Empathy

How do you display empathy?  How do you recognise empathy when others express it back to you?  If someone mistreats you, do you want someone else to validate your feelings by making ‘there, there’ and ‘I hear you’ noises, and putting an arm around your shoulders (metaphorically, or physically) when you tell them your tale of woe?  Or do you want them to go out and get justice for you?

Autistic people are often thought to not experience empathy.  The reality is that we experience empathy but the way we display it may not be the way you want to receive it…and vice versa.

In my diagnosis report, it says that I do not “demonstrate empathy in a neurotypical fashion” and that I have a “logical, information and task-based approach to relationships, conversations and emotions”.  I was left wondering how non-autistic people typically display empathy.  All I could conclude was, “If all you’re going to do is make ‘there, there’ murmurings at me, but not try to get justice for me, or otherwise fix the (external) cause of my distress, then spare me your ‘empathy’, for you have not deigned to do the work of entering into my experience.”

As it turns out, there are three recognised types of empathy.  The "there, there" type probably falls into the Cognitive Empathy category, while the getting justice type would fall into the Compassionate Empathy category.

The third category is Emotional Empathy, wherein one literally feels the pain another is suffering.  To a certain extent, my mind leaps straight from Cognitive to Compassionate.  I don't believe that literally feeling your pain or sorrow would make my response to you any better.  In fact, it is likely to make it worse as I would get bogged in the morass of sensations instead of actually doing anything useful.

One is supposed to check for danger before rushing in to perform first aid, in order to avoid having two patients.  Similarly, my seeming to bypass the emotional side (at least until I can safely process it) saves you from having to try to rescue me, when you're meant to be the patient.

You can find out more about the three types of empathy here.

Dear Reader, please enlighten me - how do you display, and want to receive, empathy?  I'd like to reduce my chances of committing faux pas.