lacking Empathy or others perceiving it that way

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After reading some posts about claims that people with ASD lack empathy and likely have the predisposition to be serial killers or even look at child porn! (a statement which i completely disagree with).

Can we use this thread to unravel the myth of people with Autism and Asperger Syndrome of being "autistic psychopath's" as Hans Asperger first thought (which is interesting, as Asperger was a nazi doctor, as nazi's aren't known for their empathy...).

Nonetheless, i personally feel that people with ASD do not necessarily lack empathy, but some may not show their empathy because they are out of sync with life and or overwhelmed by their own experiences to be aware of others.

In short, it is hard to have empathy for someone who you are not aware of. Again, this often is not due to lack of intelligence or due to being consciously ignorant. but due to being overwhelmed by your own senses and stresses while experiencing life.

Some time ago there was a theory put forward by a pair of psychologists which was called the intense world theory,
which explained this in itself.

Speaking from personal experience, as a sufferer of ASD, i believe i am extremely capable of feeling and expressing empathy for others, the world and all the universes inhabitants.

However, when i am having a bad day, and am extremely stressed. I am less focused on others as I am struggling to get on with my own experiences in life.

I also have suffered considerable abuse and trauma at the hands of others during my life. People who i know hold extremely sadistic and selfish perceptions of the world. I do not feel that much empathy for these people, as from experience i know how bad these people are.

They are people who, if given a change, steal, slander, hurt others, even if just for their petty entertainment.
hard to feel empathy for people who you know will hurt innocent people as well as yourself if given a chance.

This does not however drive me to seek these people out and hurt them. As i am not a sadist. However being aware of the nature of these people is useful, so that we can protect ourselves and learn wisdom which will help us discern as to who to empathize with and who not to help.

Seems to me that you confuse empathy and compassion. Those are totally different things.

_________________
I am as I am. Life has to be an adventure!

Empathy seems to change definitions depending on who is defining it. NTs define empathy as "kind, caring, thoughtful, understanding, nice", and they define lack of empathy as "evil, malignant, psychopath". Aspies here seem to define the NT definition of empathy as "sympathy, compassionate", and instead define empathy as "being able to comfort someone in the 'right' way when they're crying" or "crying if someone else is crying" - which is a rather vague way of explaining it, in my opinion. The dictionary definition of empathy is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another" or "ability to put oneself in another person's shoes". NTs have this for others sharing the same situation, but so do autistics. Most NTs have difficulties having empathy for those that don't meet their standards. The reason why people with autism and other disabilities get bullied and misunderstood by society is because of many people lacking this empathy.

This is why I hate having Asperger's. I hate this lack of empathy confusion among everybody. I don't use the word much because it seems to be used subjectively. It's like NTs are allowed to lack empathy but are denied of lacking empathy.

Aspie: I don't want to go out and socialise
NT: Why? I can't figure it out
Aspie: Because it makes me feel anxious
NT: Why? People won't bite
Aspie: I know it may not affect you like it does me, so you wouldn't understand
NT: You're weird

And people want to know why I hate being on the spectrum.

I think perhaps the term empathy gets used in different ways - either as the ability to "read" other people's emotional states, or as the ability to have compassion. I know I've often failed to read others, which means I don't respond emotionally to them the way they expect, which gets perceived as a lack of empathy. But if someone tells me directly how they are feeling, I have compassion for them. And I do feel like people also frequently misread me as well.

Sure. I understand the way my original post was written, that I may have given the impression that i was referring to only compassion.

Although, i was trying to communicate that us Aspies are capable of both empathy and compassion.
Rather than being completely selfish, self obsessed, psychopaths.

I do understand that
Compassion is the ability to feel for another living being. Empathy is the ability to not only understand another's feelings, but also to become one with that person's distress…

i have worked in a number of jobs and areas in my life, which includes in merchant banking (i live on an offshore finance centre which is used by the super wealthy to hide their money from the tax man). I have also
found out how people in the entertainment industry, politics and journalism treat people, and i would have to say
that i would say that many of the neural typical people who i have met who work in these industries are far more likely to be psychopaths than anyone with Autism Spectrum Disorder I have met.

In fact, i have never met anyone who has ASD who i have thought was a complete psycho.
Sure, some of them are completely focused on themselves and sometimes, unable to keep track of your conversation.
But this i do not think makes them psycho's. At the most some are simply a bit strange. I have seen no evidence for any of these people to have done anything that i would suggest that they are psychopaths.

I think that due to my experience in training in various martial arts, and having a tendency to be hyper vigilant due to suffering from high levels of anxiety, hypersensitive to sensory info, but also poor communication skills when stressed and when in conflict/meltdowns. I can see why some may perceive me as a psychopath.

However, i feel it would be unfair to make this judgement based on my manner. As my motivations are usually honourable. At the most, i may act out of self preservation rather than to intentionally hurt others.


Just out of interest.
I am not sure as to what Hans Asperger meant by his statement that people with high functioning autism were autistic psychopaths. I imagine that being separated from parents and kept in a hospital so a strange doctor could then study you and perhaps even experiment on you, must have been very distressing for the kids involved, especially when a number of their fellow experiments disappeared and then died.

I have a lot of empathy --- too much empathy. I feel soooo strongly that I don't know how to share the correct amount, so I am mostly mute or else very robotic (so I can get through it without bursting into tears).

Example 1: I was at a funeral and asked to sit by my uncle (who'd lost his wife) to show my support - because if I said anything I was going to burst out in tears. The result? He may think I'm not "empathic" because I was unable to "correctly" express it.

Example 2: A couple was by a memorial post aside the road with flowers. I asked my husband to pull over and we walked back up the road to them. I said "I wanted to stop and offer support to show your community cares." Needless to say the woman burst into tears and told us about her daughter who had been hit by a car and died at that spot. Here's the thing: my voice was very robotic because I was trying to control my big emotions. And my response to her response was weird b/c the first was scripted and then I didn't know what more was appropriate. I don't know that she noticed, but her husband may have.

Doing the right thing, "weirdly".