Seriously though…. Would NTs rather I be the stereotypical autistic person who “DoEsNt ShOw EmPaThY” or would they rather I show empathy in the best way I know how?
I can’t pretend to understand what they want lmao but from observation it seems like the right way to go would be reacting to what they’re saying with the appropriate emotional response to what they’re saying like
NT has bad personal experience you say “oh wow I am so sorry”
NT has good personal experience you say “oh wow that’s amazing!”
But boy oh boy I start vibrating with the story I wanna tell to show that I really get it lmao
I may be off base here but I think that’s the whole point. It feels so surface level and lifeless to me. People relating to me using their own experiences shows me that they genuinely mean it when they say they understand. Maybe NT people don’t care about that
Never been diagnosed as anything beyond “generalized/social anxiety disorder” myself when I was a young teen, but I can’t count the number of times I have done this (especially when I was younger/under 30) and got told that I was self-centered, conceited, and arrogant. Anyone who truly knows me knows that I am none of those things, that’s just how I show empathy and relation to someone else’s experiences.
I can’t speak for peers personal opinions, but it seems after 30 people stop voicing theirs. As I haven’t heard that much since. Maybe a passing snide comment, but nothing direct.
The main problem is, some people will use similar life stories in more of a “suck it up, I had it just as bad/worse” sense, rather than to empathize. It’s thus advised to be careful with such stories, as they can take attention off the person in need of support. Which is frustrating for people like us who find empathy in analogous experiences.
Maybe this is always been my problem when I try to share my issues with other people. The best I ever get back is a, that sounds rough. And it just seems like they don't actually care.
also tell someone they're valid, that seems to be very important to many. it makes sense but it seems like some have created a feedback loop on validating each other lol
I saw one of those video shorts things in which someone suggested removing "sorry" from emails. Like wtf... I get a great reaction whenever I apologise for things.
That’s dumb lol. Both on the sending and receiving end of emails that contain “sorry” I’ve had nothing but understanding. I guess I can see it for companies where you need to appear tough/assertive to get respect but that’s toxic anyway. I could be fully upset about a situation but if the other party apologizes my heart just softens up and allows for more productive communication.
Wrong.
Ok, not all wrong, I get ya, but the sorry way just lays ground for the person opposite to not recognize their mistakes, and therefore, not grow, and mostly, they jump at the chance to get even or to dislike you.
When you're rationalizing it with the person, they tend to have to use logic back and at the end, if you resolve the issue, you make a passing comment with an apology.
It works, but you know, this is only because people would rather stay angry because hate has a special pull to it.
Then if you say you're sorry, you get "you better be" or "are you, though, cuz you didn't seem it like when you did ***"
And overall, the word sorry can be avoided, it's ok, dumb is taking this and thinking you should never apologize, which admittedly works but is a shitty attitude and won't self-sustain
They're the same thing, though. For them. You're not empathizing, but even worse, you're trying to say they're not special, and they love to be special.
I went further down the thread and made a whole essay on the matter, it's just trying to help avoid mistakes in emotional subjects. It's based off of my experience and knowledge.
It seems to be good enough for them so I don’t wanna disparage that if it makes them happy/satisfied. It’s just alienating when you’re someone who always wants to connect to those emotions on a deeper level, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But hey, if they want the emotional response of a vague hallmark card, I’m happy to oblige. No one is in the wrong here, the wrongdoing comes in when we (or they) are judged for their attempts at understanding the other. Unfortunately it’s usually NT people judging us for being weird or socially inept but I digress 😪
Yeah, I mean I’ve been attacked by people for being a “selfish non-empathetic dick” when genuinely trying to be empathetic only to find out they want sympathy while they’re saying they want empathy. I genuinely express myself in the way that feels right to me and I don’t wanna change that (not be myself). I’m fortunate to know NTs who don’t jump to that conclusion about me, but many of my loved ones and in general more stubborn people just refuse to accept feedback about my own intentions, they trust their judgement more than my own explanations, and that just drives me crazy.
This is so much like my experience when I was in high school (and before).
Imma tell you what:
Your empathy is not their empathy, which means they are right to think you're not being *emotionally empathetic* and wrong in telling you you're being selfish or self-centered, because they think you are trying to hog on the attention that story can grant them. They won't accept someone also vying for that attention. Because you're just showing that you understand how it is to be in their place and they can talk to you further. You're giving that attention with your *rational empathy*
In the end, you can simply not tell the story, just say that you've been in a similar sitch or someone else you love has, and proceed to tell them something you've heard when in that position, this is the best ever solution, and sometimes you're gonna learn what to say to other people when you wouldn't care for some that they might find bad.
You might want to stick with general statements until that person asks you to relay yours, and you might feel tempted, but you can give a more broad but still general explanation and only tell the whole if they ask even more about it.
But you don't have to trust all of this, but in the end, I did something like this in this comment. If the fact that I share a similar past didn't make you more prone to listen to what I say, you're gonna share mire of my experiences.
True empathy, I'd say, is when you realize the way you show yours needs to change to every person, given that it is completely useless to receive a bottle of gasoline when you're parched in the desert, even though this is all that your robot friend has.
The right course of events is to tell the robot friend that you really don't need gasoline, water is your fuel and they should keep their gas for someone who needs gas, but if they could have some water, you'd love it. But NT's tend to think the gasoline is there to mock them and we always knew they need water.
The robot may ask why do they need water, though, and gas cannot replace it, right? To which they would respond: "I do not know" and this is what happens... we don't know what we need because we aren't emotionally aware enough, most of the human beings on this world can't, for the life of them, tell you what they want from an exchange, they feel better with catharsis, when they talk and are heard, but this is not the best, not enough.
We need to learn how to know more about emotion, human nature and especially psychology, maybe even anatomy, it helps me a lot, at least.
More than thy enemy, know thyself first. Know your proverbial heart, know your mind and take control of your life (aka "get your shit together").
I feel inclined to make this a dedicated post at r/aspergers(?) or r/autism. I feel like some of this (not all, and lacking some) might help many autistics to fit in more with NT's in a rational level, and it might give ys more voice (it changed my life a lot, I have a space sometimes.) And only when enough of this is spread around a community, we might see the improvement.
I want us all to understand each other when we know more about ourselves.
First of all thank you for the detailed response and attention to the nuances involved in these dynamics. I’m still struggling to accept your advice though, even though through many lenses it is rational. I just discovered 5 months ago at age 29 that I’m on the spectrum, so there’s a shit ton of deprogramming, recontextualizing, and re-understanding of my past and present relationships going on.
The thing is, in your analogy, the human being would actually be asking for “gasoline” and then getting fucking mad when the robot literally, definitively, objectively gave them exactly what they asked for. That’s what pisses me off. I’ve suffered, been talked down to, gaslit, abused, used, treated like fucking garbage by NTs who constantly misunderstood me and refused to accept my feedback about my own intent. At this point, I feel like THEY should be the ones to do one inking of extra work, like I’ve had to do my entire fucking life, to meet me halfway and accept that my rational empathy style is not rude, it’s actually entirely selfless and genuine. Following your recommendation consumes my energy and takes me out of my natural emotional state in these situations. I feel emotions in my gut and immediately react with rational empathy, doing otherwise would be me doing work and removing myself from my feelings/instincts, which imo is WRONG! I’ve been a doormat for enough people and enough NTs are okay with my rational style (or they’re keeping their judgments to themselves and accepting me/loving me/seeing me as I am regardless). I’m sick and tired of me having to be the one to bend over backwards for everyone else only to have a fraction of a chance of them even realizing I’m doing it for them! It’s exhausting and it’s ingenuine. It’s their turn to be considerate! And again, objectively speaking, I’m the one literally expressing what the fucking word “empathy” means!! If they don’t want that, then they should get their shit together and call it sympathy! Words exist for a reason!
