High levels of empathy

Hi, I am looking for information on what people may understand of empathy in people on the spectrum, from what I can gather it maybe more people with Asperger's (as it was), who experience high levels of empathy. What is known about this? What are people's experiences? 

Unnecessary ramble you don't have to read haha

What I can gather so far: though the information I have found is sparse and I am unsure if it is reliable. The bit that makes the most sense to me seems to suggest that people with what was classically called autism can often ( though not all) struggle with emotional empathy but can still develop very high levels of cognitive empathy. They can understand emotions but not feel them, meaning, as I interpret it that it needs to be more of a conscious process to realise what someone is feeling whereas NT people may grasp this more easily and intuitively. 

Whereas some things I have read seem to suggest that Asperger's can go the other way, sometimes excessively high levels of emotional empathy. 

Alexithymia also seems to be a factor, (the inability to recognise one's own emotions) my reading seems to suggest that this can largely occur independently of autism but that this can be a large factor in seeming lack of empathy, also in causing more problems for people with high emotional empathy but low cognitive empathy. How I would interpret that being that when you can feel the distress, joy any other intense emotion of another but do not understand it it can easily become highly confusing and overwhelming which seems to tie into some of the intense world theories that people have for autism in general. 

My personal experience ; I am undiagnosed, a non qualified (for autism diagnosis) councellor told me I had asperger's but at school I spent a long time in the special needs department (due to dislexia) and was never diagnosed I suspect she would have caught this then as she was qualified to diagnose it and should have been clearer as a child (though I maybe mistaken in that). I still do not know for sure, though I suspect that yes I show many of these traits, I am aware that this is a simplification but I suspect I am very close to Asperger's but not quite enough traits to count for a full diagnosis.

I had a chat a while ago now with someone with a recent autism diagnosis. When I was struggling with my own potential diagnosis who said that he experiences very high levels of empathy. What he describes sounds very much similar to what I experience. For personal reasons discussing this further with him is difficult. I am trying to understand.

I was until recently very unaware of my own feelings, though I suspect that is far more to do with upbringing. I think I have high levels of empathy, described by my councellor as I grew up in an environment where is was necessary to care for another in order to survice so I feel the emotions of others before my own, I find it far easier to tell what I am feeling with time away to process. I also have a dangerous tendency to excuse bad behaviour towards myself as I am able to understand their perspective why they act that way and so do not enforce boundaries as I should. The first councellor describing this as I would likely, as I was autistic, always be more vulnerable to abuse and being exploited than most people. A terrifying concept. Being a large part of why I changed could councellor, this one is much better for me, but has little to no understanding of autism, she does not think that I am. But I would like more knowledge on this is anyone has anything relevant to any of this. 

 

  • I think the "cognitive and emotional" empathy difference is difficult for many people, recently found a good TED talk on the subject. Which did however say the opposite to what I had heard when I wrote this originally

  • Analysis? 

    I could also be doing this with games. There is a woman at work very set on getting ahead, clearly willing to throw others under the bus to get there, by weirdly honest about it. I don't like her I don't trust her, but I can speak to her and work with her fine, mostly because she is honest about it so think. Where as some of the higher positions particularly are all about "talking the talk" they talk like they care about People but there every action is disdainful disregard and disrespect I have no clue where to go with that, other than try to get away from them. Games confuse me, I see them, think I probably could play, I just really really don't want to. 

  • I had forgotten all about this thread. Not sure that I can even distinguish between cognitive & emotional empathy, since I see everything as based on cognition & interpretation of data anyway.

    I have had many discussions on this subject with psychotherapists & other mental heath professionals in the past though. In fact this was one of the subjects that lead to my extremely late ASD diagnosis a few years ago.

    I used to think that everyone saw the world in the same way as I do but just didn't like to admit it in such stark terms. The more I come to accept that NTs really don't think in the same way though, the more I feel like a total outsider that has just learned to pass for normal in their world, which is quite sad really.

