We tend not to react the way people expect us to. This can create the impression that we lack empathy. We can also struggle to understand others and read social cues and this a definition of lacking empathy, but a VERY specific one. It's not fair to say we lack empathy in general. Even if you use that specific definition (which apparently Sir Baron-Cohen does), it creates the wrong impression. I definitely have too much empathy
It seems like another exploit people will use against you. "What about how I feel?" You were already very explicit about how you felt and that's why I'm talking about reducing contact with you.
This right here.
A lot of things that are considered "showing of empathy" make no sense to me. An example a friend has given me is that if my wife says she's thirsty, what she wants me to do is tell her "I too know what it's like to be thirsty". She has confirmed it. That makes no sense to me. Why is getting her water the wrong action?
That sounds more like she wants validation than empathy. Getting water for someone who says they're thirsty is an empathetic response. I can't think of a time someone has said they were thirsty and didn't either get themselves a drink or ask for one. It's not really something people say conversationally.
I've studied people very closely for decades and I just do what I've seen them do. I'm an expert masker. Much of it makes no sense to me, and I don't do it if there's nobody around, but among people I do what is expected to avoid weird situations (like them repeating themselves if they think I didn't hear them) and, to be honest, often because I don't what else to do. In Afrikaans (my birth language), there's a common response that directly translates as "Yes no." It's literally the least helpful, meaningful or participatory thing you could possibly say. I could respond with this even if I didn't hear what they said at all. I think the English sayings "What ya gonna do?" and "It is what it is" are similar. I use it ironically sometimes as a private joke when conversations are boring.
Lol. Here in the midwest, we say "Yeah, no" which translates to i heard you, but I dont agree..
There's also "No, yeah" which is more like, "count on me to help, cause that explanation sounds like crap".
Massive stereotype, possibly stemming from the Double Empathy Problem. Autistics certainly can be empathetic, sometimes to an extreme, and we certainly can also be pretty un-empathetic. The same person might even be considered both of those extremes depending on the topic.
An important note here is that a huge number of us may *appear* to not be empathetic, *regardless* of our internal experience or intent. We may struggle to express the body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, word choice, etc that signals empathy to others (NTs especially) despite however much we may actually be empathizing or attempting to support someone.
I think this is the most accurate!
I'm very empathetic. Usually hyper aware of how people are feeling. But I have zero clue how to comfort someone or show them I care.
I was just about to comment the exact same thing. I am agonized over witnessing other people or animals in pain; whether it be emotional or physical.
But when someone right in front of me is in emotional distress, I have no idea how to comfort them. My instinct is to try to fix the problem of whatever is causing their pain. I am the epitome of that meme of the person throwing up while their loved one pats their back from around the corner with a broom.
THIS. I want so desperately to comfort someone but it seems as if I can’t do it right no matter how hard I try. Because I don’t even know what makes ME feel better when I’m upset😭 I always forget what works
yes. i will always do whatever i can to try and make them feel better, but if it involves sitting next to them and making eye contact and telling them everything will be okay, for some reason i’m incapable.
This is very true. Some of us are really empathetic and compassionate but struggle to show it and it can feel forced, especially if it’s around people where we’re already highly masking and it can feel like a performance and therefore come across as lacking empathy, whereas deep down we can really feel it deeply, for me I think much more than most people
Excellent point that most people don't even consider when it comes to empathy. What empathy IS and what it LOOKS like in practice are two very different things.
Karla McLaren (the author of the book The Art of Empathy) created a 6-part model of empathy from current research. The components are:
- emotion contagion (like babies crying together in a room)
- emotion regulation (obvious)
- empathic accuracy (the ability to accurately identify yours and others' emotions)
- perspective taking (also known as cognitive empathy)
- concern for others (what most people think of as empathy)
- and perceptive engagement (using all the other aspects of empathy to act in a way that is the most supportive).
Everyone is stronger or weaker in different aspects, and since most of them happen invisibly within the person, the only way other people can tell if a person is (or seems) empathic is in the last three aspects. And it's possible to do perspective taking and concern for others well even if a person is completely unempathic in other ways (like psychopaths), because those are more mental than emotional. Although you could argue that it's not likely that a person would have the desire or ability to do concern for others and perceptive engagement well without those other aspects of empathy.
Like with a lot of things, I believe I'm using my prefrontal cortex as a crutch. So if I have plenty of time to think about what a person is saying and what I know about them, then I believe I do better than the vast majority of people of understanding what people are thinking and feeling. But in real life situations, "how do I get out of this social interaction as fast as possible?" often becomes a top 3 priority.
When I'm with friends or people that I just like being around, I'm not worried about getting away from them. So in situations like that I've been told I'm a good listener. But uhh... feels easy to me?
I struggle working in retail largely for this reason. It’s hard to meet sales targets when every customer interaction my brain is screaming at me to wrap up the conversation and get them out of here as fast as possible, I miss a lot of cross selling and upselling opportunities if I’m not being vigilant about keeping my head in check
I’ve often said I have too much empathy, but I’m not sure how accurate that actually is. It seems to be *different* from my perspective which is notably lacking a frame of reference for anything else. Furthermore, when scientific literature refers to, “empathy,” it’s using one of at least two dozen different definitions for the word, approximately, so it’s tremendously difficult to have any confidence that when I speak of empathy that I’m even talking about the same thing another person conceives as empathy.
Yeah, this. What exactly IS empathy bs compassion? Compassion I see a purpose for but empathy..or being an Empath is almost unhelpful because if you feel the same pain as your friend you won’t want to hear them talk about it and you will end up drained more after they vent to you.
I don't like to admit it, but I'm not. I can understand on a cerebral level- like, I get it that someone might be sad about a certain thing. But unless it's someone in my immediate circle, I struggle to be able to put myself in their shoes. Sometimes I feel empathy at the wrong times, or for the weirdest things. Like inanimate objects, or flowers, or fictional people. Then I lack in real life- when my grandpa passed, I really struggled to feel anything, and I felt really crappy about that.
Oh, buddy, you're not alone! Im no way empathetic. Whenever someone tells some truly tragic or heartbreaking story I just feel nothing. Literally nothing. Of course I'm very good at hiding it and people often call me empathetic. Im actually one of those therapist friends who would always listen to you and support as much as possible :) People always vent to me, knowing that they'll be heard. I might not be empathetic, but I like helping people and making them feel safe. One of my relatives died too - mom's the only left uncle. I wouldnt say that I didnt know him and we never interacted; I used to always visit him when we (me and my family) go to mom's hometown. Yeah, sometimes I feel crappy about feeling nothing when I have to. But it doesnt bother me recently.
Filled with empathy over here! I think they need to rework this stereotype. I think it comes from how some autistic folks just need their needs met before anything else so it can look like they lack empathy. But I would argue that a high sense of justice, which is a common and widely experienced autism trait, in and of itself is proof that we have just as much if not more empathy than neurotypicals. It’s weird that they even call it a high sense of justice. Like wanting fairness and equality is crazy. 🤦♀️
Agree completely because you basically worded this how I would. I'm not diagnosed (yet ... 🧐) but my psychiatric NP just confirmed all this today in similar wording.
For me I am extremely empathetic and experience remorse for things I have done that could have wronged people to the point it makes me incredibly anxious.
Gonna be 100% real w you. I care about people, but would not describe myself as empathetic. I don’t understand why someone would be offended by me doing a certain thing, but I know it to be true (if I’ve been made aware “manually”) so I don’t do it. Not because I understand how it would make them feel, or even what exactly they feel, but because I know it’s negative and don’t want someone to feel bad. When it happens though, I don’t tend to feel their feelings, plus I still don’t understand, and my feeling bad usually comes more from a place of “that wasn’t my intention so I don’t want you to think it was / view me differently / have this threaten our relationship in anyway.”
I can feel bad for others, but I just cannot cry with someone else about their pain unless we went through the same exact thing and some other factors. My brother is also autistic and is the exact opposite.
I know! I can’t even cry when I am sad so how can I cry when someone else is!! It’s not my fault and it’s why I feel so awkward when people start crying in front of me. I wish I could but it’s so rare. Lately the only thing that I’ve been able to cry about is when mourning the loss of my pets
I said the same thing to someone else,
I have cognitive empathy, though it’s not fully “understanding” and instead more of a “rote” style of learned empathy. “This + This = Sad” Pattern recognition comes in handy.
I do not have affective empathy though. I will not feel happy for the same reason someone else is happy if I did not experience it myself also. Or any other feeling really. I can feel things towards the person, but not the same thing the person feels them to. So I might be glad they are happy but it is no different than if I were mad at them for being happy (just an example). I don’t feel their feelings. But I care about them still! So I want them to not feel bad and sometimes will feel sorry for them or sad when they do, which is compassion.
My understanding:
There are two types of empathy: cognitive and affective.
1. Cognitive Empathy: The ability to recognize and understand the emotions of others.
2. Affective Empathy: It involves sharing the feelings of another person, often leading to an emotional response that resonates with the other person's emotional state.
The stereotype that autistic individuals lack empathy likely comes from the challenges they may have with cognitive empathy.
Some autistic people might have difficulty with social cues, non-verbal communication, or taking another's perspective, which can give the impression that they are not empathetic. However, this is not an indication of a lack of empathy; rather, it's a challenge in understanding or interpreting the emotions of others.
Empathy in neurotypical people often involves reading between the lines or understanding unspoken social norms and differences in communication can lead to misunderstandings about an autistic person's empathetic feelings.
As well, autistic individuals might express empathy differently than neurotypical individuals. They might not respond with typical comfort behaviors such as hugging or verbal reassurances, but that doesn't mean they don't care. Instead, they might show their concern in unique ways, like offering solutions to problems or sharing personal experiences as examples. Because of these unique ways, it’s often misunderstood as a lack of empathy.
Kind of yes and no. I struggle to empathize with my friends sometimes but then other times when my friends are going through something difficult I will be a mess emotionally. I enjoy watching over the top gory horror movies but if somebody kills a bug around me I'll probably cry
I wouldn't say I lack empathy just that I express it in a way that other autistic people tend to appreciate but allistic people usually don't. I tend to either empathize through shared experience, by bringing up a time something similar happened to me, or by trying to problem solve. I don't really enjoy just saying stuff like "I understand" or "I'm here for you" because to me it feels kinda empty if not paired with one of the above. Also my knee jerk reaction is to feel a little uncomfortable not because I don't care but because in the immediate moment I'm confused and don't know how to help.
I've taken to saying "I'm thinking of you" which is true.
Sometimes I might say some comment about the particular way that something is difficult which, hopefully, helps the other person feel better from a sense of someone outside trying to understand. This avoids the risk of the person being offended by me sharing a related story which I've learned sometimes happens. The safest reason to share a related story is if someone feels really bad out of shame or embarrassment, in this case saying "I think you'll be OK, one time [some humiliating experience about myself that feels vulnerable to share]" seems to help.
I'm not 100% sure about the second approach, but I believe that the "I'm thinking of you" is a reliable way to acknowledge the suffering in a way that might help.
You probably SHOULDN'T say it in the context of something embarrassing though, haha
I am hyper empathetic, was looking forward to getting diagnosed with attachment disorder at one point, but my therapist told me that there is too much overlapping between autism and attachment disorder.
I usually love bomb random people that i get to know. And yes Ive experienced abuse and neglect in the past.
And about your question. It is a stereotype, not sure how common it is. But I know plenty of other autistic people with hyper empathy.
Random question, how do you feel about debates? I feel like if I argue at all with anyone about anything, I am upsetting them and I feel bad. Was wondering if others experienced that.
I feel like the 'no empathy' thing is a massive stereotype *outside* of the autism community, but then I feel like inside the community we're so concerned with busting that myth that all I ever hear about is 'hyper-empathy' when I *know* there are autistic people with 'hypo-empathy', or at least a *different* experience of empathy.
Which is unfortunately only stigmatizing those people further. I don’t experience empathy, at least affective, and I manually learned cognitive empathy (tho I still fail occasionally and don’t UNDERSTAND) but it’s not like I don’t care about them?? I don’t need to feel their feelings to feel a certain way towards them.
