Your reaction to natural disasters / other people's grief

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Recent news just came up on telly and my family has been in tears. I've been trying to reflect on this and it seems that there's just a voice in me that goes 'That's horrible' and it stops at that for me, no physical display of any emotions in me (plenty visible in some other far less stressful incidents however).

Is there one specific way how people with ASD react in situations like this?

I can also space out when somebody speaks of something grave (such as suffering from a sickness) and laugh at my own thoughts; makes me feel terrible when I see what I'm doing and what it's about to cause.

Oh, one more - one kind of news I do empathise on a physical way (in a most literal sense of the word) is ones relating to people's bodies. I will often faint, for example, when seeing disfigured bodies of drug addicts on TV. If there's a report about a victim who lost their limbs, I will need some time until I can remember I do have mine still. It can be very strange.

I'll have to admit that I'm also unphased by news of disaster.
I'll get the same sort of "wow, that sucks" but it's a logical conclusion, no emotional reaction.
If it's far away and doesn't effect me directly, I'm unempathic.

I'm sure people will think less of me, but that's just the way it is.

I never get emotional over anything like that.
It just does not effect me in that way.

I get far more emotional over the late-night tv commercials of the mistreated animals than I do tragedy stories on the news. If around others during a news flash I will show what i think is some appropriate behaviour but outside of me saying to myself "Yeah, this sucks" it doesnt phase me much.

I don't really feel much about natural disasters, logically you know its a terrible thing but I cant bring myself to feel a great sense of grief. I feel incredibly awkward when others display grief, don't know how to react to it

I usually have three thoughts. First, it’s amazing that these things don’t happen more often (than they do). Second, when they do happen, it’s amazing more people do not get hurt/killed (given what you see on TV). Third, thank goodness those worst case scenarios (that run through my mind) don’t occur often.

Regarding “empathise[ing] on a physical way”, yeah that happens to me as well. I always found that a bit odd.

Frankly, I'm always grateful that I dodged that bullet. But my own life is more than enough tragedy for me to deal with.

I say, "Boy that's terrible," but I don't feel anything. Instead I just try not to imagine myself in their situation because it would be too much for me.

Of course if it were a loved one, I'd have a total meltdown which could last for weeks.

I can't watch the news and I can't watch movies. I have too much emotion in my life to manage, and I can't take any more.

Janes Addiction put it best: "The news is just another show"

There are enough tragedies like this that I don't feel like being sad about it. Concern alone about events that are unrelated to my life doesn't make things any better. I cannot feel the pain of people who were victims of the worst kinds of tragedies, so why should I feel obligated to feel the pain of people who were victims of lesser tragedies? For instance, I cannot feel the pain of someone who was a victim of brutal torture, because it is unimaginable to me. It kind of creates the temptation to dehumanize such victims because it's too difficult and too painful to try to empathize with them. It's a much darker feeling than that of just feeling the sadness of others. Thoughts like this haunt me more than anything else. With that in mind, how could lesser tragedies really have that much of an emotional impact on me?

I usually feel nothing or I'm laughing about it

I feel pretty bad for people who are in bad straights like the typhoon people. Whereas I don't think it's too horrible for people to be more concerned about their own problems that are much less dire, because face it, we have to deal with our problems and they feel bad to us - I hate it when people are in circumstances that are dangerous and miserable and UNNECESSARY. I hate that people starve when there is so much food, and I have no doubt it could come here and happen to us too.

Having said that after days and days of it, it does get desensitizing.

Like I feel bad for that girl that got shot in the head and I think she's pretty brave to say the least, but I'm tired of hearing about how amazing and wonderful she is. I'm sick of hearing about Kennedy. All that crap.

Unless it involves people that I know or animals, I just don't care, no matter how horrible it is. I have no idea why.

For me it depends. I am not even sure what it depends on. But I have had mixed reactions, some very stoic and detached and unemotional and others very emotional. I can be rather inconsistent with that.

Like the OP said, I am also sometimes freaked out by dismembered bodies or things that are "out of place". This was much stronger when I was much younger. But I am not bothered by people who have lost limbs or who were born disfigured. I am very bothered by unnatural dismemberment if that makes any sense. I don't know how to explain it so it may not make sense to anyone but me but maybe some of you can help me elaborate. It's the same type of fear I have when I see places like oil refineries at night. I know it seems weird and disconnected but hopefully some of you might understand and perhaps even relate.