Are Aspies emotionally sensitive?

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I can relate to Drzava. I remember 9/11 when it came around. I like buildings falling over or just generally falling down (like when they destroy an abandoned building), so of course when I found out that two planes had flown into two of the largest buildings of their age and made them collapse I was estatic. I wanted to see it again. Well, as they do, the News did another re-cap, and so I got a second serving. And then a third, and a fourth, and then oh so many more. Living in New Zealand I didn't know what the Twin Towers were even there for. I feel ashamed of myself when I look back on it.

Then, not so long ago, there came the London bombings. I had grown up a bit since then, so I was more concerned about it than I was with 9/11. But I still feel like I didn't take it to heart as much as I should have (for example, I was able to comment on the fact they were repeating the same images over and over again). At least I acted a bit more responsibly than last time.

What I resent about events like the Challenger blowing up,Priccess Diana's death,9/11.etc....Is that the media and peoples reaction makes it seem like "these" lives are some how more important then all the other deaths and daily suffering caused by human greed and indifference...It just always pisses me off when they use the "sound bite senimentallity" to improve ratings or when politicians then take the media manipulation and use it to defend "their " special interests.Having these individual deaths destorted actually "dehumanizes them" in my eyes....its like if someone started selling advertising space on coffins(I hope wall street isnt looking at this....lol)I watch a lot of MSNBC and CNN news(only because my boyfriend is obsessed with them....arrrrgggg)and they will have one 2-5 min. story about the genicide in Africa.....and then not mention it again for montha while they play the same stupid film clips of the run away bride or 5th anniversiry of 9/11...are we really the center of the universe?

And it's inescapable. We've got the same problem here. Y'know how Steve Irwin passed away recently? Well, the local newspaper had the spotlight was on his daughter, who read out a poem non-chantadly (Is that right?), and the article was titled "Irwin's Daughter caputures hearts of Aussie's". Okay, sure she's important, but in my opinion the spotlight was on a little bit too light for her own sake (if you get what that means). These events irritate me as well: there a program on at 7:00 called Close-Up, but the main topic titles can be ridiculous. Last week, the top headline was about a pig running about Auckland. Hmm, how many people care about that? Not me, that's for sure.

Moving right along, I came up with a weirdo idea: What if they had advertisements in Exams!?

Yeah that was my thoughts when 9/11 happened.. they showed it on the news.. and kept showing it and kept showing it and my reaction? Why are they so hung up on 2500 people dieing but the ongoing wars and the thousands dead there arent important?

2500 civilians dead big deal over 100,000 civilians dead in Iraq since we ran in there guns blazing to "liberate" them but does anyone erect a monument for them? Heck no.

It'd be a bit of a hassle making those memorials, though. If that happened, someone'd probably complain about the mis-use of that marble that could've gone into something else!

Just to stray even further off topic....can you imagine how many American" terrorists" would be "created" if another country invaded us(I like the part were they stalk "W" Bush and put him on trial for war crimes...lol)but then because of this....people from Canada and South America come to USA to fight the "evil" invaders of USA....and then Americans....maybe Evangelic VS...all sane people...start fighting each other for eventual control of the US....and Democrats and Republicans do ,like wise...but no one will call it a civil war or help us get rid of the invaders.....I dont know why this is not hard to imagine....but I think it would be fare to say,that even those of us who hated Bush...might want to hurt some of our "liberators" and might take advantage of the instability of our country to try and regain control over a government we no longer thought represented us(as Jefferson said we should do )...

And dont give me any crap about Bush not being as "evil" as SudomHussein....I am not claiming he was up for sainthood either....but the issue is...how would Americans act if our country was invaded,our lives disrupted,our economy destroyed,our relatives murdered daily by "whoever" but because of the invasion....wouldnt we be a little "testy" towards" the country who did this to us(not for us,we didnt ask them here...)

There is a difference between empathy and sympathy.

Empathy is identification with and understanding the feelings of another person.

Sympathy is mutual understanding or affection during a time of sadness or loss.

I think what people here are displaying is sympathy.

I think some people tend to get compassion and empathy screwed up. Compassion is the desire to help someone else, and that is generally due to the fact that the person might know how it feels to be in such a position. Compassion tends to occur with people whom are more introverted. Empathy is a bit different.

Empathy is the understanding that someone thinks differently than you. I think many aspies can rationalize that someone would think differently from them, but they tend not to intuitively sense it. That's probably why a lot of us can be greatly stubborn. I also think that some aspies have a tendency to be extremely self-absorbed, such that they don't even care what other people think.

This is based on what I have read in an aspergers book denoting differences between empathy and compassion.

- Ray M -

I actually don't have much actual empathy; I'm rather impersonal, altruistic, and idealistic when it comes to helping people. It's more of a rational, "Hmm, this person needs help; I can provide it," than real empathy--I like to help others, and it's very gratifying to see that the world is a little better because you did something. Mind you, it's still a very intense drive--but it's not very emotionally-based.

Animals, however, will trigger intense emotional connections; I cried more when my cat died than when my first stepfather died or my second stepfather left my mom; and you've all seen my very public rant on not being able to play with cats at the animal shelter anymore.

Yes, with the exception of a pregnancy that threatens the life or health of the mother.

