High levels of empathy

Sorry for the delay in replying, as I said earlier, it's like some form of pattern matching.

It's hard to give specific examples, because I don't consciously remember or look for the components until I recognise them, some sort of associative background monitoring process just points them out as being odd.

An example I have used several times before is that in my last job, my boss was someone I had known for a very long time (since university), & I could always tell when he was starting to get irritated because he would start to 'clip' the syllables on the end of words in a very distinctive manner.

The signals don't have to be learned specifically for each person though, most things seem to be fairly universal & often without the people concerned being aware they are broadcasting information, although I am much better at spotting negative things than positive, for reasons previously discussed.

I have learned to be very sensitive to negative body language signals & usage of ' Passive Aggressive' language. For example, on entering a social grouping, someone might subconsciously move or back away slightly in a manner that makes it obvious that they would rather avoid you, even when they might be trying to pretend the opposite. Attempts to engage such people in conversation, will usually result in 'Closed Answers' that don't naturally lead on to anything else.

As I said, it's really hard to describe because I can't list all the individual signals, I just know them when I see them. I suppose it's quite similar to what people often describe about playing Poker & learning to recognise other people's 'Tells'.

On a possibly unrelated note, I somehow do the same thing with the way people walk. Everyone walks in a slightly different manner & after a while I seem to subconsciously memorise it such that I can often recognise it from a long distance away, even when they have their back to me. My head just seems to like pattern matching .

OMG in a weird way, you’ve just put into words (what I couldn’t) what I do. 

I write as a way of processing my thoughts. I never really know what I’m going to write. And last night I wrote this big thing on a huge pattern I spotted, which funnily enough is related to language. 

Like you, it’s like I hardly notice it’s hapoening, although one or two things will *** my attention and sometimes something tells me I’m on to something. so keep going. And then it all comes together. 

It might take me years to learn something, but I clearly never forget because sometimes, something happens, a pattern fits together and solves that puzzle from years ago. Or I even get a joke months or years later! 

And yes, me too, with the way people walk. It’s significant. I tried learning body language but it just made me suspicious of everyone and like I was on an under cover mission and what was the point? But I do read a person from the way they walk. I get a lot of information from that. And people actually speak their troubles, what we call their script (in metaphysics) and they have no idea they’re doing it. I’m starting to give more importance to the way I experience the world and much less to even thinking about trying to fit it, in any way whatsoever and it’s like I can see, that all I really needed was time and space, away from the world, to process stuff in my way. 

Anyway, thanks for that. You’ve helped me to understand myself much better. I always thought I must be communicating energetically or something, I couldn’t work it out, and I still think I am to some degree but you’ve helped me to see that I’m actually getting a lot of information in other ways, such as how they walk etc ~ I need to trust more in that. 

I'm the same. Only difference is I don't hate myself for the way I am and it actually helps me in a lot of situations. I don't see myself as cold and calculated though. That's how some nt see me, but I know that their opinion of me is not true, it's just the way they put meaning to what I do or don't do but in truth, it's simply just the way I am, like I don't have the gene that makes people react in a different way that would make a person not say I was cold and calculated. I don't mind. Most of the things people say about me are so far from the truth that they often make me giggle. Such as that one, that I'm cold and calculated. That's not to say I don't stay away from all funerals, but they mostly don't really mean much to me and often they talk about the person who died and I think I'm at the wrong funeral! Lol! I don't know why but nt people like to talk about the person highlighting things about them that they approve of in their mysterious rule book of life. 

You're projecting your feelings onto those people who's stories touch you. But the reality of the situation, for them, is different. 

For example, anybody who harms a baby is completely out of their minds. They wouldn't, at the time, be considering the baby's feeling at all. 

Also, babies live in the moment, so as soon as something is over, it's over, so they're restored to their natural loving  mindset or nature (in fact it never left them) and even while it's happening, they haven't yet developed the faculty to think about and consider what's happening to them and be able to judge it as a good or bad experience. To them, it's simply an experience. 

So maybe you think about those things some times as a way of bringing to the surface the feelings of compassion and empathy within you as a way of showing yourself that just because you don't ordinarily express them that way, like most other people do, you have still got them.

You simply experience those qualities in a different way from most people. Which of course is different from the masses which means it is viewed as almost inferior, and because they think that because we don't express ourselves in the same way, we must therefore be without these qualities and the absence of them, they think, is somebody who is cold and heartless. 

But that's just what it looks like to them, from their experience of empathy and compassion. They just have a different way of expressing it.

Neither way is right or wrong. It's simply that we autistics seem to experience our emotions etc in a rather more unique and varied way than what the masses do, who seem to follow a prescribed formula that doesn't touch us in the same way. 

I guess I still got those childish dreams in me - everything in the world living in peace and harmony. But animals eat animals (or plants) and fight with each other - for territory, hierarchy in the group, mate. Happiness of one is suffering of other. And it still makes me sad when think about it, even through it’s just the way it is. 

I started off by trying to give my thoughts in a short simple way, it seemed impossible for me to condense my thoughts, and the more I tried the harder it got, the more I tried to say about one thing or another it didn’t seem right to condense it?

I finally decided whatever I felt like saying was my way of sharing my feelings and that by doing so it also helped me,

writing it all down freely, using typed words, not spoken felt like a release for me,

 so no apologies for the length of this reply , or indeed the times it reads as contradictory.

