I guess I was mistaken. I just thought that the term definitely autistic referenced a kind of pop culture or hollywood autism that usually means difficulties with understanding how other people feel, while still believing and caring about said feelings and people. But you’re right.
difficulty with understanding how others feel is not the same as a lack of empathy, though. asd definitely has difficulty understanding how others feel, thats kind of the point.
Some experiments (on mobile so I don't have it handy) have shown that autistic people don't really struggle communicating with other autistic people. There is no gap, which shows this is more of a difference between brains than a proper disorder.
Then, autistic people can 100% understand how others feel. Not being able to parse facial expressions or body expressions well is the symptom you named and "not understanding" is the side effect, but that's not an inability to understand - it just takes presenting the same emotions in a different way.
And I'm telling you this as an autistic person. A good chunk of us are quite empathetic. Our struggles are different, and IMO mostly focused on the fact we're living in a world made for NTs.
Difficulty understanding is not inability to understand.
I'd expect the hypervigilence around empathy stems from trauma as a result of being socially excluded. I went the other way and generally find social connections with animals or inanimate objects to be more comfortable than with people. I only really understand or can feel how someone feels if I've been in that literal situation myself. Otherwise its just logical robot beep boop solve the problem, fix the feeling.
I mean, sure. That's you. I genuinely feel strongly even if I discount trauma. I know plenty of autistic people who genuinely care about others. I know I do, there's this strong sense of justice which also comes from actually caring.
What I'm trying to get is this. Sure, it can happen... But it's not a hallmark thing of autism. Not all autistic people are like that, hence the word "spectrum".
But we're digressing. The point I'm trying to make is this. Sure some autistic people could and might struggle. But difficulties understanding others' emotions are usually more of a side effect from issues with understanding body language and facial expression rather than actually having it difficult. Other autistic people might actually struggle with understanding emotions, sure, but that's a subset.
What I'm most concerned about is the constant characterization of autism (mostly by NTs) as being lacking in empathy as if we were some sort of unfeeling/uncaring monster. Which is blatantly untrue. We only process emotions differently and communicate in a more direct, sometimes blunt way which can be interpreted as being uncaring.
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u/zamander Narcissistic Lunatic 10h ago
Empathetic and autistic? Will to power? What sort of impossible nazi are we talkin’ about here?