The really important thing that a lot of anti-abortion people seem to miss is that it won't do just to reduce the abortion rate, ban late-term abortions (or all abortions), or to raise awareness of the idea that a fetus is human. They seem often to ignore the fact that a lot of the people who would abort babies are doing so because they feel they haven't got anyone to turn to, that this will ruin all the plans they've made for their lives... that there's no one going to help them raise yet another baby. A lot of people don't even know that there's such a thing as an open adoption, that they can choose the parents their baby goes to and receive updates on how the child is doing. And there's so much shame associated with out-of-wedlock pregnancies that a lot of women will choose abortion because they don't want their reputations ruined... some even feel pressured into it by boyfriends who don't want to pay child support.

Getting rid of abortions is a good goal; but you have to help the mothers as well--get them through the pregnancy, help them find jobs to support their children, find ways to let them attend school (daycare, for example) despite having a baby, make it public that adoption isn't going to ruin either yours or the baby's life. And you have to educate people about how to prevent those unwanted pregnancies in the first place, or we'll end up with a lot of children growing up in orphanages.

It's more complicated than just yelling "Abortion is murder" and blocking the street in front of a women's clinic...

Last edited by Callista on 23 Sep 2006, 2:39 am, edited 3 times in total.

Aeturnus......Thank you....that finally makes sense to me!!!I was mistaking the two and thats were the problem lies can be compassionate but it is very difficult for me to "think" that someone doesn't think and feel the same way I do....(I am often unpleasantly reminded,however)

I know I feel sympathy and compassion, or whatever it is. I read the play 'An Inspector Calls' in English not too long ago, and Eva Smith's story made me wish I could jump into the story and recue her somehow (I'd probably get lost in 1910 Britain, though. And what am I supposed to say? 'Hi, I'm Tim and I'm here from the future to rescue you. Well, I'm not technically from the future, this is more of a book, and-oh bugger, she thinks I'm crazy!').

I can feel compassion, but for me it's the exact same feeling as pain, just in a different context. I think I have only around 4 core feelings that are then subdivided into contexts (frustration feels the same as anger, but it's directed mostly against myself).
I've found this theory which pretty much explains it. (got it from sparknotes.com)

Schachter and Singer’s Two-Factor Theory

In the 1960s, Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer proposed a different theory to explain emotion. They said that people’s experience of emotion depends on two factors: physiological arousal and the cognitive interpretation of that arousal. When people perceive physiological symptoms of arousal, they look for an environmental explanation of this arousal. The label people give an emotion depends on what they find in their environment.

[i]Example:
If a person finds herself near an angry mob of people when she is physiologically aroused, she might label that arousal “anger.” On the other hand, if she experiences the same pattern of physiological arousal at a music concert, she might label the arousal “excitement.”[i]




Anyway I don't feel the compassion thing much except for situations based on very animal-based feelings (basic stuff rather than not passing a test or being dumped by a boyfriend), like people being tortured or a stray dog that follows random people around hoping they'll take it home... I have to stop now, it really hurts.

Really happy, innocent things can make me massively upset.

I remember going to the cinema with a couple of friends to see The Incredibles and the short film at the start - Bouncin' (look it up on the Pixar website if you want) made my physically cry in the cinema. I have no idea why.

Children's books and other playful or naive things can do the same, especially if they have a sense of nostalgia, too - the Stanley Unwin narration on the Small Face's "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" album is another example, or Rowland Emett cartoon books.

I bought an Ivor the Engine DVD the other day and just reading the box made me tearful. I really want to watch it but I haven't had the nerve to try yet.

These are all things which I really adore, so why do I react in this way?

Hmm... Emotional Spontaneouty? Does that even exist, let alone spelt properly? Maybe it's got to do with the 're-wiring' thing. Or maybe your nostalgia reaction is different, and instead of giving you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside it makes you cry. What kind of crying was it? Sad crying or tears of joy?

I know what nostalgia feels like. I played a game from 1996 that I hadn't played since I was, well, 6 (it was Jazz Jackrabbit), and it felt like seeing an old friend I haven't seen in ages (that hasn't happened to me yet, so I'm not speaking from experience). Hope you enjoyed the rest of the movie, I've seen it and I thought it was pretty enjoyable. If my nostalgia 're-wiring' theory is true, then maybye something in the short film triggered something in your memory, but you couldn't recall it. If you don't mind risking the possibility of crying again, what I'd do is rent out the movie again on DVD and watching the short film again (it's on Disk 2). If you cry again, then it must be a recurring thing. Okay, I have no idea where I'm going with this. Just trying to be helpful!

I'll have to buy that on DVD, then. The daft thing is that I loved the short movie - I thought it was better than the proper film, in fact.

I think sometimes things get so wonderful that they're overpowering.

It might be something to do with wanting to go back to childhood, where everything was less complicated.

Or maybe I missed out on childhood to a certain extent, as my family were a bit dysfunctional and I was quite a serious (i.e. Aspie?) child. I've been round people's houses when they've been clearing out, and there'll be old games and things all over the place. It wasn't like that for me - my parents loved me but they weren't 'childish' kind of people at all.

It might be that children's books and films remind me of a might-have-been. When I was 22 my then girlfriend, who I loved very much, miscarried during the early stages of a pregnancy we knew nothing about. Although I don't really understand kids very much and I probably wouldn't choose to have a family, I still wonder how things might have worked out if the pregnancy had gone ok...

I know what you mean by the 'What could've happened if' factor. I still wonder whether or not my AS was due to my sister accidentally throwing a rock on my head one time while on holiday to Holland. My mum had to dunk my head into the cold river to stop me from bleeding too much, which stained the river, and I probably didn't enjoy it one bit. In any case, I'm actually glad in many respects that I have AS, because then I wouldn't have met nice people such as you! It can be a drag somethimes, though...