What to do with sympathy?

[Tcx]

I've been confused about the entirely sympathy(and empathy) section being one of asd's symptom and tried to analyze those accidents. I need some suggestions.

My friend once fell over on the rock pavement, her knees bruised and bled. Other friends all ran over to her comforting her expressing their highly concerning anxiety. I did nothing. I didn't move. I just stood far away from them. I wasn't attempting to say anything. I knew and I could feel the pain-- if I fell down I'd hurt too. However that didn't matter. That was a normal physical and nervous reaction. I could recite leukocyte- immune system and every details I've learned.
Why do I need to come to them decreasing the Oxygen proportion around her wound and even try to touch her wound with dirty hands for craziness's sake? We need to provide clean water and/or hydrogen peroxide or whatever cleaning her wound.
Why do I need to say something like "Are you hurt? Is it hurt a lot? How do you feel now? Don't worry we are here with you. Awwwww. Let me hug you you poor bae."
Why do they even do these behaviors? I can recognize I need to find them ointment or something. As to others, I have no idea.
Wound causes pain. It's a fact. If you aren't focusing on wound, the pain would be reduced.
My therapist told me I might be too nervous or merely didn't know what to do, at that moment I was suffering dissociation disease or whatever I didn't care and she said I'd 'regain' the feeling after I went out of *a noun, I forgot it* disorder.

I recall some awkward moments. When I was 7-10, or till 12, I used to ride on office chair sliding around my mom and her colleagues' in homeroom teachers' office. A couple of times I fell off the chair and suddenly all those teachers came to me stared at me loudly asking(shouting at)me lots of question every single time. Nonsense questions. I still remember when they haunted me, they freaked me out as horrible as MONSTERS. They turned out to be crazy when a random accident occurred.
I know they were consoling me but I can't receive their kindness or I can't transfer those into something such as virus I can be affected. I just... don't feel like doing that.

I can be sympathetic to others if I find a reason that I should be.
e.g. killing stray cats would let rats' population rising a lot.
e.g. long-time care for elderly. We get old day by day.
e.g. needy family support. We can't choose where to be born, we all need to survive.
When it comes to simple and small accidents as the above, I'll get wrecked.
Not to mention that I lost all of those friends owing to the fact "I stood there, doing nothing." And the same situation happened quite a few times.
Ugh, my therapist told me I might be *a noun, forgot again* of personality disorder.

Question: If I want to avoid myself being doing nothing again and getting isolated, what should I do? What should I say to them? Will they perceive that I comfort them without any emotion? Any better suggestion?

Oh...and, empathy. Before I realized the lack of empathy was associated with asd, I told my therapist I might not feel the empathy and how it worked and influenced me. She strictly claimed that everyone every behavior is based on empathy. I asked her give me some example I can related to. She seemed to be enraged.

I appreciate all of you reading and replying! I feel much less illusory after I joint this forum!

 

[Gritches]

Was it Antisocial personality disorder? That's a common misdiagnosis for Aspies. ASPD is characterized by a lack of both Cognitive and Affective empathy, the two types of empathy, and people with ASPD are more commonly known as psychopaths/sociopaths. However, in ASD we lack Cognitive empathy (recognizing facial cues, body language, such like that) while our sense of Affective empathy is intact (being able to feel the pain of others, as you describe).

If you lacked Affective empathy, it wouldn't occur to you at all that that girl needed water and Peroxide. However, we tend to express empathy in different ways, not so much the "OMG ARE YOU OKAY?!?!?!?!" crap. Personally, I would've felt the same thing and I would've acted on it to express my empathy, running and getting the Peroxide, bandages, and water while the others consoled her. That's the difference.

Admittedly, others can explain better than I can about the differences between ASD vs. NT expressions of empathy, and I expect they'll respond, my message here is not to worry too much about that personality disorder. You can still feel empathy, it's just different for us.

 

[Tom]

One of the reasons people do stuff like that is social bonding. Just like in Baboon troups or a pack of wolves, interpersonal gestures/concern increase the cohesion and strength of the pack. Closer knit packs do better then loose dissolute ones. So in a real sense its evolutionary adaptation. It sounds like your missing that little bit of programming (which happens fairly often with autism). Usually the best course, if you wish to be social, is to just mimic the actions of others you see so as to not appear aloof and unconcerned.

 

[Ambi]

I have no idea of non-ASD people genuinely have a natural emotional/instinctive reaction that leads them to run over and ask all of those questions, or if they have just been conditioned to do so. For me, I had to learn to do these things. Now it's logical - "oh, that's what you're supposed to do, that's my cue for such and such response." But I do not have an instinctive urge to do all of that. I have an instinctive concern for them to be unharmed or fixed - but the rest has been learned as the "required" response. There is no natural motivation to do all the rest. That can result in a lag in response - or even a reluctance.

 

[Kari_Cookie]

I’m NT, and when I get hurt, I think I would appriciate when my friends showed they worry and care about me. You said you didn’t do anything at that time, but you were thinking "We need to provide clean water and/or hydrogen peroxide or whatever cleaning her wound.” In my opinion, you were thinking of what’s best for your friend's situation.