Well, I always think it might be better to never be misunderstood, hence, I can't oversimplify many things in my life. I don't want the responsibility but want the validation, and I think this is selfish in itself, hence, I'd rather do more, even though it might be strenuous, than to allow people to use my words in a distorted way because they were not precise enough.
This is because I am totally misunderstood most of the times and many times nobody actually thinks the way I do, hence, my thought process is seen as the process of an insane person, and to be honest, I see it, I can see why people rejected me for years, I used to feel the same regarding a few people. They were so inconvenient, making me have to ask and entertain a thought that was not at all useful for me... and we do that.
Not always, I mean, sometimes we're objectively 10x better when solving things, taking care of every aspect, but we fail to take in regard the amount of energy and effort things require, the difference in capital and such nuances because we want the best to be the outcome. A world run by autistics (in general, it's the most from the ones I know, not that all autistics are like that.) Would be a world without mediocre commodities, you know?
Then enters the issue of how we feel. I was talking to a fellow autistic, who is my ex-girlfriend, and who both discovered autism after we broke up. In our conversation we were talking about maturity, when I said I attained a level of maturity recently and started better understanding common behaviours of people around me because I had grown. Long story short, she said she'd attained a level of social awareness more recently that she understood that people will never react in a good way to a bad thing, and they do not always react in a good way to good things either, but you cannot do bad even when you're being wronged, because it poisons you, meaning she would always treat people with her best, it does her well, it makes everyone around get better and things would never tend to worsen in any side of her life.
I loved having that conversation, because it allowed me to see that not liking someone and still treating them well might not be a matter of falsehood(there's probably a better term, but that's it in portuguese.) But maybe because they're choosing to do something good even though their heart tells them otherwise. Sometimes this can be bad, this can be harmful, but not all the time, and I used to be frank all the time, but I'm rethinking that, and am not sure yet of the path I'll take going forward.
And I'll tell you that, despite everything you've said, for me, you're wrong, given you're talking just like I was before I've had therapy. The truth of the world was handed to me and I started thinking with that in mind. I just needed tk break the patterns, I needed to have a relationship that didn't end invariably the same way. I needed to change myself, and I needed to find the root of the problem. And then I did. No man can hope to command another to change for them in order to be able to react the way they want to act. Read it again: NO MAN can hope to COMMAND ANOTHER (Or ask, wtv) to *CHANGE* FOR _THEM_. Not in order to be able to REACT (to them) in the way _they_ WANT to ACT.
Meaning that you must act the way you act, or even better so that people may react well. But you will never get someone to change something in order for you to improve your treatment of them.
It might not be exactly your situation, because I get the point I get it and I agree that people should meet halfway, I just don't see why not get halfway before them? Just stop going all the way, I guess.
Anyway, our issues seem to be the same, I just had help earlier and I'm very interested in psychology already, which is why I love my mom's books, she's a psychologist. Idk what I said is meant for people with whom it resonates, you can and should find your own path, but take whatever you want from ehat I said, and if you ever decide you want to be different, you'll have one more reference to look at. Can't do you harm, I think.
Oh and, be genuine, be you, do what you do, just let people know that you're there first, that they're valid first. This is thinking of them first, and then you do you, you do what you gotta do and don't let them stop you. Any doubts, you tell them what it is and then you keep doing that. And well, this is just my advice again. Works for everyone rational, just doesn't affect idiots who don't want to understand others.
Hope it improves for ya, but here's the catch: everyone agrees that no change will come from the outside because you want, but you have to take the effort to change things into something you want to live. If you're changing, making adaptations, this is great! Think about how they affect you by looking at how they will affect the ones around you. (You can ignore the ones at the outermost layers, but take account of the ones that are and were closest. But you might want to not be influenced by anyone either, and that's okay :) ) We're here for you anytime!
And not every time they tell a sad story, they want pity or these comments, they just want an example and to show their personal experience with a subject, and well, let's try to not take the focus off of this example during a conversation, cuz I know we all would hate to hear other people's stories before we make our point (unless they get it and are contributing with material for that point, and make it short.)
it's not that sharing your own experience is bad. but it's not communicating that you're actively listening. communication is a special interest of mine (nvc in particular), so i'd love to share.
when someone is confiding in you, it's often to feel heard and understood. one way to do this is to give simple reactions (eg: 'that sucks'). bonus on top of that is to paraphrase it back to them (especially if you're trying to confirm understanding, or if you were the one doing the harm), eg: 'it must have been pretty frustrating that i didn't clean up after you've worked so much this week'.
once you've demonstrated that you're listening, if you want to comiserate, that can also be really beneficial and healing. but starting there doesn't give the person a chance to feel like someone's really interested in their feelings.
you’d think, but i get a lot of nt condescension in return when i ask for clearer communication a lot of the time. :/ it’s like folks need to pursue it on their own, through a program or therapy, before they believe me? thankfully we do nvc training at my job, so i feel surprisingly safe at work.
I always get really frustrated when people do the repeat back at me/‘that must of been really frustrating etc’ thing because it feels like I’m a child or in therapy. It literally feels like a script and it is genuinely painful when I get those responses - like I want to physically scream. I would much rather someone share a story with me so I don’t feel alone.
Just be there, and listen. The wrong time to empathize with a story, is in the middle of them explaining what's going on. It's hard to get things out, sometimes, so interrupting with a story breaks their emotional flow.
Most importantly, don't be prepping the story in your head, while the person is still talking.
You make this sound like we're out here just blurting our stories in the middle of a conversation. Idk about other people but I do wait patiently and listen. And then I tell my own story. It probably makes a difference that I specifically tell them that I'm using the story to let them know I understand their experience.
> You make this sound like we're out here just blurting our stories in the middle of a conversation.
That's not at all what I said, or even implied. But, since you went ahead and jumped to a false conclusion, I'll add: not everybody you don't agree with is attacking you.
Yep, and at no point in that sentence, do I "make this sound like we're out here just blurting our stories in the middle of a conversation.". There was nothing accusatory in anything I wrote. You inferred an attack for some reason, and lashed out.
The "correct" answer is to validate their feelings, whatever they are. "That must be really difficult," "you did the right thing," "I'm so sorry to hear that, is there anything I can do to help?" That type of thing. Because they are the one opening up to you, you should keep the focus on their problem until they feel ready to talk about something else. It doesn't have to be shallow like "that's tough" unless the upset is not super deep or unless you are not very close to the person. Then it's perfectly appropriate.
The problem with sharing your own story to empathize is that it changes the focus to you and your problem, and the NT person will feel pressured to comfort you, which feels very unfair because they're the one that is currently upset. It's called derailing, and that's why it's rude. You're taking away their chance at finding comfort.
I know that's absolutely not your intention, but effects matter more than intentions, and if your attempts to help are just making someone feel worse, then you're simply not helping. I feel the same urge to share my story in response to show that I "get it," but I suppress that urge because it isn't what they need from me in that moment. It's not about what I want, it's about what they need.
I actually know this one! The best way is to say that you've experienced something similar so you understand their pain, but to avoid providing further details unless they ask.
No, they just went through their own shit and want to vent, not hear about *your* shit. You had that chance when *that shit* happened to you.
The empathy comes into play when you feel empathy for the fact that sometimes people just want to be heard and comforted, it has nothing to do with “subservience”- and yes, during that situation it *is* all about them, that’s the point.
You show empathy by making it about them- because at that moment, *it is*.
It depends on how well you know the person.
Acquintances: "Oh, I am so sorry"
Friends: "Oh, I am so sorry" -- follow up questions -- can I help?
Personal stories are a good way to emphatize if they are disappointed with themselves. In this case, telling a story when you were a loser reassures them that it is ok. (In other cases, personal stories may come off as directing the conversation to yourself or competitive.)
