Extreme empathy rather than a lack of?

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I would now not trust anyone with any issues I have as I would not be empathised with so in this case why should I try to with an NT . With people who can empathise and take the time to try to make an effort then I will and I also can get overwhelmed with empathy but I show no sympathy. All this lack of empathy stuff is rather offensive.

I've read several accounts on here of people not crying when close relatives pass away, or at other times where it would be deemed appropriate, even desired. I realized after reading those accounts that I also failed to cry when I learned of the death of my great grandmother, to whom I was very close. However, there was a circumstance surrounding her death that made me break down and sob for several minutes:

My great grandmother died when I was 12 years old. I was sad and missed her, but did not cry. On the day of my high school graduation, at the age of 18, my grandmother gave me a card that contained a savings bond and was signed in my great grandmother's handwriting. It turns out, she had purchased a graduation card for me and signed it 6 years in advance of my graduation, knowing she didn't have long to live. As soon as I saw the signature, I started sobbing, but not from the sadness of missing her, but because I imagined how SHE must have felt purchasing and signing that card. The pain and tears I was experiencing were HERS, not my own.

This sort of thing happens to me often. I was recently upset with my boyfriend for some remarks he made around our friends that typically would not bother me if he made them in private. It took me a couple of days to realize that the discomfort I had felt wasn't my own, but was what I perceived my friend would feel because of the comment. I got angry with my boyfriend because I was reacting as if I were someone else.

Last night, I was out to dinner with my boyfriend and one of our close friends, when an acquaintance of my boyfriend's noticed us and came to take a seat at our table. While I think this acquaintance is a very nice person, I felt angry and irritated when he sat down...because I was feeling my friend's perceived reaction.

Today at my brother's birthday party, he opened one of his gifts, and I knew that it was a duplicate gift. I immediately felt completely embarrassed and annoyed, even though I wasn't the one who had purchased the duplicate. I was super anxious the rest of the time, through him opening the duplicate gift, and only felt better once everyone else seemed to be taking it in stride.

While movies make me cry all the time, it is never the so-called sad events that make me cry, it is the characters' negative reactions to the event that make me cry. i.e. a child is killed, but no one in the film cries, neither will I. If something lesser happens, but someone in the film does cry in response, I will cry. It was not the idea that The Terminator was being destroyed at the end of Judgement Day that made me cry, but Eddie Furlong's tearful reaction. Had he not cried, I would have been emotionally neutral to the event.

Also, when I watch my favorite movies with other people who have not seen them, I almost always react to the movie the way they do. "Halloween" is one of my favorites, and I had the opportunity to see it on the big screen a couple of years ago. This was a big occasion for me, but it turns out the audience was mostly teenagers who spent the movie laughing at inappropriate places and responding with boredom. By the end of the movie, I was annoyed with the audience, yes, but the most upsetting part was that I felt the same way about the movie while watching it that they did. I disliked one of my favorite movies, because the people around me disliked it! When I shared another movie that I loved with my boyfriend, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I had liked about it the first time...I thought it was awful! Well, when the movie ended, my boyfriend revealed he had hated it. I watched it by myself a week later, and loved it just as much as the first time.

So, basically, I feel whatever the other people in the room are feeling, without them having to tell me how they are feeling!

Does anyone else here find that instead of a lack of empathy, you have an intense, almost super-intuitive sense of empathy?

i feel sorry for inanimate objects.

These threads keep popping up...

People with autism do not lack empathy. In some ways they actually tend to have more empathy than the general population.

What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?

My experience with Death

I understood death at a very young age. When i was 5 my mother found me late at night totally destraught in bed i was crying my eyes out in a state panic repeating "i dont want to die, i dont want to die" because i relised what death ment and how final it was, gone for ever

The way I see it, I think it's more than likely that Aspies have plenty of Empathy, but little to no Sympathy. That's the case with me, at least. If I'm the room with someone who feels sad, I will feel sad...but I don't know how to make that person feel better, and don't really care...I just want them to feel better so that I can stop feeling the same way.