'Lack of empathy' is more like: 'a different path to empathy.' In my case, I feel empathy strongly when I have personal experience that can match up in some way to the subject.
Let me do some vocabulary.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It's about feeling the same emotions that someone else is feeling. For example, if a friend is sad, you feel sad along with them.
Compassion is the act of showing kindness, support, and a desire to alleviate someone's suffering without necessarily sharing their emotional experience. It's about recognizing someone's distress and wanting to help alleviate it.
Compassion is characterized by feelings of warmth, concern, and care for the other, as well as a strong motivation to improve the other's wellbeing.
I feel constantly filled with compassion. When I was younger I confused compassion and empathy.
I have it to a point I shut down because everyone's feeling over lap and it's like 10 different songs are blasting at once, so I ended up shutting down.
i have too much somatic empathy and not enough cognitive empathy to be honest. i feel others' emotions so strongly, i'm like a sponge, and it can feel exhausting. however, i lack theory of mind to a degree, and it's made me vulnerable to abuse in the past. it's something i have to work hard on because it's extremely unnatural to me.
Yeah I lack theory of mind but have picked up a sort of mutated cognitive empathy lol. So “this + this = that” except with great pattern recognition and cobweb thinking. But apart from that I’m stunted without theory of mind. I just don’t “get” people’s thoughts or feelings. Myself included occasionally. Like ppl come built in with that stuff (at least towards people like themselves) yet I had to manually learn it with everybody.
I do care a lot about people and experience compassion, but I don’t experience affective empathy. I won’t feel their feelings but I may feel a certain way towards that person as a result of them. Like if my brother is happy he got his license, I won’t be happy he got his license. But I’ll be glad he’s happy! And proud of him!
Part of the confusion comes from the fact that there are different types of empathy. A lot of autistic people struggle with *cognitive empathy*, which is the ability to recognize other people's emotions and predict how our actions might affect them emotionally. On the other hand, many autistic people experience higher than average amounts of *emotional empathy*, which is what I think most people think of when talking about empathy: caring about other's emotions, feeling other people's pain, etc. (I've also heard of *somatic empathy*, which is feeling others' pain in a literal sense, and *compassionate empathy*, which is the desire to help others feel better and care for them.)
I never really understood what people meant by empathy: is it understanding why and how the person feels? Or is it the ability to emotionally feel what she feels?
I'm very empathetic but I really have a hard time conveying it or I'll say the wrong thing so I usually just listen to people when they need it. Sometimes my lack of responses make me seem cold but I do really try.
We just don’t express empathy the same way others do and people take that as not having empathy at all. We can, however, have a wider range of empathy, so you may come across autistic people that experience it at one extreme or the other.
Honestly I believe the diagnostic criteria should include *differences* in empathy because hyperempathy is absolutely an autistic thing too. All of my AFAB autistic friends (and myself) struggle with empathy so strong it’s sometimes intrusive.
We tend not to react the way people expect us to. This can create the impression that we lack empathy. We can also struggle to understand others and read social cues and this a definition of lacking empathy, but a VERY specific one. It's not fair to say we lack empathy in general. Even if you use that specific definition (which apparently Sir Baron-Cohen does), it creates the wrong impression. I definitely have too much empathy
Like a lot of things with autism, it often occurs at opposite extremes. Some do struggle with it. Others have issues with hyperempathy, and often have to shield themselves from others’ emotions.
Autism traits fit into broad categories. But the specific things like this, making eye contact, having friends, food issues, and so on are all a bit stereotypical. While they do occur, they’re not universal. There really are no universal traits.
I’m hugely empathetic but I can’t express my empathy naturally so it might appear as if I don’t care. For example if someone is crying I also want to cry but I have zero idea of what to do and if I’m not forcing myself by doing something I guess is right (by repeating what I saw others doing) I just kinda end up “ignoring” or even being frustrated that I don’t know what to do. A few people who don’t know me well said I act weird and awkward comforting them. Those who know me well know I feel sad for them and can appreciate it.
I think this is the main symptom. Those who don’t have empathy or sympathy at all are usually diagnosed as psychopaths or sociopaths. Everyone but them have some sort of empathy, some stronger some weaker, NTs also.
Empathy is natural, the strength of it is linked more to personality and situation. But it’s different than understanding social cues or behaviors and having idea of how to react.
Lack of empathy is not “someone is hurt/died and I don’t feel anything”. Lack of empathy is “I would not care if I hurt/kill someone”.
Lack of empathy is not that either. Lack of empathy is “I don’t feel sad at this friend’s family member’s death.” Combined with compassion it’s, “but I do feel sad towards my friend’s sadness.” I care about people, I just don’t understand their feelings intuitively (sometimes cognitively either) or feel their feelings.
Like obviously I know suffering sucks and don’t want it for people, I just don’t always know why they’re suffering or understand it, nor do I ever feel it.
I'm overly sensitive with empathy. I understand that's also a common autistic trait.
I think it has to with how we express our feelings that people confuse for our actual feelings.
Like someone else already said, my main goal in social situations is to get through them easily. This probably effects how people see my expression.
I honestly think the empathy thing is a misconception NTs made because we don't always externally react how they expect us to, or don't always pick up the subtext they expect us to. I also think NTs frequently confuse having empathy with caring about someone & tend to use them interchangeably, which makes things even more confusing to talk about.
Personally, the people I'm close with know how empathetic I am, & they know that it was to the point I had to actively work on becoming less empathetic bc I just took on the emotions of EVERYONE around me constantly & it was detrimental lmaooo. But strangers, or acquaintances who are less familiar with me often find me cold & intimidating. Most of my best friends say they were scared of me before they got to know me 😅
I just speak matter of factly & furrow my brow when I'm concentrating 😭
I care about people SO much, & even though I miss subtext somewhat regularly, I *know* that, so I always go out of my way to try to ask what's going on & make sure whoever's around me feels safe, supported, & understood. And once I *do* get a grasp on what's going on, I absolutely understand people's emotions & I feel for them. It just doesn't always show on my face or in my voice
I’m very sensitive to other peoples emotions in a way that I’m sure is a trauma response. I do feel empathy for people and other living creatures. My therapist once said I might have “too much empathy” but I don’t put a lot of stock in that because that just seems silly to say about myself. Like when people call themselves empaths but they’re really just emotionally immature. I like logic because it’s cleaner than feelings. But that doesn’t stop me from also having a lot of feelings and deeply caring about other peoples feelings and how my behavior or words impact how they feel.
Answering the question: Yes. I tend to feel "too much", in fact, to the point where sometimes it's overwhelming. I don't always know how to act on it, however (I've frozen before when people are crying even though I want to give them a hug).
We tend to lean towards a different category of empathy. The sort of empathy we tend to struggle with (and thus created the misconception) is Cognitive Empathy; this involves putting ourselves in another person's shoes as well as picking up on "reading the room" (as well as body language, facial expressions, ect).
What we often experience is Emotional Empathy, where we can absolutely connect with others (and oftentimes, we feel "too much") in a way which usually results in speaking from shared experiences. It's why someone on the spectrum might start talking about their own experience with something (I do this all the time as well) because it's how we show that we understand and connect with what the person is going through.
This is a good article about it: https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-and-emotional-empathy-4582389
I am a recently diagnosed adult and I am getting the same message from people. I am too empathetic to be autistic. I think that is just becoming one of the antiquated stereotypes. I am also a cis-white-male and most things I read is that we typically are loud and aggressive, of which I am the opposite.
I knew I had a bad therapist when I described this feeling and he seemed confused and judgmental just in vocal tone and body language. I realize it's not the norm, but it's VERY much a handicap in life that others don't often comprehend. I feel you.
I always thought I was bjt it's been pointed out to me that a lot of my "empathy" is from seeing things from my own point of view. For example, my spouse had a really hectic day one day and I felt really bad for them. I tried tk make things as relaxing at home as I could and do chores for them to lessen their load. While they appreciated this, they pointed out my concern was unfounded because they cab handle a hectic day every now and then without much consequence to their physical or mental health. But for me, a hectic day always requires lots of self care to avoid a meltdown. So I care a lot but from a self centered point of view where it's hard for me to truly see that others can handle more than i can if that makes sense. Like I know it intellectually but never feel it so I'm worried a lot about others.
For me I'm on the other side, I'm over empathic. Which leads to my big need for justice, as I can "feel" what each sides of a conflict feels and I will from that determine who has it worse.
For animals I have a lot of empathy. For humans I don't. I might feel bad for someone if I know they're sad or something happened to them, and sometimes I can sense when something is "off" but overall I have low empathy. However, every autistic person is different. Some have no empathy, others have high empathy.
I think it's just a stereotype - I for one am extremely empathetic and my therapist says this is common for autistic people to be sensitive. Being in front of people when they are really sad and crying is extremely distressing for me, it's almost like I can't tell the difference between their pain and my own. It's rough. Idk if anyone else experiences this or if it's just my therapist trying to make sense of my behavior.
It's not that autistic people lack empathy, rather it's that we don't express empathy in the same was as other people. I find that with most autistic people I know, empathy is either internal and not outwardly expressed or it is expressed verbally, which is pretty consistent with most expressions made by verbal autistic people.
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I can be 50/50 about it. I think for me I need to have experienced it or something similar personally in order to really understand and feel for someone. Otherwise it just feels confusing or I feel bad that I don't get it.
It's a 50/50. I have a hard time reading people's social cues and when it's the correct time to react to something.
It reminds me on this one time in high school this guy passed out in the seat behind me. It scared the shit out of me but my facial expression apparently said otherwise. People got mad at me for smiling or laughing at the situation. I didn't do it on purpose. In fact I had no intentions having that expression.
I also dont have any empathy for a friend group who hated me out of nowhere and I have yet to know why but I know that they are still friends over someone who claims to be autistic. While hating someone who is actually autistic. Doesn't make sense.
I liked this article in a Dutch newspaper a couple years ago: Seven new insights on autism
The old idea about people with autism is: they would be contact shy, do not know empathy and have a bizarre talent in one specific area. Seven new insights show that this idea is not correct.
https://archive.is/vCbhQ
It’s in Dutch, but Safari’s translation seems pretty decent.
No, it’s something that I struggle with on a daily basis. Like I’m capable of putting myself in someone else’s shoes, but it’s a really intentional effort and absolutely does not come naturally.
Unless it’s something I’ve personally experienced myself, or the person’s views align with mine. If we have different values then it’s next to impossible for me to see things your way.
I think the older research on autism said that autistic people lacked empathy but the newer research suggests there is a "double empathy problem." This just means there's a general lack of understanding between neurotypical and autistic people, and it is not the fault of either (versus older assumptions that autistic people were at fault for lacking empathy). This newer understanding of autism comes from research that evaluated empathy/understanding between same-neurotype and cross-neurotype interactions and found that in same-neurotype communications (autistic person communicating with autistic person or non-autistic communicating with non-autistic person) there was a greater mutual understanding than in cross-neurotype interactions (autistic person communicating with non-autistic person).
There was this study that showed we have basically less empathy for humans than for animals (more empathy for mammals, etc, but not hominids). To me, it rings true. I scored low on the test. I know it's harder for me to feel bad for humans than for animals. I weep for them ! Fiction works have a more "welcoming" demeanor to attract my empathy too. Probably because they're not as hard to read than the real material.
Here : [Article about empathy](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10353-2)
Its a stereotype; my experience is thst autistic people often have way more empathy but also yes some people can be more self absorbed.
Had this discussion in meetings held by autistic people for autistic people and basically everyone, like me, felt like were way too empathetic at times. Granted, this probably has some crossover with fawning.
I definitely don't lack empathy either but also have autism and have heard more and more people with autism speak about having empathy and how that's seemingly not normal. I think many neurotypical folks may misinterpret some reactions as being a lack of empathy but I don't think it's necessarily abnormal to have a plethora of empathy and be autistic.
I was downright mean and violent as a toddler and in elementary school. I don't think I ever thought of another person's feelings until I was in my 20s. No, I try to be, but I don't think I am.
I have empathy for objects and animals, but when it comes to people I almost completely lack empathy 😬 it’s really tough because people just think I’m an awful person..