  • Hi Munchkin_3, that sounds so much like me. I also jumped on every "working with people" course that came by because I realised I had much to learn, and I met interesting people and learned lots about psychology etc. But 5 or 10 years of that and my brain was fried, now I am having to go back to analysis and noise-cancelling headphones and shut out the world. Get me something that catches my interest and I'll easily work through lunch without noticing. If something bores me, I'm off for a snack at 9:30 asking when it's lunchtime.

    But isn't it just like watching a car crash in slow motion when you see others miss-communicating? Although I do often wonder if the reason that I don't get hung up on sub texts and people's motives is because I just can't understand them (motives & games that is).

  • Hope you got that sorted (apologies for very slow response) My understanding is that you would not be liable for the tax unless you were the registered keeper. Did you physically have the vehicle? How did you tax it in the first place if it wasn't in your name? didn't think the new system allowed that and yes you should have gotten a reminder

  • Hi, to your original message, is it possible that that disinterest be is more a form of focus? In the first instances you describe it seems as though hour are perhaps focused on another goal, living life generally doing work, and just don't start down that thought train, but when it does you feel the empathy and shovel on some guilt because you feel like you "should" have felt it at the time. Just a thought

  • Interesting, thanks for the input. To me I would be overly logical about it, funeral's I kind of see no point in, the person is dead, they do not care, I would go because I feel like I should or to offer support/ show respect to surving people. Road traffic accident's I sometimes surprise people in how cold I can be as I generally overly care, as long as someone is helping them my thoughts are basically, there are millions of people suffering at this instant in the world why feel bad for this one just because they happen to be in eyeline, they have help, there is nothing I can do, just out it out of your mind. 

    I wouldn't beat yourself up for it, even from just what you said about mowing a ladies lawn every week it sounds like you are offering your own form of support to people. If emotional support isn't your direction of helping don't feel bad. 

  • This one I can absolutely relate to, I find work deeply painful sometimes because I can see the parts where they are just not stating themselves clearly and misunderstanding is happening. I have either just noticed more than others (they normally follow this pattern, that person is quieter than usual, etc.) Or have more information or perhaps just because I spend so much time stressing it. 

    Though oddly a woman in work the other day told me "you feel what's going on even when they don't say it" really unsure. I have in that last year or so been rather frantically been over educating myself in psychology and communication skills maybe it has more to do with that. 

    I do find it absolutely fascinating but also completely exhausting. And my batteries will rapidly run very low when made to process these social situations, I even start slurring and things sometimes, struggle telling left and right, lose my track in the middle of a sentences that sort of things. Where as give me days of hard, non people involving work and I would keep going like the Duracell bunny unless I forgot to eat because I got overly focused.

  • I have aspergers and I'm super emotional. I always have been which combined with the way I get treated in life makes me want to give up. I crave human interaction but always find that I get taken advantage of. I spent months living on my own and not leaving the house because I wasn't working and had no one worthy to spend time with or even wanted to spend time with me. The most interaction I've had in a while is benifits and magistrates Court.

    I bought a car, I taxed it and the tax ran out. The vehicle hadn't transferred to my name so I never got a reminder and now I'm a criminal. I have a record as tax ran out. It's disgusting and I can't even get answers. The best I can do is use Google. Like apparently I now need to tell new employers I'm a criminal for the next two years this is according to Google. The only thing tool I have... Atleast Google doesn't lie to me like people constantly do! I don't even understand how someone who wasn't the registered keeper is liable. Wtf 

  • I’m generally confused by the empathy, sympathy, compassion.

    I can’t even decide how empathetic I am. I scored low.

    I admit I can be cold. When my grandparents died and my mum cried I was more annoyed at the situation than sad. I just wanted her to stop crying so everything could go “back to normal”. Yes, it was sad that he died but he had rather long life and yes, I understand she was sad but no, I didn’t really “feel her pain”. The same thing happened when my husband’s farther died. 

