Autism and Empathy - Please share your own experiences

Hi all, I'm new to the forum. Pleasure to meet you all.

So I have a 3 year old daughter who we are sure is on the spectrum (still waiting for assessment for her.) I also have a 12 year old son with autistic traits also, although his symptoms are more subtle. Well he took the Ados test a few days ago and we were told that he meets the diagnostic criteria for Autism. They did not give him a final diagnosis yet as they still need to go over his developmental history, but they also stated that his ability to feel empathy did not quite fit in with the autistic profile.

My son does not naturally pick up on other peoples emotions, body language, vocal tones etc. You have to be direct with him, and actually tell him how you feel, but once he is aware he does care, often too deeply.  Now my 3 year old also has deficits in reading emotions, social cues, body language etc but she does not yet show empathy.  After lots of research I have found that people on the spectrum experience this aspect differently and so I would like to ask the community to share your own personal experiences regarding autism and empathy, to help me understand this a little bit better.

Any information you can provide would be very helpful.

Thank you.

  • I always classed myself as overly empathetic. I dunno anymore. Because i’ve Been told some of it is my own perception rather than really understanding what someone else is feeling. 

    But on the other hand while i’m Not ‘observant’ to many ‘normal’ things, I am overly observant about things that other people brush aside as ‘nothing’ yet i’ve Often been correct with my observations and having an insight into what those observations mean! And it’s always other neurotypical who tell me that what I think I observed doesn’t mean anything, but then a few days later will tell me I was right about something. Is that not empathy? I feel I observe certain things because I do feel so much. I often notice the beginning of someone spiralling into a relapse with their mental illness, before support workers do! 

    I can come across like I lack empathy though because I find I become very distressed and thus unable to help or comfort the other person. Which is very selfish, and comes across as such. Sometimes i’ll Manage to help in my own little ways, but initially they will find me unable to help. 

    I’m much better at helping non human animals. But I also become very distressed at the sight of an animal suffering. But this often makes me a great care taker for animals. For some reason the distress towards human suffering doesn’t make me so great at caring for them. 

    I also find that I feel for inanimate objects. Feeling bad for one guitar because it doesn’t get used as often as the other one, or not at all for example. 

  • I'm still waiting for assessment, but I can relate to what's been written here, especially by pegasus. It never occurred to me (before I began suspecting I might be autistic) that I didn't have any empathy, because I can actually feel things very strongly at times. I might, for instance, see a sad story in the newspaper and remember it for weeks, months or even years afterwards. And I get upset at the sight of people or animals suffering, and even feel sorry for inanimate objects sometimes. But when I did the EQ (empathy test), I scored very low, which took me by surprise at the time.


  • Here's a link to thread I started on this forum in December 2017, about the paper 'More on the ontological status of double empathy' by Nicholas Chown, about autistic and non-autistic people's senses of empathy, with a fair number of replies:


    https://community.autism.org.uk/f/miscellaneous-and-chat/11136/on-the-ontological-status-of-autism-and-double-empathy/56742#56742


  • I agree with what everyone has said before and strongly identify with pretty much all of it (I have been formally identified as autistic). I also work with young people who are autistic. 

    There are a couple of things that I can add which I hope may be helpful in your exploration.....these are just my own ways of understanding and I am no expert but hope they help... 

    I believe there are two different types of empathy. Which I define and understand as... 

    • Cognitive empathy which relies on us being able to interpret a situation or story and then predict the feelings of other.
    • Affective empathy which is the ability to feel and sense the emotion of another person. 

    I struggle with cognitive empathy as I fully appreciate the neuro-diversity of all humans and as such don't feel I could (or that it would be appropriate to) predict how another person feels. I am better at accurately predicting the way an autistic person might feel because this is often closer to my understanding and experience of the world. I still would prefer to explore it with the individual though to make sure I haven't made wrong assumptions. My general experience of observing interactions between non-autistic individuals is that it is OK to make a 'best guess' and use this to inform reactions to situations. This is quick and probably helpful in the moment. My way takes more processing and I can't meet the immediate needs of the individual, other than to help them calm and be safe. 

    I am highly sensitive to affective empathy and feel the state of another person just by sitting next to them. I have also found this to be true with many of the young people I work with particularly evident in those that are non-verbal. For example I was once working with a young lady and I had a slight headache...nothing major that would have been noticeable to most people and nothing that would have changed the way I was interacting, she reached out and put her hand on my head and gently smiled at me. This is empathy in its extreme.

    I can become overwhelmed by affective empathy particularly if there is nothing practical I can do to help. In these situations it can lead to melt downs and ultimately shut-downs if I don't take good care of myself.

    The other thing to consider in communication of empathy is our communication patterns. There is a theory of single focus of attention. I strongly identify with this. It means that in a conversation my focus will either be on what I am saying or what the other person is saying. Thus it is hard to engage in reciprocal communication without a lot of effort. If someone is telling me something which has had a deep emotional impact on them my sole focus will be on what they are saying so I can make sure I get it right. I will however not be conscious of my responses until they have completely finished. 

