Empathy - Do you feel it?

[HidinginPlainSight]

I've read a lot about this over the past few years and I don't think I'm any closer to figuring out what it is.

Psychology Today defines it as such, "Empathy is the experience of understanding another person's thoughts, feelings, and condition from their point of view, rather than from your own."

There are lots of different, often confusing, takes on this line of thinking all over the internet. Many seem to confuse it with having feelings or not having the urge to be a serial killer.

To me, this notion of being able to feel feelings from anything other than your own point of view is as foreign to me as telepathy. Which would be fine, if people weren't so convinced that 99% of the population has this ability. I've even read a doctor of psychology calling it, "what makes us human." (seriously)

My take on this is quite simple: I don't have the capacity for it and have never felt it. I have a hard time believing anybody ever has. I have feelings. I have felt sympathy, concern and remorse in regards to other people, but I've only felt any of these things from my own point of view. My method of commiserating is to logically try to work out the issue, something which I have noticed is not something people look for in times of crisis.....yet another nuance that escapes my sense of reason.

I suppose I am posting this here to ask if anyone with the condition feels like they can feel empathy? Has anyone learned how to do this?

 

[Smiley]

I have way too much empathy. I can't even look at crying children without feeling their frustration and being near tears myself. It exhausts me to cut down trees because the trees don't want to be cut. (But I have to, because my house isn't a forest where all trees can grow freely.) If bugs are in my house, I catch them and put them outside - except the ticks, I have to kill any ticks that I find in the house. Anything alive, and even some "things", I can feel their feelings.

Or maybe I'm delusional, I don't know.

 

[Tom]

I have way too much empathy. I can't even look at crying children without feeling their frustration and being near tears myself. It exhausts me to cut down trees because the trees don't want to be cut. (But I have to, because my house isn't a forest where all trees can grow freely.) If bugs are in my house, I catch them and put them outside - except the ticks, I have to kill any ticks that I find in the house. Anything alive, and even some "things", I can feel their feelings.

Or maybe I'm delusional, I don't know.

No not delusional. I feel the same way about plants & trees and even more about critters, and bugs too. We did not do laundry for 4 days this week in multiple attempts to get a skitterish spider out of the washing machine.

But to the OP, I am not sure I would hang too much significance upon the words 'from their point of view'. Thats just one of many attempts to define it and not necessarily absolutely correct forever and all time. There may be more then one path to the same destination, empathy. I think in my case is is more like me projecting my own feelings on others. Using an example from above, I think a ant will be in pain/sad if it loses a leg because I would be in pain/sad if I lost mine.

 

[ksheehan88]

I'm definitely an empath. Far too much.

 

[tree]

For additional discussions of aspects of Empathy:

ASD - Empathy

How well can you "do" empathy?

Empathy

Higher empathy for animals?

Empathy or Compassion

Empathy

Empathy

(The 3 with the exact same link title go to different threads.)

 

[ECM2018]

This is an interesting topic and something I think about a lot. I definitely struggle with empathy. I hate feeling obligated to console a friend in pain. A friend of mine's father passed away a few years ago and I felt so lost as to what I was supposed to say or do. I just emulated what others were doing. I gave hugs, said I'm sorry. Listened with a certain look on my face, though I have never even come close to experiencing grief or going through a grieving period. I've never been close to someone who died, family or otherwise.

So I definitely feel sympathy, but not empathy. I use the same strategy as Tom as far as just imagining what I would feel like if the event happened to me. I also consider the textbook definition of empathy to be synonymous with telepathy. How the hell are you supposed to feel exactly what someone else feels? But there is another side to this thought that I also find fascinating...

When I watch movies, I can get absolutely overwhelmed with emotion in connection to the characters. If someone's dad dies in a movie, and it is performed well, I feel real heart-wrenching emotion for them. The same for people getting in a car wreck and the scenes of police telling the family, etc, etc. But say I'm driving down the road and see a car accident. Do I feel sad for the people who were involved? Nope! I want to slow down and see if I can see anything interesting. I want to see the twisted metal of the car. So why do I feel so strongly for fictional characters when I do not feel real people??? This is fascinating to me and I would love to hear others' thoughts. =)

 

[Mia]

Don't think that you can 'step into the shoes' of another person's mind. No one is a mind reader, no matter how much they claim to be. I can't read anyone's mind, even with the help of a lie detector test. I can pick up on clues in behaviour, from conversations, from the history of a person that I've known for a long time and from their motivations outlined in psychology.

