Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I'm new to this community and excited reading many stories in the community.Recently I've been reading several articles about 'double empathy problems' and I've learnt about 'emotional empathy' which autistic people tend to be good at, that we can feel the same as other people (highly empathetic). But autistic people are not good at 'cognitive empathy' (the famous 'theory of mind' thing), where we're bad at cognitively prospecting people's emotions or thoughts.
I feel that this describes me exactly. I think I'm very empathetic (or sympathetic). I cry when I watch films or even trailers. I think I can tell when people get angry or uncomfortable when I'm with them (but I don't know why, but I can't do that with text only or voice only communication. I think I need face and body language to feel it). But I don't know at all how to fix it or approach it for them.
Now I'm curious about other people's experiences with this. I read several community chats here about empathy and what I thought was there're both people (who think themselves highly empathetic or not at all). Do you have any thoughts or stories?
Thank you.
Hi everyone, hyper empathy is something I have and as others mentioned this does affect me in a negative way sometimes. I take on others emotions good or bad and they both affect me in the same way…. Holding in a wave of tears and emotion. It’s tough to manage but holding it in stops me from standing out. My wife after many years still thinks I’m emotionless even though I know it’s quite the opposite. I have been like this since childhood but just learned to hide it. My son struggles with the same thing age 9. Lots of emotional triggers for me include music, tv, adverts, random thoughts, others feelings and other people’s unfortunate situations.
I love being empathetic but hate having to hold it in when around others.
Do you think we are hyper empathetic to positive emotions too?I feel happy when my friend is happy, but generally I feel I recognize my hyper empathy with negative (sad, angry confused etc) feelings.> My wife after many years still thinks I’m emotionless even though I know it’s quite the opposite.Same here... expressing the emotion is totally different story!