    In the past this has been difficult as people have thought I lack empathy but now with text messaging it has become easier as I can send a text later to show that I have listened and that I care very much (I also find writing easier than speaking). I also will make people something small that I can give them to let them know I care and that I have been thinking (and empathising) with their situation. People now know if they want to talk to me I will listen and I care. People have said that this in itself helpful as often they just need someone to listen.

    In my experience every Autistic person I have met has empathy and are incredibly sensitive to the world and others. If the world becomes too much though and they are in a continuous state of high arousal (anxiety) they do not have the capacity to engage with others on an emotional level or show their empathy.

    I hope this helps... 

  • Social skills mean constant reciprocal actions. Mainly non verbal. I think if you think about it too much though that will hamstring you too.  When i try to be social i am constantly double checking my attitudes and what my relations are with certain people. So much so, it drives me mental.  And there are no upsides like falling in love etc. That's always beyond me. I'm "lucky" to have welfare and family i guess. I can't imagine being in a situation where had to force myself into stressful situations day in day out. It must be hell for people.  

  • When someone has said to me that they are unhappy I ask why they are unhappy,

    Because I want to help them feel better. 

    So they tell me I have no money and I want this and that and so on,

    So I say let's look how we can solve this, 

    You have no money study after work improve your education apply for a better job (in a simplified exploration not actually conversation ha.)

    You want this and that let's see how this can be achieved let's make steps to get there let's start now. 

    And I have no empathy shortly follows and I feel like I've been slapped in the face WTF.

    Apparently they don't want help they want you to indulge in their negative state, who knew. 

  • I think there is sometimes a confusion between empathy and reciprocity.  I lack reciprocity but not empathy.  So if i see someone unhappy i'm really upset but if i'm having a serious conversation with someone then i may not pretend to see their point of view in the way an NT does. An NT is social skilled and is always thinking about their place in the group and how to keep it. ASD people are often not like that to their own detriment.

  • I'm still waiting for assessment, but strongly believe I'm on the spectrum. I think I'm empathetic, but don't always come across as such. Like your son, I feel strongly if I'm aware of other people's emotions, but don't always recognise it unless told directly. I'm bad at getting my own facial expression, and tone of voice right, so people who don't know me enough to ignore that can misinterpret my response. And I'm not good at responding immediately which also probably looks like lack of empathy, whilst I'm just processing what has been said.

    It varies, but if someone isn't being direct, then it will take me a while to figure out what somebody's body language or tone is saying. Or if it's a noisy environment then there will be a delay in me processing the words (even if someone is saying how they're feeling directly). Then depending on how strong an emotion it triggers in me, it might take me a bit of time to work out what those emotions are. Then if I'm overloaded it will take a while to come up with a reply. I rarely have enough space in my head to work out what facial expression and tone to use as well, but if I did this would also take more time to process. All the while staring blankly at the person. So I probably come across as not empathetic a lot of the time, particularly if someone is expecting an instantaneous reaction. 

    It depends on the environment and how I'm feeling, sometimes I can process this all in a few seconds. Other times it can be hours or days before I feel an empathetic response to the situation.

  • It's strange that there is such a narrow minded view of autism and empathy. I have other relatives on the spectrum who are also highly empathetic. But according to the experts "Empathy doesn't quite fit in with the autistic profile."

  • Empathy umm!

    Apparently I don't have empathy and will never have it.

    Now I just say okay funny that I have become indifferent to it now. 

  • I understand that males and females present differently, and also that all diagnostic tools are geared towards identifying autism in boys, but I don't think they will have any problems in identifying autism in my daughter. She has problems with sensory processing, social interaction, social communication etc. She's selectively mute in the nursery environment. She also has difficulties with social imagination, quite a lot of repetitive behaviours, meltdowns, overloads etc. She can't cope with transition or the slightest change to her routine. She has not yet shown empathy but I understand this to be a learned behaviour, and she's still only 3 years old, so perhaps this will develop a little later. 

  • Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. I found your comment very helpful.

  • My experience matches your description, we process and express emotion differently and (to varied extents that are different in each case) can have trouble identifying or interpreting signals. Also when we do pick up on other's emotions this can also trigger something akin to sensory overload since we are highly empathic by nature, though this is disguised by the difficulty picking up on signals to start with.

    Unless I'm mentally prepared and clear headed, I still miss tones and some of the more subtle facial expressions. However when I know someone is struggling the compulsion to help is so strong that not doing so causes long term trauma and guilt. However when I have too much going on in my own head there is little 'processing power' for all the incoming signals and I focus more purely on what is being said to avoid overload.

    Odds are you already know this next bit from your research, but just in case.

    Note things often manifest differently in male and female, GENERALLY speaking females on the spectrum are more likely to be able to read people. This is a big part of why many women on the spectrum have gone undiagnosed, until quite recently there was little research done into the differences and most of the older literature (before approximately 2 years ago I think) is not very accurate for women on the spectrum. This is very much a generalisation, not a hard rule.