I can walk in to a room full of people I've never met before, and decide certain things about them. How they dress, hold themselves, talk, interact, how they say what they say, what they hide or show in facial expressions. I can't read their minds, but I can pick up on some things about them that they're broadcasting without them even knowing. It's something I learned in childhood, to protect myself. And maybe as a female, we tend to be pushed into social relationships very early on. We are supposed to 'get along' with others from the get go.

While I was going here and there with my little group of friends and having tea parties and pretending to cook or make things from mud or picking berries in the fields. My brother was having fist fights with his best friend, and burning rubber with his bike and smashing into walls with his skateboard to see if the board or bike would be mangled. I experimented with that later, but he did it early on. Now he has more empathy for people, than most anyone I know. As he's experienced both sides of these interactions.

Suspect that you can only as a human being understand 'surface' indications of what another person is feeling. If you want to, or choose to. You can also ignore the broadcasting, if you feel too much. Either way, we all have empathy, it's what we choose to do with it, whether we act on it or not that is the key factor.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

"Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's position" (From Wikipedia)

In this circumstance feeling bad for trees getting cut because you are scared of being cut is not an example of having empathy, it's quite the opposite. Or having worries about the fate of ants because it's a fate you would not want for yourself. The frame of reference is still just yourself.

To me, or what I've gathered online, is that empathy is not just having a response but having a response which is appropriate to the situation. I know appropriate is a value based word and people can draw their own conclusions as to what it means.

So if you see a child spanked for discipline and breakdown in tears while the child shrugs it off and goes back to life and so does everyone around you, this is not an example of having too much empathy, it's once again an example of not having it.

 

[ksheehan88]

"Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's position" (From Wikipedia)

In this circumstance feeling bad for trees getting cut because you are scared of being cut is not an example of having empathy, it's quite the opposite. Or having worries about the fate of ants because it's a fate you would not want for yourself. The frame of reference is still just yourself.

To me, or what I've gathered online, is that empathy is not just having a response but having a response which is appropriate to the situation. I know appropriate is a value based word and people can draw their own conclusions as to what it means.

So if you see a child spanked for discipline and breakdown in tears while the child shrugs it off and goes back to life and so does everyone around you, this is not an example of having too much empathy, it's once again an example of not having it.

Would this then come down to an inability to regulate your emotions? Having an overabundance of feeling for something that isn't necessary?

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

This is an interesting topic and something I think about a lot. I definitely struggle with empathy. I hate feeling obligated to console a friend in pain.

I have difficulty consoling as well, but it's not because I don't care or feel sympathy. In fact, the feeling of sympathy can be overwhelming in those cases. Once a friend was having a problem and chose me to confide in.

After a while she said quite bluntly, "This is not what I need! Why can't you just feel sorry with me instead of trying to give me advice?"

I certainly did care about her problem, but my way of dealing with the situation was thinking of ways she could improve the situation and then not be sad. She really just wanted to have someone to share in her crying for the time and then, I presume, at some later time would think of a solution. The feeling of not being able to help was very upsetting to me.

From my point of view, I would have been thinking of a way to make the situation better and that was the only way I was able to approach her problem.

Almost needless to say, she never sought my support in an emotional matter again.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

Would this then come down to an inability to regulate your emotions? Having an overabundance of feeling for something that isn't necessary?

From what I have read, that would also qualify as not having empathy. Maybe not regulate, but to share in the feelings of others at the appropriate level. Perhaps regulate is the correct word, but I think of that as masking what your are actually feeling, while empathy require an intuitive response.

 

[Voltaic]

This is an interesting line of thought for me. Sometimes I understand all to well what emotions others are going through, but other times I am oblivious. The range of my empathy can go from mind Reading to the human equivalent of a apathetic brick... not that I have met a brick that cares about my emotions.

My brick like state comes from in the moment empathy. Knowing how what you say will be received before and after I say it is hard to understand, especially when I have to think quickly about what to say. Often, I am left hopelessly lost on why what I said spurred a neggative emotional reaction. I chalk this up to all the subtle socail nuances that I am daftly illiterate in.

Though, with a clear line of causation, I can understand others emotions and concerns. I both have to know the person well, and the events that transpired. In these rare moments, I can know every word the person will say before saying it.

Sympathy is often synonymous with empathy and used interchangeably, but for me it is a whole different story. To put it simply, I am quiet cold a lot of the times. On an emotional level, I am indifferent to other peoples emotions. On a logical level, I know sympathy is a useful tool, so I emulate it to the best of my abilities. There is no rhyme or reason to why I am cold in this way, for all I know it is just how my brain works, and just like all my other neurological shortcomings, I try my best to make up for them.

 

[Mia]

I certainly did care about her problem, but my way of dealing with the situation was thinking of ways she could improve the situation and then not be sad. She really just wanted to have someone to share in her crying for the time and then, I presume, at some later time would think of a solution. The feeling of not being able to help was very upsetting to me.