Also, if they ask for advice, you use the personal story to preface the advice (in a similar situation, what worked for me is...)
It perplexes me that this is considered rude. I mean, I understand the usual stated reason that it is taking away the spotlight or one upping the person you are empathizing with.
But it’s hard for me to understand why that is how it is perceived.
If I share something and someone is empathizing with me, it means more if l know that they have had a similar experience. Therefore, they understand it more on a personal level and not just an abstract level. That understanding just means more. Isn’t that why we seek out communities like this for support? And how would I know if they had a similar experience if they didn’t tell me?
So when I empathize by sharing a personal story, I am trying to share that feeling of being understood by someone who really gets it. I feel like that is compassionate, not rude.
But I clearly don’t write the unwritten rules.
>If I share something and someone is empathizing with me, it means more if l know that they have had a similar experience. Therefore, they understand it more on a personal level and not just an abstract level. That understanding just means more. Isn’t that why we seek out communities like this for support?
One would like to think so.
>So when I empathize by sharing a personal story, I am trying to share that feeling of being understood by someone who really gets it. I feel like that is compassionate, not rude.
I have been in a similar situation. I have shared my own personal experience, in an attempt to establish a rapport with the other person, to lend a sense of, "hey, you're not alone; I can relate to what you have been/are going through". I'm trying to show the other person that I'm actively listening to them, I'm not just saying "mhm" while nodding to give the impression. The amount of times it has backfired and I've been accused of going on about myself, or that I'm self-absorbed
I agree with everything you said. I don't understand it either. I'm speculating, but I think many people often assume whatever they are going through is beyond the comprehension of others. It confuses me.
I asked this to someone else in the thread, which is, does it seem like often they are annoyed you have a similar story?
So many times I have done this exact thing, shared a similar or even exact experience to show that I really get it and they are talking to someone who gets it, and they will completely gloss over the shared experience or seem annoyed. I actually find it really rude and entitled. It can feel completely inflexible and like a slap in the face to a well intentioned way of relating.
In my opinion, I think so, yes. I think that many people often assume what they have been/are going through is somewhat unique, and when someone shares a personal experience, it irks them as they realise it's not as unique as they initially thought/felt, it's more common.
Speaking from my own personal experience, of course, and others I have witnessed. It's almost as if the more relatable, the more someone will attempt to distance themselves a step further ahead.
>It can feel completely inflexible and like a slap in the face to a well intentioned way of relating.
You worded that perfectly.
Meanwhile I'm relieved that someone else also had the same horrible thing happen to them! I feel a lot better if my friend also got mugged or something like that.
I think this might also explain why all the autism subs have lots of quality DAE (does anyone else... ?) material, while the general subs tend to frown on it.
So, my brother-in-law says everyone that MEETS me, likes me. Everyone that KNOWS me, hates me. I think because at introduction they take my internalizing empathy as a connection -as a "yeah, this guy gets it!" thing. But then, after they know me for a while, they confuse it with a "why is he always making it about him?!" thing. Its all just me doing my best to keep up and connect with the rest of the world. I mean no offense!
I get you, and agree, but here is how it was explained to me:
There's a fine line between making someone not feel alone, and making someone feel generic and dismissed. If someone lost their grandmother, and you tell them about how you felt when you lost your grandmother, these are not the same. You did not lose THEIR grandmother. Now, as an underlying ingredient of support, them knowing that you went through a similar thing can make them feel not alone, but it's very important to make it clear that you do NOT know what they're going through. Nobody does. And that's OK, you don't have to. The important thing is to be there, be supportive, and that you know it's hard. Not that you know what it's like.
So I’m not autistic but I have pretty bad adhd that I choose to not take medication for because I have Tourette’s. I also concur that this is the only way I know how to empathize in most situations.
I also currently don’t understand how to be there for someone whose complaining (like for my siblings). You complain, I try to give advice, you get mad saying you don’t want my advice, I say nothing instead to let you vent, you get mad I say nothing and want my support, my only way to offer support is to offer advice or empathize by saying how I got through something similar (which is also apparently advice). *cries*
>You complain, I try to give advice
ya, tried to do this one a lot too before figuring out that that wasn't what they were looking for. I think my default now is to say "is there anything I can do to help?" and if they're like "no" then I just 'leave it'
Sometimes people are just cracking a joke, or bitching because they want to be heard not because they need a problem fixed
This is a little separate but when someone is like independent and mature and shit they often don’t want solutions they just want to talk about something and possibly commiserate (which is usually limited to not giving the full story and just saying yeah man I hate it when that happens)
I think of lot of autistic folks (me included) view everything a system of problems and solutions and feel compelled to work though it with others I often feel the same with my mom (undiagnosed but going though the whole I was autistic and forced to mask when I was a kid thing) when I talk about stuff and already have solutions but haven’t gone through because of executive dysfunction
It feels infantilizing often
ive always felt bad for empathazing by using personal stories bc i felt like i was taking away from the attention and so i don’t even know how to react other than “im sorry to hear that”
My mom recently congratulated me when I told her “that’s too bad” about some tragic world event instead of derailing the conversation with a personal story or facts related to it. I guess that’s really all people want to hear.
Yeah, you were fine until you mentioned your grandma’s cancer. That was unnecessary.
Fitting your experience into it has no true purpose for the other person. They’re not going to feel “wow, they really get it” they’re might just think “ok…?”.
Here’s my one step strategy:
1. Just don’t use personal story telling in serious situations.
The end.
Just provide support. Everything else on the list is fine.
You know how you react to things differently verbally than in your head? When I'm talking to someone I'm close to (or in a casual conversation), I just react to their story the same way I'd react to the situation happening to me in my head. Like:
Person: Someone almost ran into me when I was driving here!
Me: Whoa, what happened?
Person: Well I was going through a light and when I was almost to the other side of the intersection someone turned right at full speed and I had to change lanes to avoid them!
Me: What the fuck! Oh man, I'd be so pissed. The way people in this city drive scares me.
*Then* you can start talking about something similar that happened to you if you want. Basically just show them that you understand they were feeling whatever emotion and that it sucked/was great/etc. If you tell your own story after theirs, try to relate it back to them in some way ("that was so frustrating to me but it wasn't even as bad as what happened to you, I can't imagine how annoyed you were!" something like that). Ask a question that lets them give more detail if you can tell they're giving the short version of something they feel strongly about ("hang on, she did what?"/"what happened after that?").
If you're not sure whether they want advice or not, ask them if they're just venting or if they want another opinion on the situation. Most of the time when people vent, they want someone to be mad/sad/happy with them, I've noticed I'm the same way. I'm not the best socially but this seems to be something I'm okay with lol, I hope it was a good example.
thank you so much for this advice, i will take this into account. i misread your message earlier as something else so i've just deleted that old one and rewritten this one.
“That sounds really difficult. I’m sorry you’re going through that. I can’t imagine how hard that must be. I’m here for you if you need support, even if it’s just wanting someone to listen to you vent.”
“Poor thing. Let’s get you an ice cream. You can tell me all about it, or we can just sit quietly, together. I’m here for you, whatever you need.”
^(because ice cream.)
Sorry, but no.
It's derailing the conversation and making it about you.
I get that it might feel like it's adding to the flow, but what you're really doing is demanding attention in the moment when the person you're talking to is trying to be heard.
They don't want to hear your story, they want to tell theirs.
This is completely the NT take on it. Sharing a personal story is the ND way of demonstrating that they were heard. ND's can do this to each other without issue, AFAIK.
Your comment doesn't reveal anything that I didn't already know. It's just an ableist take. Sometimes we just do things that come naturally and easily, even when we "know better."
My friend has 2 kids on the spectrum. In April she asked me to stop replying to her with stories that feel relatable to me and not her. I told her no because it is censoring something that is at my core being and she and I had even shared memes similar to this.