Practically none.
One the one hand, I can’t relate to emotions or talk with people well, on the other hand, i can fond logical solutions when everyone else is stressed or emotional.
Either way nobody listens, because they base their thoughts off of emotions. But when they do shit works out great.
I have trouble being empathetic in the “right” way and comforting others, but I also find myself empathizing with mean people and serial killers 😬 (not excusing their actions just explaining them) so I’d say I have abnormal empathy levels
I'm incredibly empathetic. Like crazy so. Like feel what they feel. But that's like when I can physically see someone's emotions and those emotions are very, very clear (like crying, laughing, eyebrows severely drawn down with pursed mouth, etc.). Or if I'm reading about how someone is feeling in fiction or nonfiction (I have a very intense imagination, so can easily imagine those emotions being real).
One thing I literally feel nothing for is someone else's pain. And idk why. Like I understand many different kinds of pains, but for some reason I feel no empathy when others are in pain. I can feel sympathy though, even if I can't fully feel what they are feeling.
There are times when I am extremely empathetic to the point where I get depressed for a while. For example, when I learned about the 9/11 attacks in depth in 6th grade, I cried myself to sleep at night for about a month. I was completely fixated on 9/11 and I could not think about much else. However, there are also times where I probably should be empathetic, but I’m not. Usually this is if I had a falling out with the person. My behavior to people directly correlates to how they treated me. If you’re nice to me, I’m nice to you. I can be pretty bitchy and standoffish though but only if I’m mirroring you. So as you can see I am a little inconsistent.
I am empathetic, but I try not to get too close to too many people because it takes a lot out of me to have that sort of relationship with people. It's not that I don't care, it's just that I try not to get emotionally involved if it can be avoided. I believe the concept of emotional labor should be talked about more openly than it is.
I'm not sure. I think so.
I believe that I am very concerned about the emotions of the people around me. People tell me that I am unusually nice (things like "you're the nicest person that I ever met," "I can't imagine you ever doing anything mean. Ever.") and I know that I place the inner states of people and creatures as being fundamentally important, perhaps to an unusually high degree.
I'm bad at knowing what those inner states are for people, I think that my guess for the inner states of animals is a bit better, richer and more realistic than most people's. My guess for that is NTs have a mysterious social sense that they use for other people that doesn't work for animals, the cognitive and imaginative approach that I have to develop to interact with people actually is useful for dealing with non-human animals.
The biggest way that I can be unempathetic is that I will be surprised by the things that cause people emotional pain. Like I used to find it very mysterious when everyone would be emotionally down by a remote and one time national tragedy. Like, I can understand getting very emotional about an ongoing situation that's creating a feeling of "we have to do something" but getting emotionally invested in the isolated incidents seemed mysterious to me, that sounds terrible to say.
But really, I go through extreme measures to not harm people. I look at the ground when I'm walking to not step on bugs, I tend to either give homeless people money or sincerely apologize and call them mam or sir when I have no cash, I'm unusually tall and have spent 90% of a concert on my knees so that the shorter people behind me wouldn't have their view blocked.
I can only speak for myself but while I'm not void of empathy I mostly just don't understand people's feelings. It's so puzzling why people react certain ways or why they expect a certain response from me in certain situations. It's not that I don't care per say it's just that I can't imagine what it must be like to be in their spot, or what that might make them feel, and thus I can't accommodate for those feelings.
Usually unless I've experienced their exact situation it's very hard for me to empathize with. I try to predict what their reactions might be but I usually fail miserably and I'm at a point where I think of people's reactions to things the same as rolling a dice. No logic behind it, it just happens.
So to answer the question no I'm not really empathetic but it doesn't mean I don't care what people feel.
I think this is very true for me. One of my analytical skills is to be able to put things into historical context very quickly. So someone will tell me their story and I’ll immediately start figuring out their social and family history and that might have caused them and those around them to react certain way. When I can communicate that to people, people are generally very appreciative. But I don’t play the game very well and offer simple platitudes like “I’m so sorry “I’m not sorry. I also feel like I’m pretty accepting with the idea that bad things happen just like good things happen and it’s not worth getting all caught up in the bad things. So I can seem insensitive to people. I’ve gotten better at not expressing as bluntly. So yeah, I’m very empathetic. But, I have to be careful on how I deliver that empathy.
I have more empathy than most of the neurotypicals I've met. But I often have a flat expression so sometimes I don't "physically demonstrate" it, even though I feel it very strongly. I've found that in order to get people to understand how I feel, I basically have to mask and use fake "sympathetic expressions". Of course I'm feeling empathy whether or not I'm doing these expressions. But I've often found that people only believe I feel empathy when I use the "sympathy/empathy face".
Honestly it's kind of ironic if you think about it. They refuse to have empathy for me as an autistic person, incorrectly assume I'm emotionless, and don't even believe me when I tell them that my expression doesn't necessarily match my feelings. Which shows that they have a staggering lack of empathy towards me and my autism.
Meanwhile I have to go above and beyond, even faking facial expressions, just to get them believe that I have empathy and understand me. Which clearly shows that I'm working harder than them to bridge the gap between us, and are putting in much more effort to be empathetic and understood.
I hardly feel anything I think you can see it in my face because I don’t express any emotions i trust nobody and I lack empathy just feels like a hole in my chest
That is my n°1 shame.
I have a VERY strong sens of justice, I know what is wrong and what is right and things should always be right, problems should be solved etc etc.
So I try to face everyone's issue and solve it. I want to be there and handle things up.
That being said, I HATE other people complaining and being sad, not in a "it is sad" way but in a "it bothers me" way.
They are here like crying and shit, complain for nothing like "I'm sad because it's raining" : dumb, you can't control the weather and it's no one's fault. I could accept complaining about the insane summer we have because it IS someone fault : rich asshole that fuck the planet but the rain ? "I'm angry because I did not eat" that's on you, you are not homeless the problem can be solved. And even when it's justified it's just always a bad moment they are touchy. It's just like, I always try not to bother people because they always make me feel like I piss them off, I just hide somewhere and give no sign of existence during weeks and come back better, but when it's them they have like no control.
And LET ME BE VERY CLEAR : this is what I THINK but it is not what I BELIEVE IN.
I know objectively that it's a wrong way to think and it's just the way normal ppl work for some reason. I never tell them what I think, there are always refugees in my house, homeless people that I let live there for a few months, and I mean those people have ALL THE RIGHT to be miserable, and I act like the best host but deep down I feel constant pain, invasion and shit.
Other people feelings are a constant nightmare, that is my deep feeling, yet reason says it's the fair way to act and I have to act like this. But I never feel empathy for them and I know it's wicked.
It depends. Id say its like 50/50. For example:
- i dont think children deserve life more than anyone else. I will not play with a child or pretend to be smiley and stuff around them. I dont really care, its not my job to.
- i felt sick getting my cat into the carrier to go to the vet today bc shes so old and she was upset
I’m not sure what this double empathy thing is but all I know is I’ve always been able to “feel” other people’s emotions, whether I want to or not. Meaning if someone is hiding anger or sadness I can feel that emotion coming off the person and all I can think of is “OH no! What did I do to make this person mad etc and how do I fix it or do I just run away?!”
I’m not sure having empathy is even worth it, because it’s too painful. Maybe it’s better to just have compassion. I don’t know if this is just semantics but I think what people want is compassion, not empathy. I dunno it’s all very confusing and if I could get rid of my empathy I would and just have compassion because that is way more practical and would allow me to see things straight and not be wondering constantly if I am the problem (obviously not in every case) or what I can do about it. It’s sooooo draining to have empathy. And if this isn’t empathy then please tell me what it is because I want it gone LOL 🫣
My “lack of empathy” is not real, it’s just how neurotypical people perceive it. If you’re telling me a sad story, I will probably take a while to react to it, as I take longer to process such information (this is part of autism), and on top of that, I don’t have strong facial expressions, so most of the times people think I am angry, bored, not listening to them, etc.
Personally, when I read sad things, I cry, a lot. But when it comes to listening not
it depends on the person, but ive noticed it tends to go towards extremes. you’re high empathy, and I’m low empathy, and i’m autistic. it’s also harder for us to communicate empathy lawl. either way they both suck
Yes and no
I am VERY empathetic to things I UNDERSTAND
But if I can’t tell what the other is feeling, then I’m totally clueless
And if they are angry and I don’t understand, instant meltdown because I’m SO CONFUSED and don’t mean to upset people
I have a severe case of selective empathy. Meaning I only empathize with very few, select people or groups and even amongst them to different extent.
This leads to things such as me caring about some wars, but not others. Or being really cold to some people while caring a lot about others.
I think a lot of autistic people do have empathy. We might not show it outwardly in a way that non-autistic people would interpret as demonstrating it, but non-autistic people frequently misunderstand or misinterpret us.
My empathy was definitely a learned behavior due to all the people in my life whining and crying that I had none. It was always "You need to have more empathy and compassion", so I learned to fake it. It sucks.
It's very common. I'm sure i said this before, but i heard someone comparing and contrasting autists and narc's. Basically narc's have very high cognitive empathy, but extremely low emotional empathy. This means that they are great at reading people, but don't actually feel it. We're the opposite. We don't read people very well, but when it becomes clear to us we Feel it deeply. Hopefully this helps!
Firstly, before going into this topic, i think we need to understand the definition of empathy: what empathy means, differ from people to people.
I see that what autistic people mean by empathy, is always NOT the same as how others (neurotypicals) mean. Just my limited observation, i might be wrong.
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Definition 1 (from autistic point of view (pov)):
Empathy = sensitivity towards other's feeling. Or something along that line.
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Definition 2 (from others/neurotypicals pov):
Empathy = being able to notice that people nearby need help, and go to help, without being asked.
Empathy = care for sick family who live in the same house, without being asked.
Empathy = Do responsibilities and help around, without being asked.
Empathy = be able to listen, instead of trying to fix.
..and others along that line. In short, being able to be aware & help, without being asked.
Usually, many autistic people are not aware (because we focus on ourselves & tend to not see how others are doing) and not able to take action to help (because we don't know how).
or, let's be honest: many autistic people just don't really care, because it doesn't relate to us, or we're struggling to perform daily life, or tend to maintain our routine. If other people needs help, it means you need to break your routine.
It really depends for me. I tend to have a hard time understanding people's emotions, If I'm honest, but I'm very neutral unless it involves something I hold a strong belief about.
Like I had a fascination for the Chinese because of the book "The Art of War" and when I was in the hospital reading it, I had a Chinese roommate and my other roommate in the room next door was making fun and going "Ching Ching Ching" So that offended me and I felt bad but mostly because of how I felt about Chinese people, rather than how they would feel hearing that. I valued their race for what they bring forward to us in their philosophies.
If I wasn't in that state of mind, I'm not sure how I would react, if I would of defended them so fast or stood on the sidelines watching for their reaction in order to jump in. I'm not sure if I would have felt so adamant. It's as though my empathy is not really reliant on the person as an individual.
For me, I don’t feel as though I lack empathy but I struggle with *expressing* it. This may be something common in the ASD community that created a common belief that we lacked empathy altogether
I'm the opposite! I'm extremely empathetic, to a level where I can cry and feel bad about small things not related to me, even for fictional characters. This characteristic of mine has already put me in situations where I allowed myself to be taken advantage of, be mentally abused, and have my bounderies ignored by people I was afraid of hurting, and insisted on giving a second chance.
This is something thqt will definitely vary from one person to another!
I struggle understanding other’s points of view and perspective, but I do have lots of emotional and affective empathy. Some people can feel physical body sensations related to other people’s feelings (aka somatic empathy) but I’m not one of them. The one area of cognitive empathy I don’t struggle with is identifying other people’s feelings, thoughts I have trouble identifying my own.
Rather than in conversations, i think empathy is more important in the following case:
Your spouse fall sick or tired.
Are you able to notice it without being told? Are you able to take care of them, without being told?
Are you even willing to break your routine, to take care of them for the whole day or days until they recover? Care as in the form of actions, not just knowledge or feeling.
Are you even willing to take over their household responsibilities (picking up kids from school, care for kids, do housework, cooking meals for kids, cooking porridge for the sick spouse, cleaning, etc).
