I have a question to ask autistic people

Post Reply New Topic

All replies hugely appreciated. I have a son who I recently discovered is autistic, far from being sad about this I am very happy. I've always known he was special and needed certain things (and not others, like going to school for example), in order to thrive.

It seems to me that autism is NOT defined by lack of empathy, far from it. I would almost like to re-name 'autism', since it implies illness, and it seems to me it only becomes a withdrawal from the world (specially from other people) when people born with these exceptional qualities are faced with aggravating environmental and social factors.

So my question is this, I only have experience of my son, though I've read a lot and seen a lot of youtube vids from autistic people...

Is it true what I believe, that rather than not having empathy, autistic people are instead born with EXCEPTIONAL EMPATHETIC AND SENSORY SKILLS? (empathy which extends not just to people, if not inhibited, but also to animals, objects, the world around..)

Thank you for all and any replies!!

hiya Katy welcome to our club to answer your question, I can tell you at least my own experience as an aspie male- I long have been extra-sensitive to light and sound, and also extra-sensitive to pain, both my own as well as other people's pain. I hate being in ERs not only for my pain but the even worse pains of others that seem to permeate the place like a fog.

Thank you already for that, VERY interesting about the sensory perceptions & feelings..it's especially interesting to hear this kind of personal experience:)

^^^prego I hope you find the best program for your child

From personal experience, while I wouldn't go as far as to call my empathetic skills "exceptional", I can positively say that I do indeed feel empathy, not only towards humans but, as you said, animals as well.

Yup. I have a sick empathy. When I see someone hurt I almost feel their pain as my own(although it isn't actual pain - more like itching) and I do anything I can to help. For example look for some medicine or bandage, bring it and hand it - without being asked. I hate gore scenes in movies because it makes me feel the itching pain too.

It's the same with both human and animals.
Stuff are slightly different - but if I see something broken I feel urge to fix it too. And I tend to threat stuff a lttle bit like humans/animals. For example when my phone asks for charging I am saying "Alright. Alright. Here is your food. <plugging changer in>" and when my computer broke I was crying as much as if a family member died - but it could just be attachment. I have some stuff I am very attached to, such as my favorite blanket or my stim toy.

my things are my friends also!

I've had a journey with empathy, from inconsistent outward expressions of it as a child, to super sensitive empathy more and more as an adult.

When I was a child, although I was intensely loving of animals and was an emotional wreck, crying and torn apart when my kitten died when I was five years old, when my grandmother died when I was 8, I couldn't connect to the grief, and I remember being unable to react to my mother's grief.

Important to note, it wasn't at all that I didn't care or felt emotionally cold. I knew I felt something, and intellectually I knew this was a sad thing and a loss to us all.

But I remember being in our family kitchen watching my mother lean against the sideboard and sob her heart out, and I didn't go to her or comfort her not because I didn't care but because I couldn't seem to connect to how to, or that I could in fact even do that. I can't describe it any better, it was kind of like a toddler first learning to walk and watching others run and the toddler doesn't yet connect to the possibility that he too has the ability to run if he tries.

As I got older and matured into an adult, I began to actually connect more and more to the suffering of others, in a way that actually grew to be closer and closer to feeling it myself or being able to imagine what it must be like.

Even though when I was child I was extremely imaginative in fact, because I was intensely creative and artistic and mildly talented in art, music, composing, etc, it's like I couldn't "imagine" my way into connecting with the feelings of other people. Other people were my disconnection area, not because I didn't want to but just because I somehow felt separated -- I can't really explain it more than that.

But as an adult, I attribute my growing empathy to the fact that I started to have my own serious losses of people closest to me, such as my parents dying. When my mother died -- to whom I was closest in the whole world -- I was an emotional wreck similar to when my pets had died. I fully felt the impact and my grief was severe, internal, external, I was devastated. That seemed to be the start of a different phase in my ability to empathize, because as the years went on and other devastations happened to me, I became actually super-sensitive to the sadness of other people, even strangers.