This is more a male difficulty, and likely has not so much to do with autism. Some people try to fix things, when presented with a problem they attempt to help with solutions. Rather than simply comfort and listen and nod their heads. Females in relationships often indicate that men want to 'fix' things.

Think in this situation it's more of a learning experience.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

This is more a male difficulty

Well I would agree that males, likely, struggle with empathy more. It's well documented and easy to believe. Through personal experience that goes beyond this one circumstance I can safely say I struggle with it more than most males. If I didn't care I certainly wouldn't be trying to find out just what empathy means to people or how people should react to the emotions of others. I think it's also safe to say that most males are not autistic. Part of my pathology is to understand the precise meaning of labels, especially one that's applied to me. Considering I know that I have depth of emotion that extends beyond myself, I find myself thinking about at what point that could be identified as empathy.

 

[AO1501]

I can't do empathy at all, unless I have experienced the same event and thus know for myself what it was like. A lot of people over the years have come to me to talk about bad things in their lives, and I have never any idea what they want from me or what to say, and even if I understand that they are hurting, I have nothing but practical things to suggest.

 

[Tom]

I love when people correct me, by telling me what I just told them. Add comprehension to your 'things to do' list.

 

[xudo]

How the hell are you supposed to feel exactly what someone else feels?

Exactly how I feel. It makes me unbearably uncomfortable if someone is upset or crying. I know I'm supposed to comfort them and know what to do but I'm dumbfounded. Even if I can sympathise, I cannot see it from their perspective. My Mum is overly empathetic - for example, two people were murdered in my city and people had placed lots of flowers outside the shop where they were killed. We walked past and she commented how sad it was that they'd been killed and she was upset. I was confused because she didn't know them, so why would you be upset? I get that it would be sad for their families, but why would I be sad? I find it strange that random strangers even left flowers.

When I watch movies, I can get absolutely overwhelmed with emotion in connection to the characters. If someone's dad dies in a movie, and it is performed well, I feel real heart-wrenching emotion for them. The same for people getting in a car wreck and the scenes of police telling the family, etc, etc. But say I'm driving down the road and see a car accident. Do I feel sad for the people who were involved? Nope! I want to slow down and see if I can see anything interesting. I want to see the twisted metal of the car.

It's like you read my mind I can get upset when watching a sad part in a film, but only if it involves an animal being hurt/dying or if it's an animated film (Up has the saddest opening ever.) If it's real people then I don't find I'm bothered, probably because logically I know it's not real. I'm the same as you described with things like accidents. "Cold" is a word that has been used to describe me many times.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

We walked past and she commented how sad it was that they'd been killed and she was upset. I was confused because she didn't know them, so why would you be upset?

Like on the news -how many died? Don't care.

They don't care either.

They say they do as they have the 'social overlay' as the way they represent themselves in the world.
In the social real certain acts have to be undertaken so that your self image is not threatened. Additionally that self image has to be conveyed in the traditional 'social realm' in a consistent way so that no consequences are paid.

Like I would say 'Im glad they're dead'

This has the same actual depth of meaning as 'i am sorry they're dead'

But it has a different social interpretation - and consequence.

I can often be controversial just to convey that difference in meaning .

They also don't know they're responding within this 'social mind' it's part of their DNA.

We don't have the social mind, interpreting things in a different way.
A much more individual way. Whilst we have commanalites individual thought and experience take on a higher prioiryt as part of our neurodiversity.

Look again at the statement 'im glad they're dead'
This can also be interpreted as a joke using their 'social mind'
Usually if they like you or know you (ie he can't mean that therefore bad joke,admonish)

If not they can move to offence,aggression etc. (This guy is evil,must be gossiped against)

Rarely will the dichotomy be understood.

All a subconscious interpretation of the social mind.
The NT overlay preventing normal existence!

 

[Propianotuner]

Empathy in the OP's sense is a myth. Everyone is separated by an experiential void. People merely theorize and some are better at it than others.

Why is the idea forwarded in the OP's sense so much? Because people in general are inordinately presumptive and slow at self skepticism.

 

[Iamnotarabot]

Never realy understood what empathy is about.I try to understand others problems, in one of the link posted its said that there is 2 empathy, cognitive and affective...
I guess this can be possible, I mean,I cry when I watch a tv show about others problems; why wouldnt I IRL?

But most of the time it doesnt realy happen, I dont have a lot example because my social life is quite empty, and what is blocking that affective empathy in my opinion is that we are easely overwhelmed in social situation, therefore we get "blocked" and may not be able to connect with others easely?

But I have a feeling that this can be worked on, isnt it?