English: Managing emotions – Identifying feelings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I said I was going to write more about my personal experience living with Asperger’s, but so far I haven’t done it. Joe Bunting’s recent practice on empathy got me thinking about it again. So here goes…
Aspies are often seen as lacking empathy because of their difficulty in expressing their own emotions and interpreting the non-verbal communications of others. I don’t believe this is necessarily true. It’s certainly not in my case.
One definition of empathy is: “the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.” This refers to the internal feelings of the person experiencing the empathy, not the external display of those feelings. This is the key distinction. Failure to demonstrate empathy is one of the cardinal attributes identified by Dr. Asperger. Aspies often fail to show empathy, but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel it.
It’s notable that empathy is not part of the current diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s. They do include impairment in non-verbal behaviors, failure to develop appropriate peer relationships, and lack of social or emotional reciprocity. These are all related to the apparent lack of empathy.
I know that I feel empathy for others. When I see someone get hurt I feel a physical pain in my abdomen. I get teary-eyed at weddings, graduations, and other happy events, feeling the joy of those involved. I feel the emotional pain of others at funerals, divorces, and other sad events. If anything, I think I get more emotional than others.
Of course, when I was younger, I had trouble understanding how people were feeling. It took years of study, careful observation, and experimentation (yes, I experimented on acquaintances without their knowledge of what I was doing) to learn to read people’s body language and display my own reasonably well.
Back to Joe’s practice, I didn’t have any trouble reading emotions out of each of the pictures and could have written about any one of them (I just didn’t have time).
There are still some areas I have trouble with, like knowing when to speak in a group conversation, without either interrupting or saying nothing. I just can’t get the timing right (so if you ever have a conversation with me, I’m not being intentionally rude 8^). And my display of emotions tends to flip like a light switch from apparently impassive to blubbering idiot. But overall I get along quite well in ordinary situations.
Let me know what you think about all this. I know I have some Aspie followers. I’d be really interested to hear about your experiences.
Related articles
- Aspergerâs Syndrome and Receiving Social Security Disability (socialsecurityhome.com)
- Aspergers Letter: Be the Change (aspergersgirls.wordpress.com)
- I Feel Like An Aspie Cat (Cat With Asperger’s Syndrome) (seventhvoice.wordpress.com)
- Empathy Is The Most Important UX Emotion (barnabasnagy.net)
- Ex with Asperger’s (ask.metafilter.com)
- Asperger’s Syndrome and ADHD (everydayhealth.com)
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I have some thoughts on this traffic phenomenon, that perhaps might help. I have a question, however that might not seem relevant, but which, I assure you, is quite, as it will help me the better frame my answer, pattern matcher as I am.
This question is as follows:
If you please, will you briefly explain the manner of your diagnosis?
I’m not sure what traffic phenomenon you’re referring to, unless it’s my other post about what happened to my blog traffic.
As to my Asperger’s diagnosis, it came about due to the famous Wired article that brought it to many geeks’ attention. At the time I was finally getting professional help for my depression. I brought up the article with my shrink. He wasn’t familiar with Asperger’s, so he looked up the diagnostic criteria and researched it a bit, asked me a series of questions, and agreed that I had Asperger’s.
Thank you very much for your frankness. I myself have PET scans which show parietal somatosensory and dorsal stream involvement as well as temporal, particularly hippocampal, involvement.
I wish to apologise in advance, as, of course you well know, we can be somewhat brusque. And, as you, no doubt, also know, it is not intentional.
You are losing traffic because even a neurotypical reader will, at least subconsciously perceive you as not being autistic. This also is my honest impression. Please understand, that these impressions mean nothing, and neither imply nor should they cause you to infer something from them.
Asperger’s Autism is soon to be decertified; and, due to my perception of your degree of “nerdiness,” I suspect you might be aware of this as well. The reason for this, if you are indeed unaware, is that tomography shows the syndrome as being something of a laundry list of brain involvement types, indicating that the syndrome is really a handful of different spectra of autistic dysfunction (or refunction, if you prefer : ) which in fact differ widely–far too widely to be classified as one condition.
I do not know why anyone would choose to be autistic–please bear with me here, if you would–but have learned that people seem to be attracted to this diagnosis. Once again I have no way of knowing what my impressions mean; however, I would urge you to go the extra mile and get the PET scans if you can possibly manage.
You are doing yourself an equal disservice if you are autistic but have no real diagnosis–which I’m afraid, until you do this, you do not have–as if you are not autistic but simply have a small collection of other disorders which can sometimes present as such; as in, for example, the case of depression, coupled with mild OCD and moderate ADD. The reason for knowing this should be obvious: Such syndromes are easy to treat, whereas treatments for autism are still rather experimental; although some interesting work is being done with Magnetic Resonance in order to stimulate various parts of the brain into greater activity, thus helping, the patient read the emotions and intentions of others as well as improve in other ways his social interaction. John Elder, for example, of “Look Me in the Eye” fame, is undergoing this treatment.
I sincerely hope, for your sake, that you turn out not to be autistic. It, well and truly, is no fun at all. Disorders involving neurotransmitters and other neuroactive substances are truly much easier to treat than those comprised mainly of structural involvement of the neurons themselves. This is why when I hear or see the term “Aspie” I rather cringe a bit. Such an affliction is not at all delightful, and really should not be courted so enthusiastically with such a term of delight.
I have come to understand that this will take daring on your part. But, please take the next step to properly confirm your diagnosis. Either way, you will benefit.
And I apologise again if I have been too brusque. I really do try, and I think i have quite improved on that score over the past decade especially; so my wife tells me, in any case.