It began to be that even seeing a disaster on the news in which people were killed or injured, affected me because now I can fully connect with the personal tragedies which that event will inevitably be incurring to those strangers. These days I connect to and feel that extremely intensely to the point where I cry. It's not fake, it's not phony, I really am feeling pain for those people I don't even know. Personally I believe that it's because I've now been through things in my own life that caused me terrible emotional pain and loss on many levels, something about those flipped a switch in me regarding the same in others.

But it's been an arc of progress, from what must have looked like a child standing there impassively staring at my mother crying and not knowing that I could come out of myself and be an element in that situation -- I guess that's the very definition of "autism" -- you're "in yourself" and turned inward instead of feeling part of what's around you -- all the way to being able to learn what certain things might feel like because I'd been through them too and since we're all human there may be some shared feelings and reactions.

I'm now TOO tuned into the pain of others, and my empathy is too sensitive to even stand watching the news much of the time.

I have always had my emotions close to the surface in general ways, but the empathy took a while to grow and come to the surface also.

Ciao Katy! Benvuniti in Wrong Planet.

It is widely believed that autism causes a lack of empathy, but in the majority of cases this is far from being true. It would be more accurate to say that many people on the spectrum experience empathy to such a high degree that they find it too overwhelming to express outwardly, or in ways that conform to what neurotypicals regard as the norm. It is probably this that may make them seem to 'lack' empathy.

You are right to say that autism isn't an illness. Psychologists class it as a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder or condition. So of course your son is special; and you'll meet lots of other special people here. You've come to a good place.

I have a feeling that the lack of empathy thing maybe applies to those who are severe to moderately autistic (level 1 and 2). Ones who not just have difficulty with socializing, but are quite withdrawn. And I think in that case it may possibly be a matter of not quite grasping what empathy is or quite how it's supposed to feel. I believe that is the case with me at least.

My sensory issues are not too bad, just noise I don't like too much. I would say i almost have too much empathy. I get upset for animals, I get upset for other people and I almost treat some objects like they have feelings.

Watching the way my 7 year old daughter can dismiss toys etc I find quite hard at times.

The empathy thing is a debunked theory. This is true for all levels of autism. Even Autism 3.

It was a very popular theory about 20 years ago, and you'll still see remnants around because it was so popular. It was particularly popularized by few wives of men with symptoms of aspergers who wanted something to blame for their relationship troubles. Those "Married to Mr. Spock" books were very popular as are a lot of books about marriage and gender relations. Unfortunately, they did WAY more harm than good.

The current understanding of autism has nothing to do with low or high empathy. There are significant communication challenges, so many of us have a hard time expressing empathy. And because of our sensory problems, we can miss emotional scenes that are super obvious to others. But there is no difference between autistic people and NTs when it comes to empathy. Some of us are very empathic and intuitive and others are just the opposite. Most people are somewhere inbetween. I happen to be one of the hyper-empathizers and I'm very intuitive by nature.

Like all parents, you're going to have the joy of watching your son grow into who he's going to be. The Autism alone won't dictate that.

Okay that's what I figured. I think in my case I just have trouble understanding certain concepts. With the description of, "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another", I would say I'm not entirely sure if I always understand and share the feelings of others. I mean with more subtle abstract stuff. Or what seems abstract to me. Strong obvious stuff isn't a problem.

Last edited by EzraS on 28 Aug 2016, 8:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

My experience is close to that of Bird-in-Flight, and somewhat to Somanyspoons.

What I'd like to add/clarify is that people misidentified me as cold/un-empathetic because of traits like: (i) my inability to perceive or correctly identify what they were feeling; (ii) my focus on efficient task completion rather than "stroking"; and (iii) my false belief that people who complained about something wanted me to provide information or actions that would help fix it, rather than express sympathy for their plight.

Also (iv) my mistaken belief that people who asked me questions wanted my best effort at "true" answers, not moral support.

To Ezra, there's even a mild chance that this may even change for you as you get older, although always bearing in mind that everyone is different, and different levels and types of autism produce different journeys with these things, it goes without saying.

Even though I'm not of the same type of autism as yours is, still at your age I was actually very similar to you in this, strangely enough.