How often have you read or been told that people on the spectrum have no empathy? In my case, I can’t think of anything further from the truth!
When we were little, my older brother and I were mischievous. Our grandfather had a beautiful vegetable and rose garden. Manicured green lawns edged the rows of peas, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes and root vegetables. One day, when I was about four years old, and my brother seven, we found ourselves alone in the garden.
My brother looked carefully around. Then he looked at me. Then we both looked at the fat pea pods hanging on the vines. Before long, we had eaten quite a few, stripping the fat peas from the pods. I picked a small cucumber when we left. I planned to eat it later with salt from the kitchen.
With the empty pea pods hanging on the vines, it wasn’t long before the adults discovered what we’d been up to.
My brother got blamed. He was older than me, and he was supposed to be a role model for me, not a leader in crime. He got a whopping.
From behind the closed doors, I could hear Dad spanking my brother. My father was a big man and my brother was a small boy. My dad was not a gentle person, especially not when he was in a temper.
In the next room, hearing my brother’s yelps of pain, I cried. I cried not because I was scared, but because I was sorry for my brother. I didn’t want my adored big brother to be hurt or humiliated and I was witnessing both. I felt how cruel and unfair it was, for such a big man to be hurting such a little boy. I sobbed as if my heart would break for him.
So I know for a fact that I have a solid cache of empathy in my Asperger’s heart.
Perhaps ‘flat aspect’ plays a part in how I am perceived. I may feel very sympathetic, but my face is void of expression and emotion.
Do you, as I do, find it embarrassing and irritating when people get annoyed with you for not responding to something they have said? They want a reaction, and they want it now–in a time frame and a manner that they anticipate. What they term ‘normal’.
When someone tells me a story, or confides in me about an incident, I have learned to remain expressionless, while I am processing what they have said.
I may be very empathetic with the opinion or situation. But I know all too well that my ‘take’ on the situation is probably not acceptable.
This reminds me of what Heather is quoted as saying in Chapter 14 of Spectrum Women, that she finds she experiences things differently from other people. Yes, we do have a unique way of processing input.
While I’m thinking deeply about what someone has just said, I’m processing the information internally. But the person I’m conversing with is looking for an immediate, recognizable verbal or visual response.
My momentary hesitation does not mean that I have no empathy or sympathy for the person or situation. Nevertheless, that is how my apparent lack of immediate response is taken.
On the other hand, if I do bravely venture my unedited opinion, the other person is likely to express surprise, dismay or even disbelief. So, I find it’s better to just say something neutral and polite.
And because I have been told so often that whatever opinion, emotion or response I might express is inappropriate, I will sometimes not only not speak my mind, but also mask my facial response.
This would almost certainly lead people to think I am uninterested in the conversation.
Why do people think we lack empathy? For myself, I think flat aspect and internalizing my perceptions may well account for this result. Inside, I may be roiling with emotion. Outwardly, I seem detached. Am I the only one?
Margaret Jean 