Autistic and Empathic?

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Hello everybody,

I am curious if any of you are autistic and empathic, but running aground doing so.
A roommate and I coincedently had done a similiar method for years to understand what we where feeling - identification of individual feelings in self and others by trail-and-error.

I always had those feelings I couldn't really verbalize (always on the tip of my tongue...) so I suppressed them while I was young, around age 20 I got chemotherapies to treat brain tumors which amped my empathic senses outside the bounds in which I could contain them.

In my case it was a necessaty to understand it or i'd go crazy, where my roommate did it out frustration of social acceptance. It drains us both to do so, accompanied with the headaches, emotionally maxed out and physically and mentally drained.
Strangely I don't get maxed out as fast on people with little to no empathic ability.
Atleast they aren't screaming their emotions out as people with a larger reach, seen in general.

So, are you able to sense feelings of others but not know how to express it?
And if you can identify feelings, are you experiencing similiar symptoms from socializing?

Cheerfully,
Wallourdes

how many posts are there now about if people with as can have empathy?

As many as there are people struggling with this issue.

may as well make this a sticky then

Beats me, this is my special interest atm since this bothers me the most. Admittingly I've read alot of other post concerning this subject, but not in this specific way. Seeing alot of attention around this subject which I am not the only one starting topics, suggest it is something that alot of fellow WPers are troubled and/or enthousiastic about.

The subject might be spoken of alot, but for me it hasn't run stale yet.
I'll post on some other subject if it comes to mind. I have no intention of neglecting the WPers who aren't interested in the whole empathy/sympathy/feelings stuff.

Cheerfully,
Wallourdes

The test of empathy is in the accuracy of how well you can know what's going on inside another person's head, and not just good intentions. At times I have become infatuated, which I might have mistaken for empathy. It was quite a painful experience to realize that I had been appreciating other people for what I thought they were and not for who they really are. You only know your own perception and you can never be sure that this has anything to do with how other people really are.

Using the definition: "Empathy is the capacity to share the emotional state of another sentient being through consciousness rather than physically" I can do it even if I am not quite so good in knowing what's going on in their head. I really think that NTs are even worse at it. Many suffer from "Delusions of Empathy".

I can sense the feelings of others, but not in a direct fashion. It seems to come in through a very generalized way, and mainly when there's a lot of people around. One-on-one doesn't really work.

I have troubles sensing the emotions of other people. They have to be really extreme for me to pick up on them.

I am a very sympathetic person once I can pick up on the feelings.