star @sstaurss - Tumblr Blog

day 2

I hate when 'empathy' is used in place of 'basic human decency' or even 'compassion'

like I've found that I'm low-empathy, but high-'compassion' which makes explaining my experiences with lacking empathy harder to explain. (I can tell I'm low-empathy because I have high-empathy for inanimate objects and cartoon characters, so I know what my empathy feels like I just don't feel it with humans)

like I won't actually feel sad because someone else is sad. It won't make my day worse or effect my mood all that much. and I've had to put in an effort and learn a lot to figure out how to not come across as insensitive.

but like, I don't need to be able to empathize with a sad person to want them to feel better?

another autism thing of mine is a care a lot about specific wording so that's probably related but like I fucking hate it when the word 'empathy' is used when the word 'compassion' or some other word like 'kindness' or 'respect' would've worked better and avoided the ableism.

i very much agree. sometimes misuse of word "empathy" makes me wish to take it away from "pop-psychologists" until they learn what it actually means.

misuse of this word feeds a lot of ableism towards people with low empathy and also makes it harder for a lot of neurodivergent people to explain themselves without long in-depth essays about differences between empathy, sympathy, and compassion! i relate a lot with your struggles to explain yourself as a person with low empathy, but high sympathy and compassion (<- about me).

and yes, why not say "kindness" or "respect" or "decent treatment" or something? sometimes i assume that people just (mis)use fancy words for the sake of fancy words. same problem with misusage of "narcissism" and "narcissist" when what people actually mean is "asshole" or "abuser" or "manipulative" or "toxic." some people seem to want sound "clinical" for me and it's fucked up on several ways (and here could be a huge anti-psych/psych-critical talk about how "clinical" or "scientific" language make people to feel more entitled and on the higher moral & ethical & knowledgeable ground without any real reason).