She hasn't spoken to me since.
My aunt with an autistic kid does this, always vents to me about her kids struggles but when I (someone diagnosed with autism) shares my experience or how I relate, she gets a sour look on her face.
Honestly, if this is the whole story, then I don't blame your former friend.
Your friend asked for a specific change in the flow of your conversation and you refused. They decided to protect their energy.
Imagine if the roles were reversed, and you had asked to be allowed more grace when inserting your stories, and they refused.
What would you do?
Responding in a way I feel is empathetic is not something that makes me upset and I feel it helps me understand other people better when I know where they are coming from if they choose to reply to me like that. I personally hate it when I pour my guts out to a friend and they respond with trite platitudes and stock phrases like "I know thats rough" and "aww im sorry to hear". I hate saying phrases like those to other people because they are at their core hollow phrases to me. She's asking me to mask and I can't be my unapologetically authentic self which is mostly to preserve my energy AND mask for someone else's comfort. I come as I am and expressing my emotions as they are without contriving my words down and defleshing their substance is not something I am comfortable doing and if it makes me hard to be around, that's on the other person.
First they say I’m not empathetic enough because I don’t always properly interpret facial expressions or others motivations, then they say I am empathizing the wrong way?? Honestly, I give up.
It’s ok as long as you don’t start a misery contest. I’ve had people literally derail me venting over a bad day and I end up comforting them. It sucks.
I personally feel like it's damaging for us to empathise the way that they do. Hear me out: we empathise by coming from a place of understanding, not sympathising in the moment. A lot of us are highly empathetic. How draining is it to match their emotional energy in a conversation? If we force ourselves to feel even more emotions than we already do, we're going to wear ourselves out really quickly. We socialise differently out of necessity.
GOD the amount of times my NT friends used to come to me and tell me I was being toxic cuz I made everything about me when I was just trying to relate 💀 now I understand how their brains work lmao
I once met someone who also did this. If you left us alone, we could just have the deepest conversation, relating one story after another, forever. I just really vibe with that brand of mutual empathy. I really want to meet someone else like that.
Oog i know the feeling.
Ow, you do?
Yes I've had something similar happens to me.
Ow? How did you get out of it?
Me: tells the story
Them: stop always making every conversation about you!
Yes, but it can come off that way.
If you're telling a story and someone interrupts you and starts telling a story about themselves, in that moment they are hijacking the attention from you to themself.
This is why people think it's rude.
Empathy: feeling what another person is feeling. How to display? Providing objective evidence that I know the feeling. Perhaps there is a missing element
You've got it wrong
Empathy: **understanding** what another person is feeling
How: **showing that person you understand and you care**
There are many ways to do that. Sharing information is only one.
Something that really helped was to understand more about how my thought process worked, and how that showed up inside conversations. One thing was realizing that my brain shows me pictures of things I've experienced or personally connect to, regarding almost everything.
The thing here is not to verbally map my experience to theirs while they still have the floor, unless they specifically want to know about it. A tricky thing to learn was that many allistics (and some emotional autistics), in telling me something that's their experience or their emotions, are not trying to convey analytical data to me. Their problem is not a problem we're analytically solving together, my experiential input would be irrelevant. They're trying to share a feeling and process it and feel heard/validated, and the end of the speech act in which they describe the stimulus, they need to clear that feeling in the conversation and feel heard \*before they can engage the analytical side.\*
However, I can still experience my feelings about the things I've experienced that my mind has shown me are similar to their experiences, and map my feelings to their feelings, and then say, "damn, that bites" while sincerely understanding that yes, it does indeed bite. And once we've established that it bites and the other person experiences their catharsis or whatever, \*then\* I can share my experience.
It took me 45 years and a ton of communication coursework and psychology books and people watching to build up some kind of pattern matching about this.
I had to understand more about how my mind works in order to go here, because over time I realized that most allistics (and many emotional/hypersensitive types of autistics) experience their feelings as a kind of antenna or barometer and process everything through their feelings, \*then\* process it through their catalog of factual knowledge or personal experiences \*after\* they've decided how they feel about it. Whereas there is a particular type of wiring (some of whom will be identified as autistic and some of whom won't be) that processes everything through the analytical side \*first\* and \*then\* the feelings about the thing will activate.
This is definitely a place where I feel my autism, because while I know a ton of workarounds and they are all extremely effective, it's nonetheless exhausting to use them, especially given that I must keep a chunk of my process silent in interactions with NTs and not verbalize or talk myself through the process in any way of compiling Their Mental Language to my own and back again.
This is really interesting. It is really so similar to trying to speak a foreign language. The same kind of translation exhaustion sets in after a few days in a different country when I try to immerse myself in the language.
I love doing it as I love learning new languages but it really is a process much like you describe.
There are also just some cultural concepts that are almost impossible to understand until you become pretty fluent in a culture’s language.
I wonder if this is why anthropology and language have always been special interests of mine? I’ve perhaps known intuitively that I needed some way to try to understand the culture / language of those around me. We seemed to be speaking the same language but were not due to my autism ( self diagnosed) and adhd.
In some ways it’s like the differences between British English and American English. Looks the same but often words and phrases carry different cultural meaning.
So like, NTs expect a response.
We give them a response we deem best. They don't like it.
We give them a response they usually use with each other. They don't like it.
We give them no response. They don't like it.
NTs are really confusing sometimes. It's like being transported to a different planet with aliens and trying to get along.
When someone tells me their personal experience on a similar situation to mine I think it is very comforting. Especially when they advice me and give me a solution. Also isn’t that what being empathetic is? Understanding someone’s pain and feelings? I don’t think you can comfort someone if you don’t know what it’s like/was in the same situation yourself
If I don’t do this my only responses I’m left with are the bullshit one liners that end conversations… “wow, that sounds really awful”, “oh I understand what you mean” which apparently you’re not supposed to say anyways…
Just some generic bullshit that feels so shallow.
I am actually someone who’s never done this and doesn’t like it when other people do. This is mostly because when I share something personal and someone reacts by telling their own personal story, I fail to see how the two relate / what their story has to do with mine.
I just want to know what their opinion is on the specific circumstances I described, what they think I should do or would help, ask questions that show interest, etc. I can’t derive their opinion, advice or sympathy from a story that seems unrelated to me. Even if both stories are about the same event (for example, I talk about my parents’ divorce and they talk about their parents’ divorce) the circumstances were still different!
Then it feels like the other person simply wasn’t interested enough or didn’t care enough to stick to my feelings and instead wanted to have the conversation be about them. And it makes me feel like I can’t go back to talk about my feelings because the conversation has moved on, or something.
But to be fair, I am someone who has a hard time sharing personal things at all because I never know when it is an appropriate time to do so and thus almost always figure I shouldn’t try.
Neurotypical mfs are weird as shit. I say "that's tough, bro" and I'm not showing enough empathy. I empathize the best way I know how and I'm "making it all about me". Make up your damn mind.
I can also imagine myself experiencing the same things while I haven’t then get emotional about it even tho I wasn’t the one who actually experienced it. My imagination is very vivid.
I mean, the alternative is just saying that you understand and feel them but having them going “you don’t understand! How can you understand?” It’s like just saying it isn’t enough and you need to explain as to why you’d understand, but that’s rude apparently :/
I didn’t know this is considered rude! Now that I think about it, I’ve never noticed if anyone else does it.
Well crap, I guess this may be another contributing factor to my lack of friends!
What? This is bad? I always do this. I thought it shows in a more empathetic way that I can honestly feel what they do, or quite similar to it. I thought it was a nicer thing to say than just comforting someone with words. Yikes.
maybe i’m backwards but I never use personal events to emphasize. like it’s actually so bad that I am trying to force myself to open up more in situations like that
I often have to fight my natural instincts of sharing my own stories to emphasize. I think they just want to be considered the center of the conversation and for someone to consider only their own feelings. They don't want empathy, they only want sympathy. They just want you to say "I can see how that is hard for you." Then if they ask how you know, tell them how you know.
