Empathy

[Katleya]

View attachment 37002 Personally, i am challenged with ( but not entirely lacking in) cognitive empathy. This means I'm pretty clueless about social cues, body language, facial expressions.

But, I've got loads of affective empathy. This means that once I do know how you feel, then I feel deep compassion.

Back to the social disability aspect of autism.... I'm lost as far as having a sense of how to correctly and appropriately communicate my compassion and support, especially personally, in realtime.

I actually misunderstood the cognitive empathy one, and it was your post that alerted me to it. I can't identify expressions, tone and the like, let alone use them to figure out their meaning. If I'm explained the situation, presented with the facts, then I can use my internal database and retrieve an analysis of the situation, and empathizing or not becomes very binary: already experienced something similar? Empathy. Haven't experienced it, nor can use a transversal situation? 404 Error, page 'empathy' not found.

'Showing appropriate concern' to me is what the NT world is about.
It doesnt mean they give two hoots. Its about showing they do.
Whereas i may give three hoots but don't express it in a way they will accept.
Partly because they may not want empathy (or help) but just some unthinking sop who says 'oh infeelmso bad for you etc' at the appropriate times.... so they can feel better about themselves for a bit ie when their self image that they have created for themselves is threatened you have tomfollow the rules...
'Oh, thats terrible' 'oh you're brilliant,you're not that bad' etc

Ding ding! Ten minutes is up, then its the other persons turn to do the same. Ie pretend they give a hoot, so they get a hoot back. Tit for tat, hoot for hoot.
Is it empathy? Is it just a fomalised form of ego rubbing that we don't adhere to?
Certainly we dont do that. Partly because its stupid,partly because we dont follow social rules too well.

My version 'shut up.stop complaining.go out and help somebody'

Works well for therapy but there's no repeat business. Would have to invent some kind of process to get people to come back...
Got it 'closure'

That's the thing: that little act they put on, that social 'dramedy' of sorts makes absolutely no sense to me. I'm sure I could theoretically develop the skills to pretend; that is, if I thought it was right and necessary. I know it would have a purpose and serve some interests, such as acceptance, but I can't say I care about being accepted by people who can't live without that fakeness in their life. I prefer honesty and constructive opinions. It's one of the few times where I'm thinking they are the ones who are wrong, and why should I change and adapt to them when the world would be a simpler & better place if more people were like we are?
I'm not one to play games, and if I did want to play games, I would watch Jeopardy! and crush the contestants from the comfort of my couch. But social & mental games? That sends me in "Get outta my face with that NT bullcrap" mode.
Anybody else rejecting even the principle?

 

[Mia]

I'm sure I could theoretically develop the skills to pretend; that is, if I thought it was right and necessary. I know it would have a purpose and serve some interests, such as acceptance, but I can't say I care about being accepted by people who can't live without that fakeness in their life. I prefer honesty and constructive opinions. It's one of the few times where I'm thinking they are the ones who are wrong, and why should I change and adapt to them when the world would be a simpler & better place if more people were like we are?

Think the only time that empathy is necessary is with small children who need comfort, and maybe in extreme circumstances if there's an accident or death and you have to help someone with shock or fear or extreme emotions. Usually only if you are close to them.

When someone I was close to passed away, my spouse was my comfort. He didn't pat my back, he listened and stood beside me at the funeral, he gave me tissues. He made me tea, but never acted in a cloying way. We didn't cry and hug one another in front of others. My sadness was private and personal. If that isn't empathy on my spouse's part, then I don't know anything about it.

 

[Kirsty]

View attachment 37002 Personally, i am challenged with ( but not entirely lacking in) cognitive empathy. This means I'm pretty clueless about social cues, body language, facial expressions.

But, I've got loads of affective empathy. This means that once I do know how you feel, then I feel deep compassion.

Back to the social disability aspect of autism.... I'm lost as far as having a sense of how to correctly and appropriately communicate my compassion and support, especially personally, in realtime.

Looks as though you have to 'brush' up on your skills.

 

[Thursday]

@Eruva Thank you for this post, seriously. I've been wondering about empathy myself as I am able to recognize when someone is in need and am even affected to the point where I want to cry when they're crying, but as for comforting them, I feel that my methods tend to be robotic. I'm a good listener, I can make jokes and even stand a hug from certain friends, but I don't know what to say most of the time and resort to scripts like "I'm sorry to hear that" or "I hope you feel better soon". I can't bring myself to lie about things...sometimes I have this inkling they want me to agree with them, but I just can't so I keep quiet instead.