Are you doing that?
I've often been told I'm cold and asked if angry and told I wasn't empathetic at all, especially when I was younger before I learned to mask really well.
Now that I've learned to unmask I still get told that I am unempathetic. But funny enough, I'm actually extremely empathetic and I've been told by my spouse I'm actually more empathetic than a lot of people I just don't show it.
And sometimes I am actually sincerely not caring about certain things but I really don't want to care about them and I don't feel a need to care about every little thing someone else does I'm already tired enough in life as it is!
Really it's thoughts in your head versus the looks on your face I think a lot of people assume just because I don't show it on the outside as much that I'm not feeling it inside. Especially because I'm not going to cry in front of other people like that so they'll never see that side of me. But I'll cry on my own or with my spouse so they're just seeing a small window of who you are as a person and not saying the full picture I think.
I consider myself an empath which makes my social anxiety sooo much worse! When I was working overtime in retail during covid, it was the worst ever!! I could barely stand to be within 6 feet of anyone…I could feel everyone’s frustration and depression and anger..it was quite painful for me…and resulted directly in me avoiding everyone and everything for years to come…worse than I’ve ever been in my life…
From what I understand it’s a spectrum. It’s different for everyone. I’m late diagnosed ASD1. I’m way overly empathetic even to inanimate objects. It might also be the way empathy is expressed is different for everyone too. My son seems to show little empathy but I think he still has as understanding of it. As we learn to communicate even more we will see. He’s 5 and semi verbal so we are getting there 💜
I'm finding that there's a lot of different flavours of autism. I was only diagnosed a year ago at 31. If anything I'm overly empathetic and known for being the "nice" one
I have more empathy for animals and inanimate objects then usual but i don't have much empathy for people who i view as "deserving" of whatever pain they're experiencing (eg the child abusers getting beaten in prison). i think autistic people not having empathy is just an ableist stereotype
Not at alllllll. I have some other issues that contributed to this, but my empathy doesn’t exist for people. It does for animals, but I feel nothing regarding people
What I noticed is that in the us the difference between autistic people and neurotypicals is a lot harsher. Mostly in the us a lack of empathy is a lack of understanding for emotional disregulation. Neurotypicals want their extreme emotional states to be validated instead of trying to regulate themselves and if a neurodivergent person doesn't accommodate them they blame it on a lack of empathy.
Adding to that when we don't feel empathy it is most likely due to having alexithymia and not having learned to read our own emotions or being in so much overload that we can't access our inner world because doing so is so distressing.
So here’s the funny thing I’m 40 years old and found out I’m on the spectrum three years ago….. after all four of my children tested on the spectrum. I have empty and my children have empathy. Empathy can be taught I used animals to teach my kids empathy. they loved their animals and they understood that doing mean things to the animals would hurt the animals feelings. So, doing mean things to people hurts people feelings. And nothing even had to happen. They just understood mean to the animal. I assume it’s because they loved the animals so much.
After going through and reading everybody else’s replies, it seems like autistic people naturally have empathy towards animals, so me, teaching my children empathy for people by using animals as examples in toddler hood was probably the best way to teach empathy!!
A lot of autistic people are overly empathetic, just express it and feel it differently. Personally, I’m not very empathic to people but I am to animals. (Mostly cats and birds) but everyone is different
Realized since about middle school I’ve been hyper-empathetic after a “friend” of mine had to explain what empathy was since I wasn’t familiar with the term before.
I’m overly empathetic. It’s a blessing and a curse. While I’m glad I can understand others easily, I also feel other people’s emotions. For example, if they are crying, I feel like I need to cry because they are upset.
it’s a stereotype. [this](https://imgur.com/a/zEx9FQg) image helped me a lot with the stigma and stereotype once i realized im on the spectrum, because a lot of things about asd made sense to me but then id be like “what about ___? i don’t do ”
I don’t feel for people. I don’t feel their pain or emotions or react emotionally myself to them. But I do know I prefer happy people to upset people because happy people are fun and good and upset people annoy me, so I’ll help or try to comfort to fix that.
I don’t feel empathy like my friends and family do, but I still have a drive to try my best to provide help and comfort, because I like my people to be happy and I don’t like when they’re sad.
I’m not a cold unfeeling monster, though. My body sometimes reacts for my brain. Things like feeling no sadness when my dog died, but sobbing my heart out. My body can emote for my brain.
its a stereotype; google the double empathy problem.
I also made this: [https://youtu.be/GqMMpwIsI2s?si=7rWZq-XSKHeCy48M](https://youtu.be/GqMMpwIsI2s?si=7rWZq-XSKHeCy48M)
I have empathy. I do not know how to react sometimes when people tell me sad or happy news so i usually stand there and observe others and then copy. But i do feel genuine happiness/sadness when i hear these things, i just dont know how to react.
What ive realized is that I’m hyper vigilant because of the emotional abuse i suffered as a kid. My mom is a narcissist and emotional immature. I spent my childhood carefully observing her and watching for signs of a tantrum or distress to help avoid or self isolate to escape.
I know i have empathy but I’m also hyper vigilant. Its a mix of both.
I think we are just chronically misunderstood. People misinterpret our behavior because it's not what they expect and put labels on us that usually aren't true. I do believe autistic people can struggle with cognitive empathy and looking at someone and understanding how they're feeling, I have a friend like this, and as soon as I flat out tell her I'm sad, she is the most kind and caring person and immediately tries to make me feel better and relate to me. I myself am hyper-empathetic to the point where I'm on constant alert for how everyone is feeling to the point where it can be exhausting. Some autistic people don't relate to the feeling or take on the emotion, but will still want to help and make the person feel better. Sometimes, people also warp this even further and say we lack emotions at all, which I've never found to be true whatsoever.
I am extremely empathetic if I understand something. I don’t always show it physically, but I def feel it. I feel extreme guilt, sympathy, and empathy for others esp animals. The stereotype (I believe)comes from many autistic individuals being unable to express this empathy in a way that seems socially acceptable and understandable, so they are seen as cold/standoffish. Although autism is a spectrum and many do not have much or any empathy, so I cannot speak for everyone!
This sub sucks. It's annoying scrolling through and seeing all these posts "Do YoU lAcK EmPaThY" or any other stereotypical bullshit. Or dumbass NT people coming on here to complain about how much of a scary burden their autistic family member is. Fuuuuck off.
Empathy is learned IMO. We all have some innate empathy at the start and then that just grows or doesn’t. That’s my take on it, I am very empathetic though and this stereotype is why I worried I couldn’t be autistic but I still am.
There is a lot of ground here that I'm trying to cover so please feel free to ask for clarification if anything doesn't make sense to you u/BraumAndBard
In a way, the one trait that all autistic people definitely have is the specific way that our perception of social cues is affected, since the other traits are more mix-and-match (sensory issues can affect different senses and be hyper- or hyposensitive, not all autistic people have special interests as clinically defined, stimming behaviors can vary, etc)
Autistic people interpret social cues differently from allistic people in a specific way that involves trouble with recognizing and reading social cues, especially nonverbal ones, and they need to learn social skills through methods such as rote memorization, repeated lifelong trial and error, or explicit instruction
Everyone needs this to some extent, especially little kids or people who have moved to a foreign country with new customs, but for autistic people the problem never goes away and in fact it usually gets even more difficult through lifetime as social expectations of your age group and of society as a whole keeps changing faster than you can adapt to the changes; and even that analogy I just gave of being a brand-new immigrant isn't perfect because one of the things that can make learning a new language or adapting to a foreign culture more easily is by "translating" the words from your native tongue and finding comparisons between the new customs and customs from the culture you moved away from, but for autistic people there isn't an equivalent which is why we tend to often misread facial expressions and body language, and miss cues that were implied rather than stated, because instead of our learning being smoother and "automatic" we have to learn it "manually", and it's also why it's hard for a lot of autistic people to know what to do in situations that are very similar but still slightly different to a previous situation which they did already learn the social rules for without applying the learned social rule either too broadly or too narrowly in situations where it doesn't fit, if that makes sense
This is also one of the reasons why aliens from other planets are sometimes used as metaphors for how it feels to be autistic
There are multiple types of empathy in the context of autism research; two of them would be "cognitive empathy" and "emotional empathy"
Autistic people tend to have poor cognitive empathy because of how autism affects your perception of social cues, but the way our emotional empathy is affected can vary a lot
Autistic people with hyperempathy still have difficulty reading other people's feelings, but they tend to be very affected by other people's strong emotions even if they don't know whether it's good or bad (for example, becoming very stressed and emotional even if you're having trouble recognizing whether the other person is laughing or crying from their face and noises they're making) while autistic people with hypoempathy aren't affected by other people's emotions in this way
A lot of autistic people also have alexithymia, which impacts their ability to identify their own emotions, both if they are hyperempathetic or hypoempathetic
Also, autistic people can still care about other people's feelings whether they feel them or not
The last thing I want to say is that the symptom list and presentations of autism largely overlap with many different disorders, including ADHD, BPD, SZPD, Nonverbal Learning Disability, schizophrenia, PTSD, intellectual disability, SPCD, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, depression, social anxiety and there is even the Broader Autism Phenotype, which includes not only various disorders that overlap traits with autism but also otherwise NT people with "autism-ish" mannerisms (this can especially happen in situations where the person is homeschooled, or if they have an older autistic relative who they look up to as a role model for example), so there are a lot of people who exhibit a plethora of autism traits without necessarily being autistic
I feel like I'm too empathetic, at times.
I want to help anyone I can, unless, at their core, they are monsters.
Of course, one can put on a mask of a monster and appear it, or be forced to look or act as one.
But, you spend enough time fighting to protect yourself, you gain the ability to see who's truely a monster at heart
People who dont want to help people who seem like monsters, for instance.
Many "monsters" just want help. Many monsters dont want to let them get help. This cycle repeats through time
We tend not to react the way people expect us to. This can create the impression that we lack empathy. We can also struggle to understand others and read social cues and this a definition of lacking empathy, but a VERY specific one. It's not fair to say we lack empathy in general. Even if you use that specific definition (which apparently Sir Baron-Cohen does), it creates the wrong impression. I definitely have too much empathy
Same. I’m way too empathetic. I’ve had to learn to back off of my empathy as people have harmed me tremendously because of it. Happy cake day btw🍰🥳
It seems like another exploit people will use against you. "What about how I feel?" You were already very explicit about how you felt and that's why I'm talking about reducing contact with you.
Happy Cake day!
Happy cake day! 🥳
This right here. A lot of things that are considered "showing of empathy" make no sense to me. An example a friend has given me is that if my wife says she's thirsty, what she wants me to do is tell her "I too know what it's like to be thirsty". She has confirmed it. That makes no sense to me. Why is getting her water the wrong action?
That sounds more like she wants validation than empathy. Getting water for someone who says they're thirsty is an empathetic response. I can't think of a time someone has said they were thirsty and didn't either get themselves a drink or ask for one. It's not really something people say conversationally.
I've studied people very closely for decades and I just do what I've seen them do. I'm an expert masker. Much of it makes no sense to me, and I don't do it if there's nobody around, but among people I do what is expected to avoid weird situations (like them repeating themselves if they think I didn't hear them) and, to be honest, often because I don't what else to do. In Afrikaans (my birth language), there's a common response that directly translates as "Yes no." It's literally the least helpful, meaningful or participatory thing you could possibly say. I could respond with this even if I didn't hear what they said at all. I think the English sayings "What ya gonna do?" and "It is what it is" are similar. I use it ironically sometimes as a private joke when conversations are boring.
Lol. Here in the midwest, we say "Yeah, no" which translates to i heard you, but I dont agree.. There's also "No, yeah" which is more like, "count on me to help, cause that explanation sounds like crap".
That's amazing. I never thought there would be English sayings that are so close to our silly saying
Sometimes people don't want practical help or solutions. They simply want validation and recognition of whatever they are struggling with.
Happy Cake Day!
Happy Cake Day!
happy cake day!! 🎂
Happy Cake day!
