Aspies For Freedom

If it's just a problem relating to other people's problems sometimes it's best to imagine yourself in whatever situation they're dealing with and take your cues from your own potential feelings and actions rather than theirs. Though it's not always a 100% accurate way to get things moving, it can help.

very interesting, I have learned a few things while reading this.

First(1), I will post some of my experiences and then(2) some thoughts about and some thoughts about how to gain a better ability in "empathy-related-thingies".

(1)
I find the funeral example (with the boss) really interesting, because I really relate "bad" to funerals or funeral scenes in movies, I always thought it was due to my past (high mortality rate in my family), but it seems not to be only that. But as mentioned by a member before past experiences are the key. (see (2))

I personally think empathy or to empathize etc. can be learned, WHY?
(a) Experience:
I found this "list" on the net:
http://web.archive.org/web/2003080307413...ndrome.htm
There are a lot of points I have, but also a lot I had and I managed, for instance: Maintaining eye contact with persons of the same sex it was no problem since a few years, and in the last year I even managed it to the point that person of the other sex can keep up.

(b) Research:
you know "leaders are born, not made" -> bullshit
you know "charismatic people are born and you can't learn it" -> bull ***
you know "experts are born, not made" -> bullshit (see Expert Mind - Scientific American)
most things are just "comforting limiting beliefs", nothing more and nothing less.


(2)
I listened to the audiobook form Goleman about Emotional Intelligence and I am also reading now: Primal Leadership (which is EI + Leadership + how to make it).
The one thing which strikes me now with the information of the books, my experience and this posts combined is this:
Self-Awareness is the base for the being empathic.
Why?
1) It is written in the book.
2) Past experiences:
a) I can relate to funerals, BUT
b) I can't empathize to a friend who gets a present he really enjoys and I see it, but I can't fell anything, WHY? I didn't knew, but now I can't imagine a present that I will get, which would make me really happy. So I simply don't know/have this feeling.

I also realized, that I sometimes don't know in which "state" I am in, also friends reported you are just top or down. Well that's an aspie trait, but maybe we just need to listen/monitor a little bit better. (In EI Goleman writes about that they do it with children, they monitor their own feelings, but I lack a guide for doing this. I guess it is connecting the rationale and emotional parts of ourselves.)

Aspies are know for having only extreme emotions, to some part I guess, we shutdown some of them for selfdefense. It is just a habit, like other social skills, they are "hard wired" (but not fixed) in some parts of the brain. (Goleman explains that some things (rational) you hear once and get em, but "habits"-thingies are only relearned due to practice and actively doing them.)
So this would mean, it is necessary to  develop emotions/feelings for "normal day life" or recognizing the active state and doing it so often, that it gets "automatic. Maybe even imaging feelings, but such ones that are "unknown".

Another point:
Body language, since Aspies lack "body language skills" it is useful to use it more actively, because the body and mind interacts all the way, the question is not what goes first, but what helps me doing the thing I want to, because bringning yourself in a body language position that is usually use in decision-making also triggers in some parts a decision-making process in your brain. (I am not quite sure about this, but I think there was a story about a family where the learnt empathy for each other due to mimicking the other persons body language, tone etc. but in more extreme way to actually feel it.)

Empathy as an emotion or showing empathy?

sympathy means you have been in the same experience empathy means you have not but feel sorry for those in that situation anyway... or is it the other way around... I always get those two words confused...
At the time of the 9/11 attacks I was too young to understand. All I saw two buildings fall, that was it... At the moment I'm starting to not believe the official story though... Its just too unlikely...

I won't I was just wondering if a lack of emotion allows one to question things more freely, like how religion hindered science for so many years.

And with that unbiased veiwpoint I can look at how the same people who say that, also say that mercury causes autism. Though they do have some things right, like the cover up of the asbestos that killed almost as many people as the attacks themselves that was released into the atmosphere after the buildings fell.

When i was younger i didnt understand empathy and didnt really feel bad for other people. It didnt exist really. Then around..... 10-13 OCD started to get much worse. I started obsessing about how I FELT. Then after some time of monitering how i felt i would relate that to other people. I dont inherantly know how they feel but i can flip it around almost emdiately and know how i would feel and then i become quiet sad. It was a learned response but one i now have. I didnt try to make it though and at times i still dont get it right away but when i do i feel bad. Because again - i relate it to myself. If it were reversed and that were me etc....

some peopel are born with empathy and osme arent, its an instinct you are correct.

some poepel think autistics/aspies do not have empthay, that is just plain not true. some do and some dont, JUST like NTs, some do and some dont.. atcually ALOT of NTs ive met really just dont.

well to be more specific, children are not empathic by nature. its something that isnt supposed to hit you until puberty. so when i say born with it i dont mean kids.

It is my opinion that, yes, you can learn empathy. I know I have. You probably already have it; I imagine you are a sensitive, caring person inside yourself. Perhaps you just don’t know how to show it.

Call me wise old man  -- It appears that my age may be significantly more that yours. If I come out sounding dumb, call me dumb old man.  

For me,  I began to learn Empathy by becoming self-aware, something difficult to achieve given AS/HFT.

I remember seeing a family video of myself when I was a young teenager. Who’s that guy I thought, I knew it was me, but the callous actions that I saw myself doing didn’t reflect who I was. Inwardly I thought of myself as sensitive, caring, and understanding.

I believe my callous actions were the result of my trying to be like everyone else, the unknowing/insensitive NT’s. Somewhere along the way I had lost my self-identity, my sensitive being was not allowed to surface. I didn’t like myself after seeing the video.

As with any subject that interests me, I will devourer information about it. I looked up the word empathy, I studied other people’s empathy, and I wanted to know this feeling.  My sensitive self started to emerge very slowly (later than I would have liked), and I could begin to sense the feelings of others. Even cry sometimes.  I believe the intellectualization of empathy can trigger the emotions.   You can learn it.   IMHO

I think an academic understanding of other people's emotional state is far better, for myself, than actually feeling their feelings. I think it is one of the gifts of how I am, when I can remain neutral, logical and pragmatic. Why would I want emotional pain?  I like to be like my father.  The goal at funerals for us was to remain stoic and to detach our thoughts in order to protect ourselves from pain long enough to endure the obligatory ceremonies.  It was an unspoken pact of trust and security between us. Together we would be as a rock, an island in the cyclone of other people's emotions.  This enabled us to be a source of strength and leadership during crisis while others fell apart.

With an academic awareness of the emotional status of others, one can at least (hopefully) figure out which statements might be impolite or seem insensitive and thus choose our reactions carefully.

Empathy is the part of Asperger's where I feel least sure about myself fitting the criteria.
I definitely feel empathy, and I know when I do, especially for people I have a bond with.
But, I am a 26-year-old female, and I think it probably looked pretty strange the other day when a little old lady tripped over onto concrete right in front of me and was bleeding from the head and I just stood still thinking "okay...blood, that's bad, right?" but unable to feel anything for her or know what to do.

It's not that Aspergers dont have empathy it's that their EMPATHY is fragmented or "distorted", in other words are empathic they just find it hard to sense the emotions of others in real situations where there is information overload and they can't focus, their mind is usually feeling feelings of anxiety, agitation, etc, when they are around groups of people *they dont know*.

When it's 1-on-1 when reading someones blog or watching a movie, cartoon, etc.  It's a lot easier because their is no 'interference'.

We tend to relate emotionally to what we know and have felt ourselves or to the people we know and have experienced, so if something is familiar we can empathize easilly (or at least to some degree), or if it has our full attention.

now that makes sense to me...

i blew my chance to learn empathy, as I am completely hardened by my life's circumstances.