'Showing appropriate concern' to me is what the NT world is about.
It doesnt mean they give two hoots. Its about showing they do.
Whereas i may give three hoots but don't express it in a way they will accept.

Agree so much with this.

 

[Maelstrom]

@Eruva Thank you for this post, seriously. I've been wondering about empathy myself as I am able to recognize when someone is in need and am even affected to the point where I want to cry when they're crying, but as for comforting them, I feel that my methods tend to be robotic. I'm a good listener, I can make jokes and even stand a hug from certain friends, but I don't know what to say most of the time and resort to scripts like "I'm sorry to hear that" or "I hope you feel better soon". I can't bring myself to lie about things...sometimes I have this inkling they want me to agree with them, but I just can't so I keep quiet instead.



Agree so much with this.

Sometimes less is more...if you don't know what to say just give them a little hug, or pat on the shoulder, or back, and say you are sorry life is treating them poorly...or something!

I try to put my self in the other persons shoes to know what they are thinking, or feeling...that is how I know when they feel bad.

 

[Bella Pines]

I have a) and c). I can put myself into other people's shoes and understand their point of view so have cognitive empathy. I do not suffer personal distress. But do have empathetic concern and can recognize people's distress and respond appropriately. However this is learned behavior.

 

[ksheehan88]

@Fridgemagnetman
It's that validation thing I don't do so well. By adding sympathy (not empathy) I feel like I am validating a persons choice to stay where they are (helplessness, gloom and doom, really negative, downward spiral of self sabotage) - I think this is your equivalent of ego rubbing?

I often feel by avoiding that and sticking to the facts I can home in on the possible root cause believing that if I know where something begins, we can look at the process and tweak a few behaviours to affect positive change.

That said, I believe it's a Lady's prerogative to feel listened to. Doesn't need anyone to fix things for her, just wants to be heard.
There is the possibility that my perception is a bit male-brained? (If it appears broken - find a way to fix it?)

I'm a fixer. Someone will tell me their woes and their problems, and my brain immediately goes into "problem solving" mode. They don't want me to fix their problems, they just want me to listen to them, but I can't just listen and pat them better, I need to help.

I feel peoples emotional pain, like someone else mentioned above. Not "Oh I know how you feel" in some vague way, but if someone is in distress, I feel that distress.

 

[InfinityRose]

I've always thought that the belief that people with autism lack empathy and sympathy was odd, as I've always been an empathetic person, sometimes to a fault. When I was a kid, I used to feel so bad about throwing inanimate objects away, that I would take them out of the trash and hide them from my mom. I was worried about "hurting their feelings." However, the way I express it could sometimes be misunderstood. For example, when I see someone crying in public, I'll usually ignore them and pretend they don't exist. To a lot of people, this could be seen as me being cold and uncaring. But actually, I do it because I know if I was upset enough to the point that I started crying in public, having someone draw attention to that fact would make me extremely embarrassed, and probably feel worse. So I'm really just treating them the way I'd like to be treated in a similar situation.

 

[Maelstrom]

Empathy is caring enough to try to make someone else feel better...knowing they feel bad is not enough...
To care enough to reach out...with kindness!
That is real Empathy!

 

[Shamar]

Years ago, I dismissed the idea that I could have Aspergers due to the word empathy. I had read that Aspies lack empathy, whereas I had social anxiety disorder which some think of as having too much empathy, so I thought the two were incompatible. More recently, I've come to the conclusion that when referring to autism, sometimes people are using a different definition of the word empathy. Instead of meaning the ability to recognize and feel what others feel, they mean the ability to respond to someone's emotions in a way that the other person deems appropriate.

Any thoughts on this? Which definition(s) do you think describe you?

Let me get this straight. Social anxiety is caused by too much empathy? The only people I can think of who could come up with something that self-contradictory and backwards would be politicians and academic intellectuals who have never visited the real world. None of whom have ever had my respect.

I have social anxiety to the point of social phobia, and I only feel empathy for suffering. And then mostly for animals or people suffering from outside causes. People who bring it on themselves get nothing from me