Automatically crying when others cry?

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When I was a little kid and would see other people crying, whether it was other kids, my parents, or even characters in a cartoon or movie I was watching on TV, I would automatically start crying as well, even when I didn't have any prior emotional investment in the situation, or understand what was happening. It was almost as reflexive as watching someone yawn, for me. I cried when other little kids in the church nursery cried because they missed their mommies or got hurt, I cried when I watched Alice in Wonderland and she was crying because she was too big to fit through a tiny door and was flooding a whole corridor with her tears, and even when I got a bit older and my younger half-sisters were toddlers and cried because they were upset or had gotten hurt, I sometimes cried along with them, too. Even if I had been perfectly happy and content prior to the crying, I would still become sad and cry as well, once I'd witnessed it.

Was anyone else like this as a kid, or maybe you still experience this? I just find it kind of interesting and a little confusing, considering how I struggled with theory of mind/empathy as a kid (and still do, to an extent).

Without out going into detail. Yes. To everything you say.

I didn't do it as a kid. But I do it now.

I cry very easily, though not for myself.

I cry at work when someone leaves and other people are crying. It's weird because I might not even like the person who's leaving but I'm there in floods of tears. We just make a joke of it now.

I was crying yesterday, but I'm not telling you why.

Yes, exactly as you say. Crying is contagious, that's very natural in children.
But I believe that developing a theory of mind from this spontaneous feeling of empathy
means to understand or interpret why someone is crying.(see quote below).
Crying can be used for emotional blackmail for instance, or to accuse somebody (crocodile tears).
What I often observe with neuro-typical people is an over-interpretation of others intentions.
They often suspect an offensive intention where no such intention exists, (especially with Aspies.)
It is the ever vigilant ego trying to protect it's pecking-order status in the group, I guess.

"A "Theory of Mind" (often abbreviated in TOM) is a specific cognitive ability to understand others as intentional agents, that is, to interpret their minds in terms of theoretical concepts of intentional states such as beliefs and desires."
http://host.uniroma3.it/progetti/kant/field/tom.htm

Not me. Others crying or laughing or cheering doesn't get me too at all.

Yes, I cry when I see other people crying. I also cry when a character is crying in movies too, and I can't control it. And don't even get me started on funerals - the last funeral I went to I ended up being the person who cried the most out of everybody, because I could feel everybody else's emotional state and tears.

And they say Aspies LACK this sort of ability??? I certainly don't. In fact I often feel I have too much empathy that it sometimes becomes a problem.

I almost cry when I see others crying, and occasionally I actually do. It's like an emotional ethernet cable is connecting our brains or something.

First thing in my head is: Why are he/she/they crying?

The empathy Imbalance Hypothesis

This is an interesting link that Ghost Neanderthal posted on another thread.
It explains why AS people can sometimes have this extremely strong empathy.

Thanks for the link! This is the best research article that I have seen on this topic to date.

Indeed. See the excellent link by Birdsleep.

I cry very easily when I see anyone or any animal in distress. I am also extremely affected when I see or hear about any social injustice, and can't comprehend how other people can shrug it off with quotes such as "One has to be grown-up enough to realize that life is not fair; you just have to do the best you can in the situation you're in".

As a result of hypersensitivity to social inequality, I suspect that many of us reject all forms of non-hierarchical organisation. See the poll I started on autism and anarchism.

i don't remember crying much as an older kid, only when i got physically hurt. i cried tremendously as a baby though, it was a great source of stress and repeated trips back and forth from the hospital for my young parents.

i have been hurt only once by words, by dad. that was over 2 years ago. haven't shed a single tear since. i also cannot and do not cry over any forms of media like movies or books or songs, i never recall doing so. although The Elephant Man got the closest.