Talk about empathy. Many people think autistics do not have empathy. What’s your experience with empathy? Are you hyper empathic or not empathic at all?
I feel that I’m both hyper and hypo empathetic, or perhaps just appear to be hypo empathetic. It really depends on the situation. I’m pretty high on emotional empathy while low on cognitive empathy.
I am more hypo empathetic in the context of cognitive empathy. I never really got the whole seeing something from someone else’s perspective. I’m not them, how am I supposed to know how someone else feels in regards to a situation. If they explain it, I can usually understand on a logical level why they are upset but I don’t really feel any emotion towards it.
Regarding emotional empathy I’m hyper empathetic to the things I’m passionate about but I don’t or can’t feel much empathy towards other things. I can register on a logical level that something is sad or upsetting but I don’t have much emotion for it. I think part of it is that I can’t/don’t allow myself to feel the emotions. It takes too much of a toll to let myself feel too many things and I have to sort of filter out what I can’t deal with. I believe this is why I can be super upset and crying over a fictional book/show I’m invested in but have nearly no reaction to hearing about a real world bombing or shooting. I kind of keep myself together by shutting out the things I can’t deal with, which is why I can appear cold and emotionless. I do have a lot of empathy towards things but I can’t allow myself to feel it or I would be perpetually upset.
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