Autistic empathy

Ah, so that is why people shop late on Christmas Eve! I always wondered!!

When i get my wife a Xmas present it almost kills me not being able to tell her what it is! So I leave it late so I don't have as long to keep it hidden.

Not good with keeping secrets and struggle with anything close to lying.

I'd be useless at poker!

Seems to be a very common thing hing among autistic people.

I think I am quite similar to you Fiona, the way you described your empathy is very similar to myself, I feel overwhelming emotional empathy, if I see someone sad, I feel overwhelming sadness, if I see someone cry, I cry myself, so you described that perfectly actually, I never thought about the difference between cognitive empathy and emotional empathy. I also similarly struggle to lie as you described with your example of the birthday event, I think I would have a very similar response, thank you for this as it was nice to relate to you on that, and I think I empathised 

Am autistic and I struggle to lie. You know those ones where your friend's partner is organising a surprise party for their birthday.. your friend comes and asks if you can go for dinner with them on their birthday. I know I can't blurt out that I'm going to their surprise party so I have to think of something true that doesn't give away the surprise, so I'll say something like I've already got something in the diary that night.

Empathy - I guess it varies hugely like it does for NTs. I am hugely empathetic, highly sensitive to the needs and moods of others, when I walk into a group I feel all their needs and emotional energy, it gets really overwhelming. But I have also read a lot that autistic people struggle with emotions, as they are felt on the inside and rarely explained when you're growing up, so it's hard to make the connection between the 'word' and the 'feeling'. Also I've read that NTs have cognitive empathy whereas autists, at least those who are highly sensitive, have emotional empathy. Do you have any empathy?

I'm not sure the purpose of your post, you seem to imply you are autistic but then you want the autistic person (and yourself?) to "get better"... better at what? We can't get better at thinking, as our brains are wired this way...

Autistic people do have empathy in variety of range, but we do. What we struggle with is the way of showing it or reading between the lines in which situations we should show it. We code differently and communicate differently to allistic people. But I don’t believe that autistic people totally lack empathy, that we are like stones. Maybe some of us are… well everyone is different. 

Every Autistic person is different - I am autistic and hyper empathetic so autistic people can have empathy. In my opinion, Autism is not a disease, I just believe we have a difference, which is only hard in a world where difference is not appreciated and we are told its wrong when it isn’t wrong at all, difference is progress and we need people who think in different ways, otherwise things would not move forward and change wouldn’t happen. I struggle with my autism and being different everyday but I try to get better in terms of getting better at accepting what I am and understanding myself to explain myself to people better and do my best to understand everyone else’s differences too, rather than continue the vicious cycle of people hurting other people. 

Yellow tree 118 said:

I personally view my autism as a disease

Performing a quick search for "is autism a disease or disorder" gives a load of results.

Autism.org says "Autism is a developmental disorder with symptoms that appear within the first three years of life. It is not a disease"

World Health Organisation says "Autism is a diverse group of conditions related to brain development, affecting about 1 in 100 children worldwide. It is not a disease, but a disorder"

And so on - I haven't dug deeper but the consensus is that it is NOT a disease.

You can identify your autism as anything you want to, but it doesn't make it right.

That’s great I’m glad you feel this way. I personally view my autism as a disease though no offence. I want to be cured. Hope that doesn’t offend you though. 

I don't see autism as a disease! It's just how I am and I am mostly healthy and quite robust in my sense of self, apart from new teeth and knees I don't need curing of anything.

Maybe autistic people lack empathy because we have been hurt by society and we cannot sympathise with the hurt of others because our hurt has not been compensated. Makes sense? 

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

This feels like a really strange post.

The dissonance of repeatedly using "they" for "we" always flags as "strange" to me......but posts that are frustrated about "them" are not unusual for "us" here.  Often, a bun fight ensues......so I'll be seeing myself away from this thread now.....its a lovely evening out there.

I don't think autists are any more likely to lie, manipulate, be devious and destructive than anybody else. So many of us struggle with communication I can understand why one would think it deliberate, I'm quite a blunt person, particularly with people I know, but this is a much a social class thing as an autistic one. If you've had trauma's in your life then it can and will make you distrustful of others, you may agree with them because you're afraid not too, or appear devious and manipulative as you try and find out if this person is worth putting the effort into. Of course a lot of it maybe a mispleaced sense of humour, this is something I've come across amoung other autists from time to time. I think it might also be an age thing?

Empathy is a strange thing, as is compassion and they're often misunderstood in my opinion, many people think empathy is similar to some kind of telepthy and that anyone who's generally empathetic will know exactly what someone is feeling and why and be able to respond in a way that makes things better. Compassion gets mixed up with sympathy and they're very different, it can be compassionate to give someone a verbal kick up the backside, to call them out on hurtful, spiteful and behaviours that harm others as well as the person saying things. Compassion isn't saying "there, there, never mind", it's often about admitting the limits of what you can do to help and just being there for someone, metaphorically holding their hair out of the way whilst they emotionally vomit.

I try to be both empathetic and compassionate, neither are easy, neither mean I have to be a doormat, to be empathetic and compassionate to others mean I must be those things to myself first ad that's often very difficult as we're so often brought up to not think of ourselves, but only others.

The people you described to me sound more like narcissistic. Can autistic people be narcissists? Probably yes. 

Well good post. I just find it interesting that’s all. I truly want for autistic people to get better. It is a disease of the mind. I’m not being funny and no one hacked my account but we need to help these people before things get out of hand. I believe when autistic people are aggressive and hurt others they truly don’t mean it. Instead it is the disease in their heads that is making them do it. I have been aggressive in the past and have known other autistic people to be aggressive and violent. I had a friend who was autistic. In one of his moments of carelessness he cut me with a peice of glass and I still have a scar from it till this day. I didn’t press charges because I know he didn’t mean it it was the sickness in his mind that made him do it I know that. So I discontinued contacts. He was not affected emotionally by his actions. He laughed about it. Hey I don’t know what went through his head. I am owning it. This is a disease I have. A disease of the mind. I am ill. I am sick. I want to be healthy whatever that is.

This feels like a really strange post. Did someone hack this account?

Blunt and insensitive, yes. But if I replace Autistic with Traumatised ADHD, the rest makes sense. But the traumatised Autistics of varying intellect I know, can be selfish, a bit dull, we can be egotistical for lack of feeling seen, but deceptive? We can be withdrawn and have difficult connecting or relating with others and responding as expected (empathy) due to difficulty with language. And while ignorance can be bliss it's also well good for the Dunning Kruger effect.  Add intensity of interest and poor insight, lack of mentorship... 

Who and how many others are you talking about here. 

Empathy used to be understood as Emotional Contagion. A sort of mass hypnosis of 'feeling'. Sympathy and Compassion are more useful.

But I do think it's good to remember, Diagnostics are all topsy turvy right now. Trauma is misapplied to Autism, therapists who haven't spent decades in deep psychoanalytic study don't know the difference between ADHD and Autism let alone what separates autistic from psychotic, which is why Francesca Happé has to speak on this. I'm relatively certain there's probably a good amount of kids who are introverts without added language barriers, some with trauma, currently misdiagnosed Autistic.