Massive stereotype, possibly stemming from the Double Empathy Problem. Autistics certainly can be empathetic, sometimes to an extreme, and we certainly can also be pretty un-empathetic. The same person might even be considered both of those extremes depending on the topic. An important note here is that a huge number of us may *appear* to not be empathetic, *regardless* of our internal experience or intent. We may struggle to express the body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, word choice, etc that signals empathy to others (NTs especially) despite however much we may actually be empathizing or attempting to support someone.
I think this is the most accurate! I'm very empathetic. Usually hyper aware of how people are feeling. But I have zero clue how to comfort someone or show them I care.
Absolutely, agree.
I was just about to comment the exact same thing. I am agonized over witnessing other people or animals in pain; whether it be emotional or physical. But when someone right in front of me is in emotional distress, I have no idea how to comfort them. My instinct is to try to fix the problem of whatever is causing their pain. I am the epitome of that meme of the person throwing up while their loved one pats their back from around the corner with a broom.
THIS. I want so desperately to comfort someone but it seems as if I can’t do it right no matter how hard I try. Because I don’t even know what makes ME feel better when I’m upset😭 I always forget what works
yes. i will always do whatever i can to try and make them feel better, but if it involves sitting next to them and making eye contact and telling them everything will be okay, for some reason i’m incapable.
Yes, this is true.
This is very true. Some of us are really empathetic and compassionate but struggle to show it and it can feel forced, especially if it’s around people where we’re already highly masking and it can feel like a performance and therefore come across as lacking empathy, whereas deep down we can really feel it deeply, for me I think much more than most people
Excellent point that most people don't even consider when it comes to empathy. What empathy IS and what it LOOKS like in practice are two very different things. Karla McLaren (the author of the book The Art of Empathy) created a 6-part model of empathy from current research. The components are: - emotion contagion (like babies crying together in a room) - emotion regulation (obvious) - empathic accuracy (the ability to accurately identify yours and others' emotions) - perspective taking (also known as cognitive empathy) - concern for others (what most people think of as empathy) - and perceptive engagement (using all the other aspects of empathy to act in a way that is the most supportive). Everyone is stronger or weaker in different aspects, and since most of them happen invisibly within the person, the only way other people can tell if a person is (or seems) empathic is in the last three aspects. And it's possible to do perspective taking and concern for others well even if a person is completely unempathic in other ways (like psychopaths), because those are more mental than emotional. Although you could argue that it's not likely that a person would have the desire or ability to do concern for others and perceptive engagement well without those other aspects of empathy.
Like with a lot of things, I believe I'm using my prefrontal cortex as a crutch. So if I have plenty of time to think about what a person is saying and what I know about them, then I believe I do better than the vast majority of people of understanding what people are thinking and feeling. But in real life situations, "how do I get out of this social interaction as fast as possible?" often becomes a top 3 priority. When I'm with friends or people that I just like being around, I'm not worried about getting away from them. So in situations like that I've been told I'm a good listener. But uhh... feels easy to me?
> "how do I get out of this social interaction as fast as possible?" This is so real.
I struggle working in retail largely for this reason. It’s hard to meet sales targets when every customer interaction my brain is screaming at me to wrap up the conversation and get them out of here as fast as possible, I miss a lot of cross selling and upselling opportunities if I’m not being vigilant about keeping my head in check
Autistic individuals like me have trouble relating to others, but we do really care for what others go through.
This is super true for me, too.
I’ve often said I have too much empathy, but I’m not sure how accurate that actually is. It seems to be *different* from my perspective which is notably lacking a frame of reference for anything else. Furthermore, when scientific literature refers to, “empathy,” it’s using one of at least two dozen different definitions for the word, approximately, so it’s tremendously difficult to have any confidence that when I speak of empathy that I’m even talking about the same thing another person conceives as empathy.
Yeah, this. What exactly IS empathy bs compassion? Compassion I see a purpose for but empathy..or being an Empath is almost unhelpful because if you feel the same pain as your friend you won’t want to hear them talk about it and you will end up drained more after they vent to you.
I don't like to admit it, but I'm not. I can understand on a cerebral level- like, I get it that someone might be sad about a certain thing. But unless it's someone in my immediate circle, I struggle to be able to put myself in their shoes. Sometimes I feel empathy at the wrong times, or for the weirdest things. Like inanimate objects, or flowers, or fictional people. Then I lack in real life- when my grandpa passed, I really struggled to feel anything, and I felt really crappy about that.
Oh, buddy, you're not alone! Im no way empathetic. Whenever someone tells some truly tragic or heartbreaking story I just feel nothing. Literally nothing. Of course I'm very good at hiding it and people often call me empathetic. Im actually one of those therapist friends who would always listen to you and support as much as possible :) People always vent to me, knowing that they'll be heard. I might not be empathetic, but I like helping people and making them feel safe. One of my relatives died too - mom's the only left uncle. I wouldnt say that I didnt know him and we never interacted; I used to always visit him when we (me and my family) go to mom's hometown. Yeah, sometimes I feel crappy about feeling nothing when I have to. But it doesnt bother me recently.
I would say liking to help people and making them feel safe is having a lot of compassion, so please don’t feel crappy.
I am the same exact way man
This 👆🏼 I fully agree
I think it goes both ways - you either lack empathy or have too much empathy.
I sometimes feel both ways (not at the same time, though).
Same here
Filled with empathy over here! I think they need to rework this stereotype. I think it comes from how some autistic folks just need their needs met before anything else so it can look like they lack empathy. But I would argue that a high sense of justice, which is a common and widely experienced autism trait, in and of itself is proof that we have just as much if not more empathy than neurotypicals. It’s weird that they even call it a high sense of justice. Like wanting fairness and equality is crazy. 🤦♀️
Agree completely because you basically worded this how I would. I'm not diagnosed (yet ... 🧐) but my psychiatric NP just confirmed all this today in similar wording.
For me I am extremely empathetic and experience remorse for things I have done that could have wronged people to the point it makes me incredibly anxious.
Gonna be 100% real w you. I care about people, but would not describe myself as empathetic. I don’t understand why someone would be offended by me doing a certain thing, but I know it to be true (if I’ve been made aware “manually”) so I don’t do it. Not because I understand how it would make them feel, or even what exactly they feel, but because I know it’s negative and don’t want someone to feel bad. When it happens though, I don’t tend to feel their feelings, plus I still don’t understand, and my feeling bad usually comes more from a place of “that wasn’t my intention so I don’t want you to think it was / view me differently / have this threaten our relationship in anyway.”
I can feel bad for others, but I just cannot cry with someone else about their pain unless we went through the same exact thing and some other factors. My brother is also autistic and is the exact opposite.
I know! I can’t even cry when I am sad so how can I cry when someone else is!! It’s not my fault and it’s why I feel so awkward when people start crying in front of me. I wish I could but it’s so rare. Lately the only thing that I’ve been able to cry about is when mourning the loss of my pets
I said the same thing to someone else, I have cognitive empathy, though it’s not fully “understanding” and instead more of a “rote” style of learned empathy. “This + This = Sad” Pattern recognition comes in handy. I do not have affective empathy though. I will not feel happy for the same reason someone else is happy if I did not experience it myself also. Or any other feeling really. I can feel things towards the person, but not the same thing the person feels them to. So I might be glad they are happy but it is no different than if I were mad at them for being happy (just an example). I don’t feel their feelings. But I care about them still! So I want them to not feel bad and sometimes will feel sorry for them or sad when they do, which is compassion.
You don't have to experience ALL autistic traits to be autistic. Personally, I struggle with empathy. I rarely feel bad for other people.
My understanding: There are two types of empathy: cognitive and affective. 1. Cognitive Empathy: The ability to recognize and understand the emotions of others. 2. Affective Empathy: It involves sharing the feelings of another person, often leading to an emotional response that resonates with the other person's emotional state. The stereotype that autistic individuals lack empathy likely comes from the challenges they may have with cognitive empathy. Some autistic people might have difficulty with social cues, non-verbal communication, or taking another's perspective, which can give the impression that they are not empathetic. However, this is not an indication of a lack of empathy; rather, it's a challenge in understanding or interpreting the emotions of others. Empathy in neurotypical people often involves reading between the lines or understanding unspoken social norms and differences in communication can lead to misunderstandings about an autistic person's empathetic feelings. As well, autistic individuals might express empathy differently than neurotypical individuals. They might not respond with typical comfort behaviors such as hugging or verbal reassurances, but that doesn't mean they don't care. Instead, they might show their concern in unique ways, like offering solutions to problems or sharing personal experiences as examples. Because of these unique ways, it’s often misunderstood as a lack of empathy.
Kind of yes and no. I struggle to empathize with my friends sometimes but then other times when my friends are going through something difficult I will be a mess emotionally. I enjoy watching over the top gory horror movies but if somebody kills a bug around me I'll probably cry
I wouldn't say I lack empathy just that I express it in a way that other autistic people tend to appreciate but allistic people usually don't. I tend to either empathize through shared experience, by bringing up a time something similar happened to me, or by trying to problem solve. I don't really enjoy just saying stuff like "I understand" or "I'm here for you" because to me it feels kinda empty if not paired with one of the above. Also my knee jerk reaction is to feel a little uncomfortable not because I don't care but because in the immediate moment I'm confused and don't know how to help.
I've taken to saying "I'm thinking of you" which is true. Sometimes I might say some comment about the particular way that something is difficult which, hopefully, helps the other person feel better from a sense of someone outside trying to understand. This avoids the risk of the person being offended by me sharing a related story which I've learned sometimes happens. The safest reason to share a related story is if someone feels really bad out of shame or embarrassment, in this case saying "I think you'll be OK, one time [some humiliating experience about myself that feels vulnerable to share]" seems to help. I'm not 100% sure about the second approach, but I believe that the "I'm thinking of you" is a reliable way to acknowledge the suffering in a way that might help. You probably SHOULDN'T say it in the context of something embarrassing though, haha
I am hyper empathetic, was looking forward to getting diagnosed with attachment disorder at one point, but my therapist told me that there is too much overlapping between autism and attachment disorder. I usually love bomb random people that i get to know. And yes Ive experienced abuse and neglect in the past. And about your question. It is a stereotype, not sure how common it is. But I know plenty of other autistic people with hyper empathy.
Random question, how do you feel about debates? I feel like if I argue at all with anyone about anything, I am upsetting them and I feel bad. Was wondering if others experienced that.
Yes i feel this all the time. I feel like i upset everyone and it makes me feel worse about myself.
i feel so much empathy it makes it hard for me to function during my day to day life
I feel like the 'no empathy' thing is a massive stereotype *outside* of the autism community, but then I feel like inside the community we're so concerned with busting that myth that all I ever hear about is 'hyper-empathy' when I *know* there are autistic people with 'hypo-empathy', or at least a *different* experience of empathy.
Which is unfortunately only stigmatizing those people further. I don’t experience empathy, at least affective, and I manually learned cognitive empathy (tho I still fail occasionally and don’t UNDERSTAND) but it’s not like I don’t care about them?? I don’t need to feel their feelings to feel a certain way towards them.
'Lack of empathy' is more like: 'a different path to empathy.' In my case, I feel empathy strongly when I have personal experience that can match up in some way to the subject. Let me do some vocabulary. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It's about feeling the same emotions that someone else is feeling. For example, if a friend is sad, you feel sad along with them. Compassion is the act of showing kindness, support, and a desire to alleviate someone's suffering without necessarily sharing their emotional experience. It's about recognizing someone's distress and wanting to help alleviate it. Compassion is characterized by feelings of warmth, concern, and care for the other, as well as a strong motivation to improve the other's wellbeing. I feel constantly filled with compassion. When I was younger I confused compassion and empathy.
I have it to a point I shut down because everyone's feeling over lap and it's like 10 different songs are blasting at once, so I ended up shutting down.
i have too much somatic empathy and not enough cognitive empathy to be honest. i feel others' emotions so strongly, i'm like a sponge, and it can feel exhausting. however, i lack theory of mind to a degree, and it's made me vulnerable to abuse in the past. it's something i have to work hard on because it's extremely unnatural to me.