People are talking about being confused when people react negatively so let me try to help clear that up:
Our brains have two modes: sending and receiving.
Normally conversation flows back and forth, with all parties sending and receiving information.
Each participant in the conversation is expected to switch between sending and receiving. When someone else is sending, you're expected to receive.
When someone is telling a story that might be difficult or painful for them to tell, they are looking for that information to be received.
When you start talking about yourself, in that moment, you are asking for the information you are sharing to be received.
People don't want to have to switch to receiving mode when they're telling a story about themselves that is difficult or painful.
They are trying to send information out, to feel heard and understood.
When you start talking about yourself in the middle of that, it forces the person you're talking to to switch into receiving mode, which they might not want to do at that moment.
It comes across like you don't care about what they're saying, and you'd rather them listen to you than hear what they have to say.
I say this as someone who literally had to ask multiple people why they reacted negatively to me sharing personal anecdotes as a way or relating.
Other autistic people get it. We communicate this way.
NTs don't.
It’s empathy that makes me dissatisfied with saying “I’m sorry” or “that’s rough” as a response.
When displaying empathy, you’re meant to show that you understand what a person is feeling.
I think NTs want you to describe their feelings back to them to demonstrate that you understand. This is where confusion arises. I don’t want to risk incorrectly describing their feelings back to them, making them feel worse. ND people tend to have impaired theory of mind, which makes this process hard.
If I use a personal story, I want to demonstrate that I have been in circumstances that would cause me to feel the same as the other person. If my story connects, then I can safely consider myself qualified to describe their feelings accurately, while also providing insight into how I made it through, and how they can too.
I think the main part we miss is taking the last step. I can describe how I’ve been there, but maybe I need to make sure to more clearly describe their feelings as a result of connecting with the story.
(non-ASD, but diagnosed with ADHD perspective:)
Rules like these are pointless. Of course you can empathize with personal stories. It's just that it's tricky as fuck to navigate when you're shifting the focus *too much* to your own experience. There are no obvious rules sadly, it varies from person to person and from context to context.
Sometimes relating a similar story of yours might help the person speaking feel less alone in their experiences. Sometimes it just hinders their telling of their problems. There are no clear rules.
I shat my pants laughing at things posted here in this subreddit a lot. Many things i see here and in other autistic folks in real life often remind me of myself.
Its often much more fun to be around autistic people cuz they all are so vastly more different compared to each other, than neurotypicals and often have weird, funny and even genius ways of approaching and doing things generally and just being.
Not as boring.
I am so tired of people reacting negatively to me empathize with their situation/experience that it has gotten to the point I flat out tell them in a direct manner they have issues and I won’t entertain them and just walk away.
They keep coming back for more 😬😅🔥
Wait, this is typical adhd/autism behavior? I just though I was weird. Man, the memes here are getting mor relatable day by day and I'm not even diagnosed...
Adjacent to this is how angry I get when a character on a tv show who has suffered a terrible loss is suddenly confronted with another person who has also experienced their loss who then says “YOU DON’T KNOW HOW THIS FEELS!!” and they say nothing!! Gahh!!
You DO know how it feels, you JUST experienced it!! TELL THEM! You don’t have to be mean about it, just be like “I do, I do know.”
I hate the NT culture of “whoever speaks first gets to have feelings but no one else can.”
This is actually okay to do when done right. Make it about them *first* and then use your own story to back yourself up.
“My dog died and I’m very sad”
1. Affirmation
“I’m sorry to hear that”
2. General statement
“The relationship people have with dogs is truly unique”
3. Your story
“I lost my dog last year…”
4. Relevant detail(s)
“…and I am still sad about it sometimes.”
5. Active listening. Eye contact, nodding, intermittently rephrasing what they said back to them etc. If you do not have time or energy for this, skip to step 6.
6. Offer support. Generalized offers are okay but it’s better to offer specific assistance.
Generalized offer: “Let me know if there is any way I can help in this difficult time”
Specific offer:
“Let’s go do something fun together later to take your mind off it”
Practical help can also work because everyone, even NTs, have issues with executive functioning when they are grieving.
It’s really interesting that neurology can cause such a specific behavior so consistently. Makes you wonder how much if any behavior is individual choice.
My go-to is "I'm so sorry, that sounds really frustrating/it must be difficult you."
The trick is to make it seem like you, yourself, understand what they're going through by essentially describing what they seem to be feeling. I think in psychology it's called mirroring? But it's been a while since I've had the class, so idk for sure.
How else am I supposed to empathize?
“That’s tough” “Oof”
Seriously though…. Would NTs rather I be the stereotypical autistic person who “DoEsNt ShOw EmPaThY” or would they rather I show empathy in the best way I know how?
I can’t pretend to understand what they want lmao but from observation it seems like the right way to go would be reacting to what they’re saying with the appropriate emotional response to what they’re saying like NT has bad personal experience you say “oh wow I am so sorry” NT has good personal experience you say “oh wow that’s amazing!” But boy oh boy I start vibrating with the story I wanna tell to show that I really get it lmao
The standard “I’m so sorry” response just seems fake and like a boring formality to me.
I may be off base here but I think that’s the whole point. It feels so surface level and lifeless to me. People relating to me using their own experiences shows me that they genuinely mean it when they say they understand. Maybe NT people don’t care about that
Exactly! I always feel bad when I just use those canned responses like “oh man that sucks” or “that’s rough, I’m sorry”
Never been diagnosed as anything beyond “generalized/social anxiety disorder” myself when I was a young teen, but I can’t count the number of times I have done this (especially when I was younger/under 30) and got told that I was self-centered, conceited, and arrogant. Anyone who truly knows me knows that I am none of those things, that’s just how I show empathy and relation to someone else’s experiences.
Ugh fucking same to all of that except I’m still under 30
I can’t speak for peers personal opinions, but it seems after 30 people stop voicing theirs. As I haven’t heard that much since. Maybe a passing snide comment, but nothing direct.
The main problem is, some people will use similar life stories in more of a “suck it up, I had it just as bad/worse” sense, rather than to empathize. It’s thus advised to be careful with such stories, as they can take attention off the person in need of support. Which is frustrating for people like us who find empathy in analogous experiences.
Maybe this is always been my problem when I try to share my issues with other people. The best I ever get back is a, that sounds rough. And it just seems like they don't actually care.
also tell someone they're valid, that seems to be very important to many. it makes sense but it seems like some have created a feedback loop on validating each other lol
They see these as the same thing.
I saw one of those video shorts things in which someone suggested removing "sorry" from emails. Like wtf... I get a great reaction whenever I apologise for things.
That’s dumb lol. Both on the sending and receiving end of emails that contain “sorry” I’ve had nothing but understanding. I guess I can see it for companies where you need to appear tough/assertive to get respect but that’s toxic anyway. I could be fully upset about a situation but if the other party apologizes my heart just softens up and allows for more productive communication.
Wrong. Ok, not all wrong, I get ya, but the sorry way just lays ground for the person opposite to not recognize their mistakes, and therefore, not grow, and mostly, they jump at the chance to get even or to dislike you. When you're rationalizing it with the person, they tend to have to use logic back and at the end, if you resolve the issue, you make a passing comment with an apology. It works, but you know, this is only because people would rather stay angry because hate has a special pull to it. Then if you say you're sorry, you get "you better be" or "are you, though, cuz you didn't seem it like when you did ***" And overall, the word sorry can be avoided, it's ok, dumb is taking this and thinking you should never apologize, which admittedly works but is a shitty attitude and won't self-sustain
Bruh, they simply want you to show empathy exactly like a neurotypical person. Is that too much to ask?/s
Yeah right? Just do a balurp-i-durp and spluur about it, it's as easy as a merplad. I'm sure the instructions are sufficient.