Since we can’t do mind-reading yet, there’s no way for your friend to know you care about her unless you tell her or texting her to explain how you felt at that moment. I think if she understand and accept that’s your way of caring, she would still be your friend.

 

[Gracey]

My initial response to your friend falling over, for example, would be a logical process.

My reaction will be determined by what is before me in its varying degrees.

Observation -
Is there a real threat to loss of life?
The way the blood is lost will determine the severity and perhaps indicate which blood vessel. (Spurting, dripping, oozing)
Is she at risk of further danger by being on the floor in that spot
Are there any other injuries...

Physically I'm stood there 'doing nothing'
Mentally I'm assessing the damage and making the decision whether to call emergency services or help her up and assist with the wound?
Perhaps only then asking if she's okay but I'm sure the noises she's making and some body language (breath, moan, tense, baring weight) will let me know that also so there's no real need to ask,

It's just something that's done.


In other areas, regarding sympathy, someone feeling sorry for me over a particular circumstance, I can't stand it.

Empathy, (an understanding of my situation perhaps from personal experience) I can cope with much better.

 

[onlything]

I always found other people highly aggravating mostly due to their tendency to exaggerating the simplest of things. Especially as a teenager I couldn't stand this behaviour. It still annoys me, though I try not to behave rudely and to show at least a bit of concern every time.

Whenever someone cuts or burns themselves at work, I want to tell them to stop wailing, clean the wound and put the band aid on it so as not to contaminate it with dirt or the workspace with blood. Especially that these are the smallest of cuts, not threatening at all. This is what I expect from others when I'm hurt.

I understand my relatives' panic when a dog bit me on my neck when I was a child. It was a life-threatening situation, it scared me too. But when I fell on my knees or my vaccine wound, I would clean it and go on. When I get burnt at work, I put cold water on it and proceed with the job.

All this exaggerating is a real pain in the neck for me. Stop wailing like a five year old for god's sake, it's not the end of the world. It hurts? So yes, it hurts. Now grit your teeth and go on.

 

[SusanLR]

My initial response to your friend falling over, for example, would be a logical process.

My reaction will be determined by what is before me in its varying degrees.

Observation -
Is there a real threat to loss of life?
The way the blood is lost will determine the severity and perhaps indicate which blood vessel. (Spurting, dripping, oozing)
Is she at risk of further danger by being on the floor in that spot
Are there any other injuries...

Physically I'm stood there 'doing nothing'
Mentally I'm assessing the damage and making the decision whether to call emergency services or help her up and assist with the wound?
Perhaps only then asking if she's okay but I'm sure the noises she's making and some body language (breath, moan, tense, baring weight) will let me know that also so there's no real need to ask,

It's just something that's done.


In other areas, regarding sympathy, someone feeling sorry for me over a particular circumstance, I can't stand it.

Empathy, (an understanding of my situation perhaps from personal experience) I can cope with much better.

This best describes how I would react to such a situation also. Assessing the situation mentally is first.
Then what needs to be done.
To me it would make me feel better if I were hurt to have someone exhibit logical control over the situation more than a lot of the social interactions of verbal concerns.

 

[Tcx]

I’m NT, and when I get hurt, I think I would appriciate when my friends showed they worry and care about me. You said you didn’t do anything at that time, but you were thinking "We need to provide clean water and/or hydrogen peroxide or whatever cleaning her wound.” In my opinion, you were thinking of what’s best for your friend's situation.

Since we can’t do mind-reading yet, there’s no way for your friend to know you care about her unless you tell her or texting her to explain how you felt at that moment. I think if she understand and accept that’s your way of caring, she would still be your friend.

I didn't think that I need to help her or I want to do so. For now I don't think so neither. She should go to health center in school rather than being helped by all the others. She truly didn't need any other's help.
I'm unwillingly taught to provide whatever they should go getting them by themselves. In fact I'm impatient of these actions. She genuinely didn't have problems- no life risk, she can walk by herself and she didn't have specific genetic diseases that would cause her keeping bleeding.
They started spreading rumors that I was such a cold-blooded and cruel person next day. They didn't except that I became popular in my class and got genuine friends after that.

As for me, I'd become anxious if I'm helped by the others when I actually don't need their help. On contrary, once my friend had a car accident, I took care of her around 1 week.

 

[Kari_Cookie]

I didn't think that I need to help her or I want to do so. For now I don't think so neither. She should go to health center in school rather than being helped by all the others. She truly didn't need any other's help.
I'm unwillingly taught to provide whatever they should go getting them by themselves. In fact I'm impatient of these actions. She genuinely didn't have problems- no life risk, she can walk by herself and she didn't have specific genetic diseases that would cause her keeping bleeding.
They started spreading rumors that I was such a cold-blooded and cruel person next day. They didn't except that I became popular in my class and got genuine friends after that.

As for me, I'd become anxious if I'm helped by the others when I actually don't need their help. On contrary, once my friend had a car accident, I took care of her around 1 week.

same friend or different one?

 

[Tcx]

Different.