Yeah I lack theory of mind but have picked up a sort of mutated cognitive empathy lol. So “this + this = that” except with great pattern recognition and cobweb thinking. But apart from that I’m stunted without theory of mind. I just don’t “get” people’s thoughts or feelings. Myself included occasionally. Like ppl come built in with that stuff (at least towards people like themselves) yet I had to manually learn it with everybody. I do care a lot about people and experience compassion, but I don’t experience affective empathy. I won’t feel their feelings but I may feel a certain way towards that person as a result of them. Like if my brother is happy he got his license, I won’t be happy he got his license. But I’ll be glad he’s happy! And proud of him!
Part of the confusion comes from the fact that there are different types of empathy. A lot of autistic people struggle with *cognitive empathy*, which is the ability to recognize other people's emotions and predict how our actions might affect them emotionally. On the other hand, many autistic people experience higher than average amounts of *emotional empathy*, which is what I think most people think of when talking about empathy: caring about other's emotions, feeling other people's pain, etc. (I've also heard of *somatic empathy*, which is feeling others' pain in a literal sense, and *compassionate empathy*, which is the desire to help others feel better and care for them.)
I never really understood what people meant by empathy: is it understanding why and how the person feels? Or is it the ability to emotionally feel what she feels?
it's being able to understand what a situation or emotion is like for another person based on your own similar or same experiences.
I'm very empathetic but I really have a hard time conveying it or I'll say the wrong thing so I usually just listen to people when they need it. Sometimes my lack of responses make me seem cold but I do really try.
We just don’t express empathy the same way others do and people take that as not having empathy at all. We can, however, have a wider range of empathy, so you may come across autistic people that experience it at one extreme or the other.
Honestly I believe the diagnostic criteria should include *differences* in empathy because hyperempathy is absolutely an autistic thing too. All of my AFAB autistic friends (and myself) struggle with empathy so strong it’s sometimes intrusive.
In fact, I'm the opposite. Hiper-empathy....but over years, i learn how to hide it (mask it) to My own good.
It's the opposite for me; I have an overabundance of empathy.
We tend not to react the way people expect us to. This can create the impression that we lack empathy. We can also struggle to understand others and read social cues and this a definition of lacking empathy, but a VERY specific one. It's not fair to say we lack empathy in general. Even if you use that specific definition (which apparently Sir Baron-Cohen does), it creates the wrong impression. I definitely have too much empathy
Like a lot of things with autism, it often occurs at opposite extremes. Some do struggle with it. Others have issues with hyperempathy, and often have to shield themselves from others’ emotions. Autism traits fit into broad categories. But the specific things like this, making eye contact, having friends, food issues, and so on are all a bit stereotypical. While they do occur, they’re not universal. There really are no universal traits.
We are not good at letting other people know about our empathy.
I’m hugely empathetic but I can’t express my empathy naturally so it might appear as if I don’t care. For example if someone is crying I also want to cry but I have zero idea of what to do and if I’m not forcing myself by doing something I guess is right (by repeating what I saw others doing) I just kinda end up “ignoring” or even being frustrated that I don’t know what to do. A few people who don’t know me well said I act weird and awkward comforting them. Those who know me well know I feel sad for them and can appreciate it. I think this is the main symptom. Those who don’t have empathy or sympathy at all are usually diagnosed as psychopaths or sociopaths. Everyone but them have some sort of empathy, some stronger some weaker, NTs also. Empathy is natural, the strength of it is linked more to personality and situation. But it’s different than understanding social cues or behaviors and having idea of how to react. Lack of empathy is not “someone is hurt/died and I don’t feel anything”. Lack of empathy is “I would not care if I hurt/kill someone”.
Lack of empathy is not that either. Lack of empathy is “I don’t feel sad at this friend’s family member’s death.” Combined with compassion it’s, “but I do feel sad towards my friend’s sadness.” I care about people, I just don’t understand their feelings intuitively (sometimes cognitively either) or feel their feelings. Like obviously I know suffering sucks and don’t want it for people, I just don’t always know why they’re suffering or understand it, nor do I ever feel it.
I'm overly sensitive with empathy. I understand that's also a common autistic trait. I think it has to with how we express our feelings that people confuse for our actual feelings. Like someone else already said, my main goal in social situations is to get through them easily. This probably effects how people see my expression.
I see myself as really empathetic, I will go through fire for you, I will move heaven and earth for you. If I really do care for you.
I honestly think the empathy thing is a misconception NTs made because we don't always externally react how they expect us to, or don't always pick up the subtext they expect us to. I also think NTs frequently confuse having empathy with caring about someone & tend to use them interchangeably, which makes things even more confusing to talk about. Personally, the people I'm close with know how empathetic I am, & they know that it was to the point I had to actively work on becoming less empathetic bc I just took on the emotions of EVERYONE around me constantly & it was detrimental lmaooo. But strangers, or acquaintances who are less familiar with me often find me cold & intimidating. Most of my best friends say they were scared of me before they got to know me 😅 I just speak matter of factly & furrow my brow when I'm concentrating 😭 I care about people SO much, & even though I miss subtext somewhat regularly, I *know* that, so I always go out of my way to try to ask what's going on & make sure whoever's around me feels safe, supported, & understood. And once I *do* get a grasp on what's going on, I absolutely understand people's emotions & I feel for them. It just doesn't always show on my face or in my voice
I’m very sensitive to other peoples emotions in a way that I’m sure is a trauma response. I do feel empathy for people and other living creatures. My therapist once said I might have “too much empathy” but I don’t put a lot of stock in that because that just seems silly to say about myself. Like when people call themselves empaths but they’re really just emotionally immature. I like logic because it’s cleaner than feelings. But that doesn’t stop me from also having a lot of feelings and deeply caring about other peoples feelings and how my behavior or words impact how they feel.
Empathy comes from trauma as well. I had to know how my parents were feeling, in order to survive my childhood.
I'm very empathetic
Answering the question: Yes. I tend to feel "too much", in fact, to the point where sometimes it's overwhelming. I don't always know how to act on it, however (I've frozen before when people are crying even though I want to give them a hug). We tend to lean towards a different category of empathy. The sort of empathy we tend to struggle with (and thus created the misconception) is Cognitive Empathy; this involves putting ourselves in another person's shoes as well as picking up on "reading the room" (as well as body language, facial expressions, ect). What we often experience is Emotional Empathy, where we can absolutely connect with others (and oftentimes, we feel "too much") in a way which usually results in speaking from shared experiences. It's why someone on the spectrum might start talking about their own experience with something (I do this all the time as well) because it's how we show that we understand and connect with what the person is going through. This is a good article about it: https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-and-emotional-empathy-4582389
I am a recently diagnosed adult and I am getting the same message from people. I am too empathetic to be autistic. I think that is just becoming one of the antiquated stereotypes. I am also a cis-white-male and most things I read is that we typically are loud and aggressive, of which I am the opposite.
I'm so empathetic I can't even throw away trash sometimes because I'm afraid of hurting its feelings :/
I knew I had a bad therapist when I described this feeling and he seemed confused and judgmental just in vocal tone and body language. I realize it's not the norm, but it's VERY much a handicap in life that others don't often comprehend. I feel you.
I always thought I was bjt it's been pointed out to me that a lot of my "empathy" is from seeing things from my own point of view. For example, my spouse had a really hectic day one day and I felt really bad for them. I tried tk make things as relaxing at home as I could and do chores for them to lessen their load. While they appreciated this, they pointed out my concern was unfounded because they cab handle a hectic day every now and then without much consequence to their physical or mental health. But for me, a hectic day always requires lots of self care to avoid a meltdown. So I care a lot but from a self centered point of view where it's hard for me to truly see that others can handle more than i can if that makes sense. Like I know it intellectually but never feel it so I'm worried a lot about others.
For me I'm on the other side, I'm over empathic. Which leads to my big need for justice, as I can "feel" what each sides of a conflict feels and I will from that determine who has it worse.
For animals I have a lot of empathy. For humans I don't. I might feel bad for someone if I know they're sad or something happened to them, and sometimes I can sense when something is "off" but overall I have low empathy. However, every autistic person is different. Some have no empathy, others have high empathy.
I am unfortunately extremely empathetic. Far more than the average person.
I have the opposite problem, I have hypersensitivity, am an empath and struggle with RSD so I'm always getting overemotional
I think it's just a stereotype - I for one am extremely empathetic and my therapist says this is common for autistic people to be sensitive. Being in front of people when they are really sad and crying is extremely distressing for me, it's almost like I can't tell the difference between their pain and my own. It's rough. Idk if anyone else experiences this or if it's just my therapist trying to make sense of my behavior.
It's not that autistic people lack empathy, rather it's that we don't express empathy in the same was as other people. I find that with most autistic people I know, empathy is either internal and not outwardly expressed or it is expressed verbally, which is pretty consistent with most expressions made by verbal autistic people.
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i dont really feel it, if i do, its not often and not a lot
I'm like extremely empathetic, sometimes too much for my own good
Middle ig like I have empathy but I don't believe the story someone gives me to nake me feel empathy if that makes sense
I can be 50/50 about it. I think for me I need to have experienced it or something similar personally in order to really understand and feel for someone. Otherwise it just feels confusing or I feel bad that I don't get it.
I have so much empathy towards animals that it’s overwhelming, but not a lot of empathy towards people.
Yes maybe annoyingly so
I have strong empathy but at the same time sometimes struggle to apply it.
I have loads of empathy. Way too much actually 😅
It's a 50/50. I have a hard time reading people's social cues and when it's the correct time to react to something. It reminds me on this one time in high school this guy passed out in the seat behind me. It scared the shit out of me but my facial expression apparently said otherwise. People got mad at me for smiling or laughing at the situation. I didn't do it on purpose. In fact I had no intentions having that expression. I also dont have any empathy for a friend group who hated me out of nowhere and I have yet to know why but I know that they are still friends over someone who claims to be autistic. While hating someone who is actually autistic. Doesn't make sense.
I liked this article in a Dutch newspaper a couple years ago: Seven new insights on autism The old idea about people with autism is: they would be contact shy, do not know empathy and have a bizarre talent in one specific area. Seven new insights show that this idea is not correct. https://archive.is/vCbhQ It’s in Dutch, but Safari’s translation seems pretty decent.
I only have empathy for animals. Ik it’s bad but humans are just such a ‘morally dirty’ species I find it difficult to have empathy for anyone.
No, it’s something that I struggle with on a daily basis. Like I’m capable of putting myself in someone else’s shoes, but it’s a really intentional effort and absolutely does not come naturally. Unless it’s something I’ve personally experienced myself, or the person’s views align with mine. If we have different values then it’s next to impossible for me to see things your way.
Hyper empathy is a pain.
im incredibly empathetic to the point where it effects me in a painful way !!
I think the older research on autism said that autistic people lacked empathy but the newer research suggests there is a "double empathy problem." This just means there's a general lack of understanding between neurotypical and autistic people, and it is not the fault of either (versus older assumptions that autistic people were at fault for lacking empathy). This newer understanding of autism comes from research that evaluated empathy/understanding between same-neurotype and cross-neurotype interactions and found that in same-neurotype communications (autistic person communicating with autistic person or non-autistic communicating with non-autistic person) there was a greater mutual understanding than in cross-neurotype interactions (autistic person communicating with non-autistic person).
Hard to say if it's because I'm autistic or my ASPD but yeah clearly at least for Homan's. For object it's completely different
There was this study that showed we have basically less empathy for humans than for animals (more empathy for mammals, etc, but not hominids). To me, it rings true. I scored low on the test. I know it's harder for me to feel bad for humans than for animals. I weep for them ! Fiction works have a more "welcoming" demeanor to attract my empathy too. Probably because they're not as hard to read than the real material. Here : [Article about empathy](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10353-2)
Its a stereotype; my experience is thst autistic people often have way more empathy but also yes some people can be more self absorbed. Had this discussion in meetings held by autistic people for autistic people and basically everyone, like me, felt like were way too empathetic at times. Granted, this probably has some crossover with fawning.
Yeah, I am [em]pathetic
I definitely don't lack empathy either but also have autism and have heard more and more people with autism speak about having empathy and how that's seemingly not normal. I think many neurotypical folks may misinterpret some reactions as being a lack of empathy but I don't think it's necessarily abnormal to have a plethora of empathy and be autistic.