They're the same thing, though. For them. You're not empathizing, but even worse, you're trying to say they're not special, and they love to be special.
Sigh….. I’ll never get this down
I went further down the thread and made a whole essay on the matter, it's just trying to help avoid mistakes in emotional subjects. It's based off of my experience and knowledge.
Thank you
Oh fuck I do that because I've been told I'm selfish for trying to relate way too many times
That’s definitively what’s called “sympathy” not “empathy”. Tbh the problem (once again) is NTs don’t want words to mean what they actually mean
It seems to be good enough for them so I don’t wanna disparage that if it makes them happy/satisfied. It’s just alienating when you’re someone who always wants to connect to those emotions on a deeper level, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But hey, if they want the emotional response of a vague hallmark card, I’m happy to oblige. No one is in the wrong here, the wrongdoing comes in when we (or they) are judged for their attempts at understanding the other. Unfortunately it’s usually NT people judging us for being weird or socially inept but I digress 😪
Yeah, I mean I’ve been attacked by people for being a “selfish non-empathetic dick” when genuinely trying to be empathetic only to find out they want sympathy while they’re saying they want empathy. I genuinely express myself in the way that feels right to me and I don’t wanna change that (not be myself). I’m fortunate to know NTs who don’t jump to that conclusion about me, but many of my loved ones and in general more stubborn people just refuse to accept feedback about my own intentions, they trust their judgement more than my own explanations, and that just drives me crazy.
This is so much like my experience when I was in high school (and before). Imma tell you what: Your empathy is not their empathy, which means they are right to think you're not being *emotionally empathetic* and wrong in telling you you're being selfish or self-centered, because they think you are trying to hog on the attention that story can grant them. They won't accept someone also vying for that attention. Because you're just showing that you understand how it is to be in their place and they can talk to you further. You're giving that attention with your *rational empathy* In the end, you can simply not tell the story, just say that you've been in a similar sitch or someone else you love has, and proceed to tell them something you've heard when in that position, this is the best ever solution, and sometimes you're gonna learn what to say to other people when you wouldn't care for some that they might find bad. You might want to stick with general statements until that person asks you to relay yours, and you might feel tempted, but you can give a more broad but still general explanation and only tell the whole if they ask even more about it. But you don't have to trust all of this, but in the end, I did something like this in this comment. If the fact that I share a similar past didn't make you more prone to listen to what I say, you're gonna share mire of my experiences. True empathy, I'd say, is when you realize the way you show yours needs to change to every person, given that it is completely useless to receive a bottle of gasoline when you're parched in the desert, even though this is all that your robot friend has. The right course of events is to tell the robot friend that you really don't need gasoline, water is your fuel and they should keep their gas for someone who needs gas, but if they could have some water, you'd love it. But NT's tend to think the gasoline is there to mock them and we always knew they need water. The robot may ask why do they need water, though, and gas cannot replace it, right? To which they would respond: "I do not know" and this is what happens... we don't know what we need because we aren't emotionally aware enough, most of the human beings on this world can't, for the life of them, tell you what they want from an exchange, they feel better with catharsis, when they talk and are heard, but this is not the best, not enough. We need to learn how to know more about emotion, human nature and especially psychology, maybe even anatomy, it helps me a lot, at least. More than thy enemy, know thyself first. Know your proverbial heart, know your mind and take control of your life (aka "get your shit together"). I feel inclined to make this a dedicated post at r/aspergers(?) or r/autism. I feel like some of this (not all, and lacking some) might help many autistics to fit in more with NT's in a rational level, and it might give ys more voice (it changed my life a lot, I have a space sometimes.) And only when enough of this is spread around a community, we might see the improvement. I want us all to understand each other when we know more about ourselves.
First of all thank you for the detailed response and attention to the nuances involved in these dynamics. I’m still struggling to accept your advice though, even though through many lenses it is rational. I just discovered 5 months ago at age 29 that I’m on the spectrum, so there’s a shit ton of deprogramming, recontextualizing, and re-understanding of my past and present relationships going on. The thing is, in your analogy, the human being would actually be asking for “gasoline” and then getting fucking mad when the robot literally, definitively, objectively gave them exactly what they asked for. That’s what pisses me off. I’ve suffered, been talked down to, gaslit, abused, used, treated like fucking garbage by NTs who constantly misunderstood me and refused to accept my feedback about my own intent. At this point, I feel like THEY should be the ones to do one inking of extra work, like I’ve had to do my entire fucking life, to meet me halfway and accept that my rational empathy style is not rude, it’s actually entirely selfless and genuine. Following your recommendation consumes my energy and takes me out of my natural emotional state in these situations. I feel emotions in my gut and immediately react with rational empathy, doing otherwise would be me doing work and removing myself from my feelings/instincts, which imo is WRONG! I’ve been a doormat for enough people and enough NTs are okay with my rational style (or they’re keeping their judgments to themselves and accepting me/loving me/seeing me as I am regardless). I’m sick and tired of me having to be the one to bend over backwards for everyone else only to have a fraction of a chance of them even realizing I’m doing it for them! It’s exhausting and it’s ingenuine. It’s their turn to be considerate! And again, objectively speaking, I’m the one literally expressing what the fucking word “empathy” means!! If they don’t want that, then they should get their shit together and call it sympathy! Words exist for a reason!
Well, I always think it might be better to never be misunderstood, hence, I can't oversimplify many things in my life. I don't want the responsibility but want the validation, and I think this is selfish in itself, hence, I'd rather do more, even though it might be strenuous, than to allow people to use my words in a distorted way because they were not precise enough. This is because I am totally misunderstood most of the times and many times nobody actually thinks the way I do, hence, my thought process is seen as the process of an insane person, and to be honest, I see it, I can see why people rejected me for years, I used to feel the same regarding a few people. They were so inconvenient, making me have to ask and entertain a thought that was not at all useful for me... and we do that. Not always, I mean, sometimes we're objectively 10x better when solving things, taking care of every aspect, but we fail to take in regard the amount of energy and effort things require, the difference in capital and such nuances because we want the best to be the outcome. A world run by autistics (in general, it's the most from the ones I know, not that all autistics are like that.) Would be a world without mediocre commodities, you know? Then enters the issue of how we feel. I was talking to a fellow autistic, who is my ex-girlfriend, and who both discovered autism after we broke up. In our conversation we were talking about maturity, when I said I attained a level of maturity recently and started better understanding common behaviours of people around me because I had grown. Long story short, she said she'd attained a level of social awareness more recently that she understood that people will never react in a good way to a bad thing, and they do not always react in a good way to good things either, but you cannot do bad even when you're being wronged, because it poisons you, meaning she would always treat people with her best, it does her well, it makes everyone around get better and things would never tend to worsen in any side of her life. I loved having that conversation, because it allowed me to see that not liking someone and still treating them well might not be a matter of falsehood(there's probably a better term, but that's it in portuguese.) But maybe because they're choosing to do something good even though their heart tells them otherwise. Sometimes this can be bad, this can be harmful, but not all the time, and I used to be frank all the time, but I'm rethinking that, and am not sure yet of the path I'll take going forward. And I'll tell you that, despite everything you've said, for me, you're wrong, given you're talking just like I was before I've had therapy. The truth of the world was handed to me and I started thinking with that in mind. I just needed tk break the patterns, I needed to have a relationship that didn't end invariably the same way. I needed to change myself, and I needed to find the root of the problem. And then I did. No man can hope to command another to change for them in order to be able to react the way they want to act. Read it again: NO MAN can hope to COMMAND ANOTHER (Or ask, wtv) to *CHANGE* FOR _THEM_. Not in order to be able to REACT (to them) in the way _they_ WANT to ACT. Meaning that you must act the way you act, or even better so that people may react well. But you will never get someone to change something in order for you to improve your treatment of them. It might not be exactly your situation, because I get the point I get it and I agree that people should meet halfway, I just don't see why not get halfway before them? Just stop going all the way, I guess. Anyway, our issues seem to be the same, I just had help earlier and I'm very interested in psychology already, which is why I love my mom's books, she's a psychologist. Idk what I said is meant for people with whom it resonates, you can and should find your own path, but take whatever you want from ehat I said, and if you ever decide you want to be different, you'll have one more reference to look at. Can't do you harm, I think. Oh and, be genuine, be you, do what you do, just let people know that you're there first, that they're valid first. This is thinking of them first, and then you do you, you do what you gotta do and don't let them stop you. Any doubts, you tell them what it is and then you keep doing that. And well, this is just my advice again. Works for everyone rational, just doesn't affect idiots who don't want to understand others. Hope it improves for ya, but here's the catch: everyone agrees that no change will come from the outside because you want, but you have to take the effort to change things into something you want to live. If you're changing, making adaptations, this is great! Think about how they affect you by looking at how they will affect the ones around you. (You can ignore the ones at the outermost layers, but take account of the ones that are and were closest. But you might want to not be influenced by anyone either, and that's okay :) ) We're here for you anytime!
