Low empathy is an autism trait that is often misunderstood by neurotypicals, so I'm going to talk about it here.
It's common for autistics to have hypo empathy or hyper empathy. Hypo empathy is having lower empathy levels than the average person, and hyper empathy is the opposite. I myself fluctuate between both.
Someone having low empathy or no empathy at all can sound scary, but it's not what people think. To help explain it, I'm going to explain the difference between empathy, sympathy, and compassion.
Empathy is sharing the emotions of another person. Like if your friend feels sad, you do too. You mirror their emotions.
Sympathy means understanding what another person is feeling. You may or may not share their emotions, but you get why they feel that way.
Compassion is caring about the other person. You want to help them. You want them to feel better whether or not you feel empathy/sympathy.
So if my friend is feeling sad and I'm hypo empathetic at that time, I will not feel sad with them. I will still want them to feel better, even if I don't feel their emotions. I may not understand why they feel that way either, but I will have compassion for them regardless.
If I'm hyper empathetic, I'll receive a great deal of their emotions, to the point where I'm sometimes even more upset than they are.
My teacher unfortunately passed away a while ago. I didn't feel sad because I was experiencing hypo empathy. I knew that this was an unfortunate loss and I wished the best for the family, but I didn't feel their sadness. I cared, I just didn't share the family's emotions because of my hypo empathy.
On the other hand, my dog died in a video game shortly after and I cried, because I was experiencing hyper empathy. It's not that I cared more about my video game dog than a human life, it's that my empathy levels changed.
The day I received the news of my teacher's death, I had compassion for the teacher and his family/friends, I just didn't feel their sadness myself. On the day I was playing the video game, I felt the emotions of my character very intensely.
Low empathy is a very misunderstood aspect of autism because people often use empathy when they mean compassion.
People associate empathy with being a good person and assume that the more empathy you have, the more you care about others.
This is not the case. Compassion doesn't require empathy, and compassion without empathy isn't less valuable.
I care deeply about other people whether I feel their emotions or not. I do not have to feel or even understand their emotions to care about them.
Basically, you don't need empathy to care about someone or to want to help them. Having low empathy or no empathy doesn't make you heartless or cold.
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