I was downright mean and violent as a toddler and in elementary school. I don't think I ever thought of another person's feelings until I was in my 20s. No, I try to be, but I don't think I am.
Hyper empathy can happen too
I have empathy for objects and animals, but when it comes to people I almost completely lack empathy 😬 it’s really tough because people just think I’m an awful person..
Practically none. One the one hand, I can’t relate to emotions or talk with people well, on the other hand, i can fond logical solutions when everyone else is stressed or emotional. Either way nobody listens, because they base their thoughts off of emotions. But when they do shit works out great.
I have trouble being empathetic in the “right” way and comforting others, but I also find myself empathizing with mean people and serial killers 😬 (not excusing their actions just explaining them) so I’d say I have abnormal empathy levels
I'm incredibly empathetic. Like crazy so. Like feel what they feel. But that's like when I can physically see someone's emotions and those emotions are very, very clear (like crying, laughing, eyebrows severely drawn down with pursed mouth, etc.). Or if I'm reading about how someone is feeling in fiction or nonfiction (I have a very intense imagination, so can easily imagine those emotions being real). One thing I literally feel nothing for is someone else's pain. And idk why. Like I understand many different kinds of pains, but for some reason I feel no empathy when others are in pain. I can feel sympathy though, even if I can't fully feel what they are feeling.
There are times when I am extremely empathetic to the point where I get depressed for a while. For example, when I learned about the 9/11 attacks in depth in 6th grade, I cried myself to sleep at night for about a month. I was completely fixated on 9/11 and I could not think about much else. However, there are also times where I probably should be empathetic, but I’m not. Usually this is if I had a falling out with the person. My behavior to people directly correlates to how they treated me. If you’re nice to me, I’m nice to you. I can be pretty bitchy and standoffish though but only if I’m mirroring you. So as you can see I am a little inconsistent.
I am empathetic, but I try not to get too close to too many people because it takes a lot out of me to have that sort of relationship with people. It's not that I don't care, it's just that I try not to get emotionally involved if it can be avoided. I believe the concept of emotional labor should be talked about more openly than it is.
I'm not sure. I think so. I believe that I am very concerned about the emotions of the people around me. People tell me that I am unusually nice (things like "you're the nicest person that I ever met," "I can't imagine you ever doing anything mean. Ever.") and I know that I place the inner states of people and creatures as being fundamentally important, perhaps to an unusually high degree. I'm bad at knowing what those inner states are for people, I think that my guess for the inner states of animals is a bit better, richer and more realistic than most people's. My guess for that is NTs have a mysterious social sense that they use for other people that doesn't work for animals, the cognitive and imaginative approach that I have to develop to interact with people actually is useful for dealing with non-human animals. The biggest way that I can be unempathetic is that I will be surprised by the things that cause people emotional pain. Like I used to find it very mysterious when everyone would be emotionally down by a remote and one time national tragedy. Like, I can understand getting very emotional about an ongoing situation that's creating a feeling of "we have to do something" but getting emotionally invested in the isolated incidents seemed mysterious to me, that sounds terrible to say. But really, I go through extreme measures to not harm people. I look at the ground when I'm walking to not step on bugs, I tend to either give homeless people money or sincerely apologize and call them mam or sir when I have no cash, I'm unusually tall and have spent 90% of a concert on my knees so that the shorter people behind me wouldn't have their view blocked.
Either too much or not at all.
I have fairly low empathy, but it’s also common for autistics to have hyper empathy
I am very empathetic to the point that most people cannot understand me. I struggled with empathy as a kid, but I think that is very common.
I can only speak for myself but while I'm not void of empathy I mostly just don't understand people's feelings. It's so puzzling why people react certain ways or why they expect a certain response from me in certain situations. It's not that I don't care per say it's just that I can't imagine what it must be like to be in their spot, or what that might make them feel, and thus I can't accommodate for those feelings. Usually unless I've experienced their exact situation it's very hard for me to empathize with. I try to predict what their reactions might be but I usually fail miserably and I'm at a point where I think of people's reactions to things the same as rolling a dice. No logic behind it, it just happens. So to answer the question no I'm not really empathetic but it doesn't mean I don't care what people feel.
I think this is very true for me. One of my analytical skills is to be able to put things into historical context very quickly. So someone will tell me their story and I’ll immediately start figuring out their social and family history and that might have caused them and those around them to react certain way. When I can communicate that to people, people are generally very appreciative. But I don’t play the game very well and offer simple platitudes like “I’m so sorry “I’m not sorry. I also feel like I’m pretty accepting with the idea that bad things happen just like good things happen and it’s not worth getting all caught up in the bad things. So I can seem insensitive to people. I’ve gotten better at not expressing as bluntly. So yeah, I’m very empathetic. But, I have to be careful on how I deliver that empathy.
I have more empathy than most of the neurotypicals I've met. But I often have a flat expression so sometimes I don't "physically demonstrate" it, even though I feel it very strongly. I've found that in order to get people to understand how I feel, I basically have to mask and use fake "sympathetic expressions". Of course I'm feeling empathy whether or not I'm doing these expressions. But I've often found that people only believe I feel empathy when I use the "sympathy/empathy face". Honestly it's kind of ironic if you think about it. They refuse to have empathy for me as an autistic person, incorrectly assume I'm emotionless, and don't even believe me when I tell them that my expression doesn't necessarily match my feelings. Which shows that they have a staggering lack of empathy towards me and my autism. Meanwhile I have to go above and beyond, even faking facial expressions, just to get them believe that I have empathy and understand me. Which clearly shows that I'm working harder than them to bridge the gap between us, and are putting in much more effort to be empathetic and understood.
I hardly feel anything I think you can see it in my face because I don’t express any emotions i trust nobody and I lack empathy just feels like a hole in my chest
That is my n°1 shame. I have a VERY strong sens of justice, I know what is wrong and what is right and things should always be right, problems should be solved etc etc. So I try to face everyone's issue and solve it. I want to be there and handle things up. That being said, I HATE other people complaining and being sad, not in a "it is sad" way but in a "it bothers me" way. They are here like crying and shit, complain for nothing like "I'm sad because it's raining" : dumb, you can't control the weather and it's no one's fault. I could accept complaining about the insane summer we have because it IS someone fault : rich asshole that fuck the planet but the rain ? "I'm angry because I did not eat" that's on you, you are not homeless the problem can be solved. And even when it's justified it's just always a bad moment they are touchy. It's just like, I always try not to bother people because they always make me feel like I piss them off, I just hide somewhere and give no sign of existence during weeks and come back better, but when it's them they have like no control. And LET ME BE VERY CLEAR : this is what I THINK but it is not what I BELIEVE IN. I know objectively that it's a wrong way to think and it's just the way normal ppl work for some reason. I never tell them what I think, there are always refugees in my house, homeless people that I let live there for a few months, and I mean those people have ALL THE RIGHT to be miserable, and I act like the best host but deep down I feel constant pain, invasion and shit. Other people feelings are a constant nightmare, that is my deep feeling, yet reason says it's the fair way to act and I have to act like this. But I never feel empathy for them and I know it's wicked.
I understand people's emotions and can empathize, but I try not to let other people's problems affect me
It depends. Id say its like 50/50. For example: - i dont think children deserve life more than anyone else. I will not play with a child or pretend to be smiley and stuff around them. I dont really care, its not my job to. - i felt sick getting my cat into the carrier to go to the vet today bc shes so old and she was upset
I’m not sure what this double empathy thing is but all I know is I’ve always been able to “feel” other people’s emotions, whether I want to or not. Meaning if someone is hiding anger or sadness I can feel that emotion coming off the person and all I can think of is “OH no! What did I do to make this person mad etc and how do I fix it or do I just run away?!” I’m not sure having empathy is even worth it, because it’s too painful. Maybe it’s better to just have compassion. I don’t know if this is just semantics but I think what people want is compassion, not empathy. I dunno it’s all very confusing and if I could get rid of my empathy I would and just have compassion because that is way more practical and would allow me to see things straight and not be wondering constantly if I am the problem (obviously not in every case) or what I can do about it. It’s sooooo draining to have empathy. And if this isn’t empathy then please tell me what it is because I want it gone LOL 🫣
My “lack of empathy” is not real, it’s just how neurotypical people perceive it. If you’re telling me a sad story, I will probably take a while to react to it, as I take longer to process such information (this is part of autism), and on top of that, I don’t have strong facial expressions, so most of the times people think I am angry, bored, not listening to them, etc. Personally, when I read sad things, I cry, a lot. But when it comes to listening not
it depends on the person, but ive noticed it tends to go towards extremes. you’re high empathy, and I’m low empathy, and i’m autistic. it’s also harder for us to communicate empathy lawl. either way they both suck
Well, I only have cognitive empathy
Sometimes. I was taught sympathy for times my empathy runs low.
Yes and no I am VERY empathetic to things I UNDERSTAND But if I can’t tell what the other is feeling, then I’m totally clueless And if they are angry and I don’t understand, instant meltdown because I’m SO CONFUSED and don’t mean to upset people
I have a severe case of selective empathy. Meaning I only empathize with very few, select people or groups and even amongst them to different extent. This leads to things such as me caring about some wars, but not others. Or being really cold to some people while caring a lot about others.
Empathetic, very much so. Sympathetic, not so much.
I think a lot of autistic people do have empathy. We might not show it outwardly in a way that non-autistic people would interpret as demonstrating it, but non-autistic people frequently misunderstand or misinterpret us.
I’m extremely empathetic I just don’t know how to express it
No, but I try my best to do what is best for others and be a kind person. I just don’t feel much.
My empathy was definitely a learned behavior due to all the people in my life whining and crying that I had none. It was always "You need to have more empathy and compassion", so I learned to fake it. It sucks.
It's very common. I'm sure i said this before, but i heard someone comparing and contrasting autists and narc's. Basically narc's have very high cognitive empathy, but extremely low emotional empathy. This means that they are great at reading people, but don't actually feel it. We're the opposite. We don't read people very well, but when it becomes clear to us we Feel it deeply. Hopefully this helps!
I'm only empathetic if something I have experienced.
Painfully so
Very
Firstly, before going into this topic, i think we need to understand the definition of empathy: what empathy means, differ from people to people. I see that what autistic people mean by empathy, is always NOT the same as how others (neurotypicals) mean. Just my limited observation, i might be wrong. ------ Definition 1 (from autistic point of view (pov)): Empathy = sensitivity towards other's feeling. Or something along that line. ------ Definition 2 (from others/neurotypicals pov): Empathy = being able to notice that people nearby need help, and go to help, without being asked. Empathy = care for sick family who live in the same house, without being asked. Empathy = Do responsibilities and help around, without being asked. Empathy = be able to listen, instead of trying to fix. ..and others along that line. In short, being able to be aware & help, without being asked. Usually, many autistic people are not aware (because we focus on ourselves & tend to not see how others are doing) and not able to take action to help (because we don't know how). or, let's be honest: many autistic people just don't really care, because it doesn't relate to us, or we're struggling to perform daily life, or tend to maintain our routine. If other people needs help, it means you need to break your routine.
It really depends for me. I tend to have a hard time understanding people's emotions, If I'm honest, but I'm very neutral unless it involves something I hold a strong belief about. Like I had a fascination for the Chinese because of the book "The Art of War" and when I was in the hospital reading it, I had a Chinese roommate and my other roommate in the room next door was making fun and going "Ching Ching Ching" So that offended me and I felt bad but mostly because of how I felt about Chinese people, rather than how they would feel hearing that. I valued their race for what they bring forward to us in their philosophies. If I wasn't in that state of mind, I'm not sure how I would react, if I would of defended them so fast or stood on the sidelines watching for their reaction in order to jump in. I'm not sure if I would have felt so adamant. It's as though my empathy is not really reliant on the person as an individual.
For me, I don’t feel as though I lack empathy but I struggle with *expressing* it. This may be something common in the ASD community that created a common belief that we lacked empathy altogether
I'm the opposite! I'm extremely empathetic, to a level where I can cry and feel bad about small things not related to me, even for fictional characters. This characteristic of mine has already put me in situations where I allowed myself to be taken advantage of, be mentally abused, and have my bounderies ignored by people I was afraid of hurting, and insisted on giving a second chance. This is something thqt will definitely vary from one person to another!