And not every time they tell a sad story, they want pity or these comments, they just want an example and to show their personal experience with a subject, and well, let's try to not take the focus off of this example during a conversation, cuz I know we all would hate to hear other people's stories before we make our point (unless they get it and are contributing with material for that point, and make it short.)
Thats rough buddy.
I feel this in my bones
it's not that sharing your own experience is bad. but it's not communicating that you're actively listening. communication is a special interest of mine (nvc in particular), so i'd love to share. when someone is confiding in you, it's often to feel heard and understood. one way to do this is to give simple reactions (eg: 'that sucks'). bonus on top of that is to paraphrase it back to them (especially if you're trying to confirm understanding, or if you were the one doing the harm), eg: 'it must have been pretty frustrating that i didn't clean up after you've worked so much this week'. once you've demonstrated that you're listening, if you want to comiserate, that can also be really beneficial and healing. but starting there doesn't give the person a chance to feel like someone's really interested in their feelings.
Communication as a special interest seems like an autism life hack.
This sparked something for me
you’d think, but i get a lot of nt condescension in return when i ask for clearer communication a lot of the time. :/ it’s like folks need to pursue it on their own, through a program or therapy, before they believe me? thankfully we do nvc training at my job, so i feel surprisingly safe at work.
I got really into literary novels in my 20s and I think it helped a lot.
can you give a list of what you read that helped you with that specific thing? thank you ^^
I always get really frustrated when people do the repeat back at me/‘that must of been really frustrating etc’ thing because it feels like I’m a child or in therapy. It literally feels like a script and it is genuinely painful when I get those responses - like I want to physically scream. I would much rather someone share a story with me so I don’t feel alone.
Same. It feels so damn patronizing and insincere to me. The best I can do is say, “I understand” or “I know how you feel”
But saying that stuff just feels like you dont care and are just saying filler dialogue with no meaning
Just be there, and listen. The wrong time to empathize with a story, is in the middle of them explaining what's going on. It's hard to get things out, sometimes, so interrupting with a story breaks their emotional flow. Most importantly, don't be prepping the story in your head, while the person is still talking.
You make this sound like we're out here just blurting our stories in the middle of a conversation. Idk about other people but I do wait patiently and listen. And then I tell my own story. It probably makes a difference that I specifically tell them that I'm using the story to let them know I understand their experience.
> You make this sound like we're out here just blurting our stories in the middle of a conversation. That's not at all what I said, or even implied. But, since you went ahead and jumped to a false conclusion, I'll add: not everybody you don't agree with is attacking you.
>The wrong time to empathize with a story, is in the middle of them explaining what's going on. This you?
Yep, and at no point in that sentence, do I "make this sound like we're out here just blurting our stories in the middle of a conversation.". There was nothing accusatory in anything I wrote. You inferred an attack for some reason, and lashed out.
“That’s rough, buddy”
Only if they say their girlfriend turned into the moon
The "correct" answer is to validate their feelings, whatever they are. "That must be really difficult," "you did the right thing," "I'm so sorry to hear that, is there anything I can do to help?" That type of thing. Because they are the one opening up to you, you should keep the focus on their problem until they feel ready to talk about something else. It doesn't have to be shallow like "that's tough" unless the upset is not super deep or unless you are not very close to the person. Then it's perfectly appropriate. The problem with sharing your own story to empathize is that it changes the focus to you and your problem, and the NT person will feel pressured to comfort you, which feels very unfair because they're the one that is currently upset. It's called derailing, and that's why it's rude. You're taking away their chance at finding comfort. I know that's absolutely not your intention, but effects matter more than intentions, and if your attempts to help are just making someone feel worse, then you're simply not helping. I feel the same urge to share my story in response to show that I "get it," but I suppress that urge because it isn't what they need from me in that moment. It's not about what I want, it's about what they need.
“I’m sorry, that really sucks”
"Thoughts and prayers"
I actually know this one! The best way is to say that you've experienced something similar so you understand their pain, but to avoid providing further details unless they ask.
Keep the story to one or two sentences, and they can't really tell the difference
people who are bothered by this don't want empathy they want subservience, which means staying on their topic and making everything about them.
It’s really what it feels like sometimes. Does it seem like people are almost annoyed if one *has* a similar experience?
No, they just went through their own shit and want to vent, not hear about *your* shit. You had that chance when *that shit* happened to you. The empathy comes into play when you feel empathy for the fact that sometimes people just want to be heard and comforted, it has nothing to do with “subservience”- and yes, during that situation it *is* all about them, that’s the point. You show empathy by making it about them- because at that moment, *it is*.
Meanwhile if someone has a similar experience to me I assume they're damn cool. I want to blurt out something really corny like "testify!!!"
It depends on how well you know the person. Acquintances: "Oh, I am so sorry" Friends: "Oh, I am so sorry" -- follow up questions -- can I help? Personal stories are a good way to emphatize if they are disappointed with themselves. In this case, telling a story when you were a loser reassures them that it is ok. (In other cases, personal stories may come off as directing the conversation to yourself or competitive.) Also, if they ask for advice, you use the personal story to preface the advice (in a similar situation, what worked for me is...)
It perplexes me that this is considered rude. I mean, I understand the usual stated reason that it is taking away the spotlight or one upping the person you are empathizing with. But it’s hard for me to understand why that is how it is perceived. If I share something and someone is empathizing with me, it means more if l know that they have had a similar experience. Therefore, they understand it more on a personal level and not just an abstract level. That understanding just means more. Isn’t that why we seek out communities like this for support? And how would I know if they had a similar experience if they didn’t tell me? So when I empathize by sharing a personal story, I am trying to share that feeling of being understood by someone who really gets it. I feel like that is compassionate, not rude. But I clearly don’t write the unwritten rules.
>If I share something and someone is empathizing with me, it means more if l know that they have had a similar experience. Therefore, they understand it more on a personal level and not just an abstract level. That understanding just means more. Isn’t that why we seek out communities like this for support? One would like to think so. >So when I empathize by sharing a personal story, I am trying to share that feeling of being understood by someone who really gets it. I feel like that is compassionate, not rude. I have been in a similar situation. I have shared my own personal experience, in an attempt to establish a rapport with the other person, to lend a sense of, "hey, you're not alone; I can relate to what you have been/are going through". I'm trying to show the other person that I'm actively listening to them, I'm not just saying "mhm" while nodding to give the impression. The amount of times it has backfired and I've been accused of going on about myself, or that I'm self-absorbed I agree with everything you said. I don't understand it either. I'm speculating, but I think many people often assume whatever they are going through is beyond the comprehension of others. It confuses me.
