try to be empathetic but its difficult I dont even cry when family members of mine die I get depressed though. I try to comfort them whenever I can though its not easy though.

I would be sorry for the lady, knowing that such a loss must hurt the person. Sorry as well as Knowing as in an intellectual, rational way. I couldn't feel sad myself.

I feel an unbearable sadness when I hear of something like that. I will think about it (maybe even obsess about it), for days, weeks or months. My ex-boss called me to tell me that one of my ex-colleagues had been widowed, suddenly. She was in her mid 30s. The pain I felt for her was immense. It's quite easy for me to empathise with her, as I only need to think of how I would feel, if my husband died suddenly, like her's. I went to the funeral, but she was whisked away and I never got a chance to see her there. I was actually quite glad about that, as I would have been in floods of tears and not helped her to keep her composure. But, I'm one of those highly sensitive people.

When I hear bad news from someone, I just feel empty and nothingness. I don't feel any emotion whatsoever. It doesn't matter how close I am to the person who had a bad thing happen to them.

Probably, but I wouldn't. Just another piece of information.
I would make the proper support noises though and I might even offer a hug. But, no, I wouldn't feel anything.

I must have empathy then, because a few weeks ago somebody told me that her husband has just died, and my eyes filled up with tears and instant she told me. I put my hand on her shoulder and said, ''oh...I'm sorry to hear that'', and for the rest of the day my eyes kept filling up with tears every time I thought about this lady.

I don't think everybody gets like that though.

My friend committed suicide last Thursday. We just went to his funeral on Monday. His mother found him, had he know she would have i don't think he would have done it, i think he thought the stepdad would find him since thats who took him to the doctors and he had an appt that day. He was the sweetest person you'd ever meet, he was just a pure of heart and soul person. He loved cats, he was so polite and respectful he was so amazing. I just wish he could see how much everyone loved him so he would have never killed himself. I had been crying for days. At the funeral my wife even cried and she hardly ever sheds a tear. She felt so bad for his mom and the whole family, all his little sisters. He was only 22. He was one of those awesome people who are not judgemental, they are just loving good people. It's so sad since he was so young.
The worst thing was that none of us expected him to kill himself. We had no idea he was so depressed. It's like a lot of us carry a guilt who knew him that maybe what ifs we missed a sign. I would have done anything to stop him had i known..

Usually if someone passes who i don't know yet i am told by another i give them my condolensces although i know there are no words that can fix the pain they have.

Does the amount of feeling or lack of feeling have to do with Subtypes of Autism/AS?

@Chloe33 Sorry to hear your friend died and the circumstances in which it happened. My brother committed suicide and it was my father who he was living with at the time that found him. At the time I was very angry that it went that way. I was very angry at my brother for doing that to us and feeling angry was what kept me going at that time. Later I went through the rest of the stages of grief.

It's hard for me to show empathy but I know I have empathy but just show it in a different way. If someone tells me they lost someone close to them. I have a list in my head I follow.

Before I did not know what to do say or feel. And had to keep reminding myself to do following things.

1. Give my condolences
2. Ask if they are all right.
3. Ask if they want to talk about it.
4. Ask myself if I feel comfortable and content with the support I have given.

If the person wants to talk about what happened I will give them my number and tell them they can call me any time of the day to talk about it.

If they do not want to talk about it. Then I will ask are you going to be al right? Then depending on the person tell them I will pray for them / Keep them in thought / make an arrangement for them (e.g. take over a shift)

I know I do not have much consoling words to give them. But my experience that people really appreciate it if you listen to them even if they are just saying the same thing over and over and give them the time and room to to air their emotions. Especially at that time that other might feel it is time for them to get over it.

For me it is more important that I am satisfied with the measures I have taken. I am not a mind reader and have a hard time guessing what the other expects of me if it is not spelled out. I might get it wrong some time. But I feel worse faking emotions I do not have at that time.

I used to feel sadness and empathy when I was little. I wanted the best for everybody. Around 11 that started disappearing though. I think over the years it went away altogether. I can sometimes feel it now though. Like when I read Chloe's post I cried a little.

But never feel guilty. It's not your fault you're numb that way. As long as you treat others as you'd like to be treated, and try to understand at least where others are coming from, you're doing great.

While not relating empathy or sadness very well, I tend to try to focus on the positives in that kind of situation.

Expressing items like

"Im sure he/she was a good person"

"He/she did a great many good things in their lives, focus on that"

Or get them to talk about the person.

I find these tactics to be more in tune with what Im capable of doing outside of showing an emotional response.

I'm not sure how this relates to the subtypes, but like many things about autism, ASD people seem to have a tendency to exist at one extreme or the other. In some situations or in general, they might feel emotionless. In other situations or in general, they may lack emotional inhibition, and therefore feel very extreme emotions. Valerie Gauss describes it by saying "emotional arousal systems work with an on/off switch instead of a dial". This means that unlike neurotypical people, autistic people tend to have no emotional middle-ground, and will respond either with emotional underarousal or or overarousal to the extent of overwhelm.

This might explain why most of the replies so far in this thread describing response to a sad event say either "I don't feel anything" or "I am overwhelmed by sadness". I definitely feel that my own reactions to things like this are either inappropriately emotionless (I feel nothing) or inappropriately emotional (I'm very upset, severely anxious, etc). Like the OP, I don't seem to feel anything when I am told about something, like a death. However, if I see someone in pain, I get very upset.