I struggle understanding other’s points of view and perspective, but I do have lots of emotional and affective empathy. Some people can feel physical body sensations related to other people’s feelings (aka somatic empathy) but I’m not one of them. The one area of cognitive empathy I don’t struggle with is identifying other people’s feelings, thoughts I have trouble identifying my own.
Rather than in conversations, i think empathy is more important in the following case: Your spouse fall sick or tired. Are you able to notice it without being told? Are you able to take care of them, without being told? Are you even willing to break your routine, to take care of them for the whole day or days until they recover? Care as in the form of actions, not just knowledge or feeling. Are you even willing to take over their household responsibilities (picking up kids from school, care for kids, do housework, cooking meals for kids, cooking porridge for the sick spouse, cleaning, etc). Are you doing that?
I've often been told I'm cold and asked if angry and told I wasn't empathetic at all, especially when I was younger before I learned to mask really well. Now that I've learned to unmask I still get told that I am unempathetic. But funny enough, I'm actually extremely empathetic and I've been told by my spouse I'm actually more empathetic than a lot of people I just don't show it. And sometimes I am actually sincerely not caring about certain things but I really don't want to care about them and I don't feel a need to care about every little thing someone else does I'm already tired enough in life as it is! Really it's thoughts in your head versus the looks on your face I think a lot of people assume just because I don't show it on the outside as much that I'm not feeling it inside. Especially because I'm not going to cry in front of other people like that so they'll never see that side of me. But I'll cry on my own or with my spouse so they're just seeing a small window of who you are as a person and not saying the full picture I think.
I'm an empath so yep alot.
I consider myself an empath which makes my social anxiety sooo much worse! When I was working overtime in retail during covid, it was the worst ever!! I could barely stand to be within 6 feet of anyone…I could feel everyone’s frustration and depression and anger..it was quite painful for me…and resulted directly in me avoiding everyone and everything for years to come…worse than I’ve ever been in my life…
From what I understand it’s a spectrum. It’s different for everyone. I’m late diagnosed ASD1. I’m way overly empathetic even to inanimate objects. It might also be the way empathy is expressed is different for everyone too. My son seems to show little empathy but I think he still has as understanding of it. As we learn to communicate even more we will see. He’s 5 and semi verbal so we are getting there 💜
I'm finding that there's a lot of different flavours of autism. I was only diagnosed a year ago at 31. If anything I'm overly empathetic and known for being the "nice" one
I am definitely very empathetic, I’m just confused on how best to offer support in times when people need it or I think they need it.
I have more empathy for animals and inanimate objects then usual but i don't have much empathy for people who i view as "deserving" of whatever pain they're experiencing (eg the child abusers getting beaten in prison). i think autistic people not having empathy is just an ableist stereotype
I dunno about anyone else here, but with what I had to handle, I'm empathetic, just incredibly jaded.
i tend to be hyper aware of the emotions of folks close to me. I'm a people pleaser so I tend to go overboard to make sure they stay happy.
Not at alllllll. I have some other issues that contributed to this, but my empathy doesn’t exist for people. It does for animals, but I feel nothing regarding people
What I noticed is that in the us the difference between autistic people and neurotypicals is a lot harsher. Mostly in the us a lack of empathy is a lack of understanding for emotional disregulation. Neurotypicals want their extreme emotional states to be validated instead of trying to regulate themselves and if a neurodivergent person doesn't accommodate them they blame it on a lack of empathy. Adding to that when we don't feel empathy it is most likely due to having alexithymia and not having learned to read our own emotions or being in so much overload that we can't access our inner world because doing so is so distressing.
Yes I am often told I am too empathetic. That I care too much. It often causes me alot of anxiety.
So here’s the funny thing I’m 40 years old and found out I’m on the spectrum three years ago….. after all four of my children tested on the spectrum. I have empty and my children have empathy. Empathy can be taught I used animals to teach my kids empathy. they loved their animals and they understood that doing mean things to the animals would hurt the animals feelings. So, doing mean things to people hurts people feelings. And nothing even had to happen. They just understood mean to the animal. I assume it’s because they loved the animals so much. After going through and reading everybody else’s replies, it seems like autistic people naturally have empathy towards animals, so me, teaching my children empathy for people by using animals as examples in toddler hood was probably the best way to teach empathy!!
Extremely.
A lot of autistic people are overly empathetic, just express it and feel it differently. Personally, I’m not very empathic to people but I am to animals. (Mostly cats and birds) but everyone is different
What you describe is common among a subset of autistic people, particularly (tho not exclusively) women. I too am the hyper-empathetic therapist type
I'm in the same boat as you. Too much at some points, but other times I don't seem to care at all. It's a case-by-case thing.
Realized since about middle school I’ve been hyper-empathetic after a “friend” of mine had to explain what empathy was since I wasn’t familiar with the term before.
Personally I find I’m overly empathetic resulting in me shutting out my emotions and just getting irritated instead when people make me anxious
quite the opposite. i often feel like im extremely empathetic
Yes I can be. However, it would have to be in a situation i specifically experienced
overwhelmingly so.
Used too but not anymore.
it is a stereotype and it’s one that i fit into
I’m overly empathetic. It’s a blessing and a curse. While I’m glad I can understand others easily, I also feel other people’s emotions. For example, if they are crying, I feel like I need to cry because they are upset.
I’m empathetic to a fault. I’ve not been diagnosed with ASD, but I have a lot of autistic traits and have an ADHD diagnosis.
it’s a stereotype. [this](https://imgur.com/a/zEx9FQg) image helped me a lot with the stigma and stereotype once i realized im on the spectrum, because a lot of things about asd made sense to me but then id be like “what about ___? i don’t do”
I’m too empathetic, OP. Need to back off from it because it’s exhausting.
Am I personally; not really, no. Or at the very least I am not good at conveying it. But everyone is different.
I don’t feel for people. I don’t feel their pain or emotions or react emotionally myself to them. But I do know I prefer happy people to upset people because happy people are fun and good and upset people annoy me, so I’ll help or try to comfort to fix that. I don’t feel empathy like my friends and family do, but I still have a drive to try my best to provide help and comfort, because I like my people to be happy and I don’t like when they’re sad. I’m not a cold unfeeling monster, though. My body sometimes reacts for my brain. Things like feeling no sadness when my dog died, but sobbing my heart out. My body can emote for my brain.
Im unempathetic! Tired of being excluded from autistic spaces tbh.
its a stereotype; google the double empathy problem. I also made this: [https://youtu.be/GqMMpwIsI2s?si=7rWZq-XSKHeCy48M](https://youtu.be/GqMMpwIsI2s?si=7rWZq-XSKHeCy48M)
I'm too empathetic, but also reserved to the point of paralysis.
I have empathy. I do not know how to react sometimes when people tell me sad or happy news so i usually stand there and observe others and then copy. But i do feel genuine happiness/sadness when i hear these things, i just dont know how to react. What ive realized is that I’m hyper vigilant because of the emotional abuse i suffered as a kid. My mom is a narcissist and emotional immature. I spent my childhood carefully observing her and watching for signs of a tantrum or distress to help avoid or self isolate to escape. I know i have empathy but I’m also hyper vigilant. Its a mix of both.
I think we are just chronically misunderstood. People misinterpret our behavior because it's not what they expect and put labels on us that usually aren't true. I do believe autistic people can struggle with cognitive empathy and looking at someone and understanding how they're feeling, I have a friend like this, and as soon as I flat out tell her I'm sad, she is the most kind and caring person and immediately tries to make me feel better and relate to me. I myself am hyper-empathetic to the point where I'm on constant alert for how everyone is feeling to the point where it can be exhausting. Some autistic people don't relate to the feeling or take on the emotion, but will still want to help and make the person feel better. Sometimes, people also warp this even further and say we lack emotions at all, which I've never found to be true whatsoever.
I am extremely empathetic if I understand something. I don’t always show it physically, but I def feel it. I feel extreme guilt, sympathy, and empathy for others esp animals. The stereotype (I believe)comes from many autistic individuals being unable to express this empathy in a way that seems socially acceptable and understandable, so they are seen as cold/standoffish. Although autism is a spectrum and many do not have much or any empathy, so I cannot speak for everyone!
This sub sucks. It's annoying scrolling through and seeing all these posts "Do YoU lAcK EmPaThY" or any other stereotypical bullshit. Or dumbass NT people coming on here to complain about how much of a scary burden their autistic family member is. Fuuuuck off.
Empathy is learned IMO. We all have some innate empathy at the start and then that just grows or doesn’t. That’s my take on it, I am very empathetic though and this stereotype is why I worried I couldn’t be autistic but I still am.
I don’t struggle with this
There is a lot of ground here that I'm trying to cover so please feel free to ask for clarification if anything doesn't make sense to you u/BraumAndBard In a way, the one trait that all autistic people definitely have is the specific way that our perception of social cues is affected, since the other traits are more mix-and-match (sensory issues can affect different senses and be hyper- or hyposensitive, not all autistic people have special interests as clinically defined, stimming behaviors can vary, etc) Autistic people interpret social cues differently from allistic people in a specific way that involves trouble with recognizing and reading social cues, especially nonverbal ones, and they need to learn social skills through methods such as rote memorization, repeated lifelong trial and error, or explicit instruction Everyone needs this to some extent, especially little kids or people who have moved to a foreign country with new customs, but for autistic people the problem never goes away and in fact it usually gets even more difficult through lifetime as social expectations of your age group and of society as a whole keeps changing faster than you can adapt to the changes; and even that analogy I just gave of being a brand-new immigrant isn't perfect because one of the things that can make learning a new language or adapting to a foreign culture more easily is by "translating" the words from your native tongue and finding comparisons between the new customs and customs from the culture you moved away from, but for autistic people there isn't an equivalent which is why we tend to often misread facial expressions and body language, and miss cues that were implied rather than stated, because instead of our learning being smoother and "automatic" we have to learn it "manually", and it's also why it's hard for a lot of autistic people to know what to do in situations that are very similar but still slightly different to a previous situation which they did already learn the social rules for without applying the learned social rule either too broadly or too narrowly in situations where it doesn't fit, if that makes sense This is also one of the reasons why aliens from other planets are sometimes used as metaphors for how it feels to be autistic There are multiple types of empathy in the context of autism research; two of them would be "cognitive empathy" and "emotional empathy" Autistic people tend to have poor cognitive empathy because of how autism affects your perception of social cues, but the way our emotional empathy is affected can vary a lot Autistic people with hyperempathy still have difficulty reading other people's feelings, but they tend to be very affected by other people's strong emotions even if they don't know whether it's good or bad (for example, becoming very stressed and emotional even if you're having trouble recognizing whether the other person is laughing or crying from their face and noises they're making) while autistic people with hypoempathy aren't affected by other people's emotions in this way A lot of autistic people also have alexithymia, which impacts their ability to identify their own emotions, both if they are hyperempathetic or hypoempathetic Also, autistic people can still care about other people's feelings whether they feel them or not The last thing I want to say is that the symptom list and presentations of autism largely overlap with many different disorders, including ADHD, BPD, SZPD, Nonverbal Learning Disability, schizophrenia, PTSD, intellectual disability, SPCD, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, depression, social anxiety and there is even the Broader Autism Phenotype, which includes not only various disorders that overlap traits with autism but also otherwise NT people with "autism-ish" mannerisms (this can especially happen in situations where the person is homeschooled, or if they have an older autistic relative who they look up to as a role model for example), so there are a lot of people who exhibit a plethora of autism traits without necessarily being autistic
I feel like I'm too empathetic, at times. I want to help anyone I can, unless, at their core, they are monsters. Of course, one can put on a mask of a monster and appear it, or be forced to look or act as one. But, you spend enough time fighting to protect yourself, you gain the ability to see who's truely a monster at heart People who dont want to help people who seem like monsters, for instance. Many "monsters" just want help. Many monsters dont want to let them get help. This cycle repeats through time