    And I’m not sad when I hear random stories about some people being murdered. And I don’t really care about my coworkers’ stories - about their problems with boyfriends or some other personal issues.

    But then, sometimes I start thinking about them. Those people who died. Who were abused or murdered. And I think - what did they think? Were they in pain? Where they scared? How someone could do something bad to them? How can someone abuse small child who is scared and cries and begs them to stop? 

    And then all I want to do is to help those suffering vulnerable people but I can’t. I can’t even think about what happened to them because it is too much for me and I cry and I just can’t stop this uncontrollable crying.

     It hurts and I really don’t like that feeling.

  • Ive been diagnosed with Autism(Aspergers)

    I don't seem to have much empathy at all. For example 

    An old lady that I knew really well died, I cut her lawn for her every week for 20 years. I didn't feel the need to go to her funeral

    A neighbour contracted *** cancer and had to undergo kemo and radio therapy, she was quite unwell - I didn't feel the need to visit her during this time

    If I get delayed in a road traffic accident initial feelings are annoyance at being delayed for x number of minutes, not the welfare of the victims of the accident.

    Sometimes on reflection I hate myself for being so cold and calculated

  • people with what was classically called autism can often ( though not all) struggle with emotional empathy but can still develop very high levels of cognitive empathy

    *waves* :-)

    This confused me for some time, until I learned that empathy is not a monolithic slab of skill. I think I often have more cognitive empathy than NT people, but I struggle with emotional empathy. I get emotional contagion, sometimes. But at work I have a skill in being an interpreter between people from different backgrounds / functions, because my brain red-flags "he/she isn't going to know what you're talking about, because they don't know X" and then I can step in and explain. It's all powered by logic, as well as the customary smoke & mirrors.

  • I suppose it depends on equally on what you mean by empathy & also how you experience your own emotions.

    I was only diagnosed early last year at age 55 & during my diagnosis was initially told I was hard to classify because I was quite good at camoflage. As a teenager I endured many years of severe bullying which gave me a keen sense of other people's negative emotions as well as a very strong sense of justice towards anyone being scapegoated or otherwise unfairly treated by society. Predictably, this also made my political views quite strongly left wing.

    I tend to react quite strongly to other people's potential negativity towards me, which in many ways operates like an early warning system, but am not quite so good at reading whether people are responding positively as opposed to being indifferent, i.e. I find it hard to tell if people like me, but can easily tell if they actively dislike me.

    Similarly, I have a strong empathic reaction when I see other people being treated badly & feel considerable discomfort if I don't attempt to intervene. Oddly though, I find it much easier to be able to tell if other people like each other, so the fact that I can't apply the same logic to myself seem to be a definite blindspot.

    Since my view of the world was shaped by negative childhood experiences, that perception seems to colour everything. The way that I read other people's body language & other more subtle social cues is quite possibly an artificially learned defense mechanism, so it is impossible for me to know if my version of empathy is in any way similar to other people's or is mainly an intellectual construct.

    The same is true of my emotions, just as I can never see the colour blue through someone else's eyes, I can never know how their emotions differ from mine. All I can do is observe them externally & extrapolate based on my own personal experience.

    I have had the 'Digital vs Analogue' conversation many times with mental health professionals. According to the popular view, people on the Autistic Spectrum are supposed to have problems with empathy & body language, but quite often I am better at picking up signals than NTs.

    In my head it feels like pattern matching, but I don't know if that is how it feels for NTs. Potentially, most of my social skills are 'Digital' & consciously constructed from first principles at some point in my past, whereas for NTs they are 'Analogue' & some sort of innate subconscious reflex.

    The problem is that I can't remember ever being any different & it just feels completely natural to me. It wasn't until I started describing to a mental health nurse how I always break down other people's behaviour into separate components in my head that it really struck me, because he said that really isn't how most people think at all.