Short answer: Yes.
I was discussing my AS with a newish and very smart friend of mine, and he said, "But you can't have AS, you clearly have empathy!"
In thinking about it since then, I would have to agree that I do, but how came it? Does it work in me in the same way as in those who developed it early and in the usual way?
I don't have it all clear in my head yet, but some things I have noticed:
I wasn't very empathetic right up through my teens. But then, I've always been very, very "inside my own head". My family have always said that I live in my own little world. So for starters, I wasn't paying much attention to others. I didn't look anyone in the eye or observe faces or body language, cause if I did, I didn't get information that connected me to them, but overwhelming and confusing nonsense instead. It seems obvious now that for one thing, I wasn't reading others' emotional states unless they were overt, very clear and unmistakeable.
I seem now to have sort of a Rube Goldberg, hit or miss empathy mechanism in place. Through imagination (I have an extremely vivid and active one), context, and a sort of remembering and connecting together of breakthrough empathetic moments I've had, combined with some rote "now is the time to say something like X" routines, I sometimes demonstrate something like real-time empathy. Given time to think about it, I can usually get into another's shoes, but 2 hrs later doesn't work socially. There are certain sorts of situations that have made a very significant impact on me, and I more adeptly read the effect of such events on others. Sometimes, I even "hurt for someone else". But it's not consistent, or effortless, and if I try too hard, I feel like some sort of pod-spawned alien trying to masquerade as a human being. I'd rather be thought callous, cold, uncaring, than go through a lot of work learning to deceive others.
But yes, I do have some real empathy.
