Can You Empathise...

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If you put effort into it? What I mean by this is, can you do this intellectually? Um, hard to explain this, but although when in the spur of an angry moment or when I am emotionally upset, I cannot empathise at all, in calmer moments, if I am in a certain mood and think about it, I can sort of see how another might be feeling. An example is the thread in haven on the guy's brother. I read it, and I thought about it, and I thought, well acting vain etc can be a cover for a lack of confidence...sort of an overcompensation...it can also be a sign of narcissism. Talking loud etc, can also be a sign of a lack of confidence...everything can have a possible psychological reason behind it. Each person reacts in a different way to their thought, feelings, insecurites, experiences etc... and I suppose this is empathy of a sorts as I am attempting to understand why that person's brother might not simply be a pain in the backside, but might have his own problems.

I am really at a loss with the Asperger's empathy thing because at times, when it comes to my own experiences, I can be painfully blind to anyone else having their own issues, thoughts and feelings...but with other peoples' experiences etc, I can psychologically figure it out etc.

Not sure if I have explained myself well at all, but I am sure people can get some idea what I mean.

I rarely 'feel' for another person, but I can 'think' for a person... I can often work out the various motivations for their behaviours by psychologically analysing them and going on all I have learnt from my own experiences and from books, movies etc. I am actually very adept generally at analysing other's behaviours and what might be behind them.

Anyone else?

yeah i'm pretty much terrible at empathy, what i dont get is why you need to feel what someone else is feeling. this means i cannot attend funerals because i laugh. the last funeral i went to was my stepdads, dads funeral and when i went up to look at him i kept seeing in my minds eye his eyes rolling back and hitting all cherrys like in a slot machine i could not get this out of my head wich in turn made me laugh. everyone was after me then. i was almost beaten right there. hahahaha

Empathy for me is kind of like how high school curriculum was for me. I was a bad student, because I'm always daydreaming and staring out the window, but once someone goes, "Jeremy!" my attention jerks back to wherever it's expected to be (but doesn't stay). By which I mean, I have the capacity to empathize, it's just not always my first instinct. I think this has more to do with how I perceive people's problems intellectually, because, coming from someone with the perspective of an aspie, most of the things people get upset about are trivial. I know that sounds cold of me to say, but for example, have you ever seen someone tell what can only be a lie that they're fully aware of, or go off on a tangent that obviously involves exaggerated or imagined emotional elements, and get tearful or emotional while telling it? That's the way people work. Emotions don't always correspond to reality. I'm getting angry typing this because I know that if a psychologist were to read that, he'd say something like, "ah yes, typical autistic overintellectualization of the mystical human experience" or some other snot, but there's a midway point here. And believe me, I've been in situations where I can be sure that I'm not misinterpreting what's going on; if you think I might be, think about drunk people. They'll "emote" all over a person that've they've met five minutes ago but now consider their best friend, they'd take a bullet for that person... That's the attention span our emotional spectrum has. I "feel" empathy for a person when the little cynic inside my head decides I do.

I don't know.. I just know that it's a rare thing for me, but sometimes it will catch me off guard where I just start feeling for a person in some freakish way. For example when I meet the families of friends, and spend enough time with them, I feel like I start seeing their drives and frustrations with each other just by the way they communicate. That seems normal, in a way, but it affects me in a different way than it does other people, because I can't tap in to the energy of interaction as well. I have more thought left to look at it from the outside, and I always think about how they'll never resolve or get beyond or be more aware of their interactions, but only at small intervals will they start to understand things and probably we'll all die without ever fully understanding each other. Whenever I get emotional, it usually comes out of something like that.

Also, whatever "normal" is that's definately not it.

I'm relatively empathetic, but when you've been taught growing up that it's not ok to cry or show any emotion, I've hid my empathy to the point where I've been accused of lacking it. I have gotten the giggles really bad at funerals, the last time was at a friend's funeral, whose death was as a result of a mudrer/suicide by his dad. I just thought of a hillarious memory, which is what brought on the giggles. I had been crying previously, so I just wiped my eyes to make it look like I was still crying instead of trying to stifle the giggles.

I can empathize with people who share common experiences with me. For example, I find it easy to empathize with the people on my Internet cat site because I have been through similar things with my own cats.

Of course I can empathize because I am a very positive person!

i constantly worry about what other ppl are feeling... but only if i'm not somehow directly involved in a situation already. it's like a hyper preventative behavior... like how i've trained myself to do body checks for my keys, wallet, and cellphone (i emphatically refuse to carry a purse cause i hate them) every 15 min or say before i leave a room.

but when situations arise, as they alsways do,... i find that i'm pretty oblivious to things (other people). and especially in arguments or in emotional states where i've upset someone... i have a hard time conceding any ground on my behalf.... especially if the other person is already more emotional than me. if i'm already fried and crying, then i can deal with the other person being down there with me... still not gonna be productive... but at least barriers are down... but if someone starts crying before me... then that just puckers my emotional sphinktor right up! this has been a real issue for me in past relationships, especially my last one cause the guy would cry at the drop of a hat (and no i don't care about guys crying, the other stuff was always great, i can keep that stuff separate )... but i never knew what to do when he would do this... it took all of me just to walk off so i didn't give him a real piece of my mind (which they don't want to hear)