 They are my thoughts and feelings, raw, unhindered, free flowing and honest.

I feel fragile emptying my mind in this way, I have faith that what I write will just be read, heard, felt,

I am on a journey of self knowledge, who I really am, the hidden often self denied me. The never seen or heard me, 

It is a tough journey, but I am getting there , slowly but I will get there, I need to be me, just ME.

,,,,,,,,and so,

When attending a funeral as a young child It seemed to me it was not considered the done thing for men to show feelings, especially not to cry,

As children the topic of death was not talked about, we were sheltered from it, no way were young children considered when attending a funeral. All we saw was sad faces returning. 

I have very deep emotions, As a young boy I copied my peers, man up, it didn’t mean I wasn’t feeling sad, I could dismiss my feelings and told myself that although I had much sorrow nothing I could do would change what had happened, so deep breath and carry on.

I also watched people crying and being consoled, I wanted it so much to stop as it hurt me so much, as a child I had no way of easing the sorrow I saw.

So decided to be a child and carry on playing, 

As I got older some would say “ well you don’t seem very upset” oh boy,, if only they could see the turmoil in my head, no matter how upset I felt it was never going to make what happened different, fact! They had gone, fact! I could only see the beautiful things they were, the kindness they gave freely. Why get upset because they were no longer here?

I struggle to put across my feelings here now, they seem to be contradictory? ,,, even to me as I struggle to write them.

Yes I feel deep sadness but usually at the injustice of a life cut short by disease or misfortune,,, old age seemed a natural thing do die of, isn’t it what all old humans do.

Now that I am older I allow my true sadness to come out,

Now that  I am older,  and have worked where I am for over thirty years,

 a fair few of the men I first knew who taught me so much when I was young and hungry for knowledge have passed away, my mates have passed on, I attend all of the funerals regardlesss of who they were.

Everyone one of them added to my life, it doesn’t matter how, wether it was companionship or laughter, frustration or there rejection of me,

I look around me in the church or crematorium and I see many people, some family, some ex colleagues, young children, most appear to be just going through whatever is expected, devoid of any real feelings.

 As I look on I think of the person who has died and remember all the times we shared, the happy things, the interaction and working together we shared, All the things I learnt and felt as we met up each day and worked together, played together, argued together, each one enriched my life in some way, 

So there I am, thinking about them, enjoying all that they meant to me, I am not sad, I feel the joy they gave me.

So if allowed to be there on my own I would be happy.

Only when I see others start to cry or comfort another do I then feel the over whelming emotions start to build within me, I try so hard to hold back, I look up or around, focusing on whatever I can to stop the tidal wave of feelings that are held deep inside me, 

When I can no longer hold back the tears they  flow, I shake and tremble, my whole body feels The hot feeling start at my feet and spread up my legs flowing higher and higher, again and again it flows, I release every emotion I have ever held back, every sad moment fills my mind, I cannot stop it, it is all or nothing, The people either side of me, often my fellow workers look away, won’t look at me, they seem to blank me out?

I no longer hide my emotions, I feel ever more the need to allow my feelings out, not hold them in, not deny them, whatever anyone ever thinks of me as I sob openly with tears running down my face and my body shaking and trembling,,, I need to release them, once I have allowed my feelings to flow freely I can then start remembering all the good they did, the friendship they gave me, the richness they gave me by just being themselves. I feel a sense of release,,,

                   ———————————————

Ok I also felt very  sad when one young colleague took his own life, He always come across as being very strong and nothing ever worried him, beneath that hard exterior was a struggling being that tried so hard but kept failing. He had lost his wife and two children because he played the field, drank heavy, played hard, he ended up living on his own , tried to follow his dream, went up north to become a gamekeeper,

That too was denied him, he enjoyed the feeling of freedom, nature, his own boss, but pressure to perform targets to meet, breeding birds to be shot, he gave up and returned to us, 

I wished I had helped him more, I reached out often, no matter how much he pushed me away, he seemed Hell  bent and determined to spiral ever deeper , no matter how much he caused me to hurt, and he did, often deliberately making things difficult for everyone including me. I always tried to make him feel valued, and that if he ever wanted to talk I would listen, He was a real man, a bloke, strong, determined, angry, constantly showing all just how hard he was, how nothing ever phased him, drank harder than anyone, fought often until beaten or arrested as seemed to be often the case,  he could then Bragg about it. But he never quite felt able to let go and connect with me, 

one  New Year’s Eve he drank a bottle of whiskey and locked himself in a shed with a generator running, he closed his eyes one final time and slept. 

I attended his funeral, the room was packed, many outside, 

I didn’t cry this time, I felt angry, sad but could not cry?

I felt the sadness his family felt, looked on and saw many who seemed  to be just fulfilling a role, 

I feel sad about him, but angry and frustrated that even though he had many many friends not one was with him over Xmas, not one was with him New Year’s Eve, He was alone in a caravan in a field, that is where he finally ceased to exist . A life gone, denied by most, tolerated by some, but no one ever reached out a true hand to support him in the way he needed most, I kept Trying, He would often seem to lower his guard but suddenly raise it again.

Thats me,,, my head full of thoughts now unloaded, 

thank you if you carried on reading, and thank you if you skipped to this part,

 take care all of you. X()x

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