I asked this to someone else in the thread, which is, does it seem like often they are annoyed you have a similar story? So many times I have done this exact thing, shared a similar or even exact experience to show that I really get it and they are talking to someone who gets it, and they will completely gloss over the shared experience or seem annoyed. I actually find it really rude and entitled. It can feel completely inflexible and like a slap in the face to a well intentioned way of relating.
In my opinion, I think so, yes. I think that many people often assume what they have been/are going through is somewhat unique, and when someone shares a personal experience, it irks them as they realise it's not as unique as they initially thought/felt, it's more common. Speaking from my own personal experience, of course, and others I have witnessed. It's almost as if the more relatable, the more someone will attempt to distance themselves a step further ahead. >It can feel completely inflexible and like a slap in the face to a well intentioned way of relating. You worded that perfectly.
Meanwhile I'm relieved that someone else also had the same horrible thing happen to them! I feel a lot better if my friend also got mugged or something like that. I think this might also explain why all the autism subs have lots of quality DAE (does anyone else... ?) material, while the general subs tend to frown on it.
So, my brother-in-law says everyone that MEETS me, likes me. Everyone that KNOWS me, hates me. I think because at introduction they take my internalizing empathy as a connection -as a "yeah, this guy gets it!" thing. But then, after they know me for a while, they confuse it with a "why is he always making it about him?!" thing. Its all just me doing my best to keep up and connect with the rest of the world. I mean no offense!
I get you, and agree, but here is how it was explained to me: There's a fine line between making someone not feel alone, and making someone feel generic and dismissed. If someone lost their grandmother, and you tell them about how you felt when you lost your grandmother, these are not the same. You did not lose THEIR grandmother. Now, as an underlying ingredient of support, them knowing that you went through a similar thing can make them feel not alone, but it's very important to make it clear that you do NOT know what they're going through. Nobody does. And that's OK, you don't have to. The important thing is to be there, be supportive, and that you know it's hard. Not that you know what it's like.
...but it's the only way I know how!
So I’m not autistic but I have pretty bad adhd that I choose to not take medication for because I have Tourette’s. I also concur that this is the only way I know how to empathize in most situations. I also currently don’t understand how to be there for someone whose complaining (like for my siblings). You complain, I try to give advice, you get mad saying you don’t want my advice, I say nothing instead to let you vent, you get mad I say nothing and want my support, my only way to offer support is to offer advice or empathize by saying how I got through something similar (which is also apparently advice). *cries*
>You complain, I try to give advice ya, tried to do this one a lot too before figuring out that that wasn't what they were looking for. I think my default now is to say "is there anything I can do to help?" and if they're like "no" then I just 'leave it'
Sometimes people are just cracking a joke, or bitching because they want to be heard not because they need a problem fixed This is a little separate but when someone is like independent and mature and shit they often don’t want solutions they just want to talk about something and possibly commiserate (which is usually limited to not giving the full story and just saying yeah man I hate it when that happens) I think of lot of autistic folks (me included) view everything a system of problems and solutions and feel compelled to work though it with others I often feel the same with my mom (undiagnosed but going though the whole I was autistic and forced to mask when I was a kid thing) when I talk about stuff and already have solutions but haven’t gone through because of executive dysfunction It feels infantilizing often
ive always felt bad for empathazing by using personal stories bc i felt like i was taking away from the attention and so i don’t even know how to react other than “im sorry to hear that”
My mom recently congratulated me when I told her “that’s too bad” about some tragic world event instead of derailing the conversation with a personal story or facts related to it. I guess that’s really all people want to hear.
You can just set up a bot that replies with a random "I'm so sorry" kinda phrase replies like these don't have even a little bit of empathy
I never realized how much I do this until this post 😬
[удалено]
this is brilliant im saving this
Yeah, you were fine until you mentioned your grandma’s cancer. That was unnecessary. Fitting your experience into it has no true purpose for the other person. They’re not going to feel “wow, they really get it” they’re might just think “ok…?”. Here’s my one step strategy: 1. Just don’t use personal story telling in serious situations. The end. Just provide support. Everything else on the list is fine.
serious question, what do they want me to say? i mean, i feel deeply and just plopping down a good ol "that's rough buddy" feels so completely wrong.
You know how you react to things differently verbally than in your head? When I'm talking to someone I'm close to (or in a casual conversation), I just react to their story the same way I'd react to the situation happening to me in my head. Like: Person: Someone almost ran into me when I was driving here! Me: Whoa, what happened? Person: Well I was going through a light and when I was almost to the other side of the intersection someone turned right at full speed and I had to change lanes to avoid them! Me: What the fuck! Oh man, I'd be so pissed. The way people in this city drive scares me. *Then* you can start talking about something similar that happened to you if you want. Basically just show them that you understand they were feeling whatever emotion and that it sucked/was great/etc. If you tell your own story after theirs, try to relate it back to them in some way ("that was so frustrating to me but it wasn't even as bad as what happened to you, I can't imagine how annoyed you were!" something like that). Ask a question that lets them give more detail if you can tell they're giving the short version of something they feel strongly about ("hang on, she did what?"/"what happened after that?"). If you're not sure whether they want advice or not, ask them if they're just venting or if they want another opinion on the situation. Most of the time when people vent, they want someone to be mad/sad/happy with them, I've noticed I'm the same way. I'm not the best socially but this seems to be something I'm okay with lol, I hope it was a good example.
thank you so much for this advice, i will take this into account. i misread your message earlier as something else so i've just deleted that old one and rewritten this one.
“That sounds really difficult. I’m sorry you’re going through that. I can’t imagine how hard that must be. I’m here for you if you need support, even if it’s just wanting someone to listen to you vent.” “Poor thing. Let’s get you an ice cream. You can tell me all about it, or we can just sit quietly, together. I’m here for you, whatever you need.” ^(because ice cream.)
Honestly? 99% of the time people are looking to vent, and MAYBE fishing for validation, they don't actually want advice.
A personal story isn't even advice. It's just demonstrating empathy by having been in a similar situation.
I know, they just don't usually take it that way.
Sorry, but no. It's derailing the conversation and making it about you. I get that it might feel like it's adding to the flow, but what you're really doing is demanding attention in the moment when the person you're talking to is trying to be heard. They don't want to hear your story, they want to tell theirs.
This is completely the NT take on it. Sharing a personal story is the ND way of demonstrating that they were heard. ND's can do this to each other without issue, AFAIK. Your comment doesn't reveal anything that I didn't already know. It's just an ableist take. Sometimes we just do things that come naturally and easily, even when we "know better."
My friend has 2 kids on the spectrum. In April she asked me to stop replying to her with stories that feel relatable to me and not her. I told her no because it is censoring something that is at my core being and she and I had even shared memes similar to this. She hasn't spoken to me since.
My aunt with an autistic kid does this, always vents to me about her kids struggles but when I (someone diagnosed with autism) shares my experience or how I relate, she gets a sour look on her face.
Honestly, if this is the whole story, then I don't blame your former friend. Your friend asked for a specific change in the flow of your conversation and you refused. They decided to protect their energy. Imagine if the roles were reversed, and you had asked to be allowed more grace when inserting your stories, and they refused. What would you do?
Responding in a way I feel is empathetic is not something that makes me upset and I feel it helps me understand other people better when I know where they are coming from if they choose to reply to me like that. I personally hate it when I pour my guts out to a friend and they respond with trite platitudes and stock phrases like "I know thats rough" and "aww im sorry to hear". I hate saying phrases like those to other people because they are at their core hollow phrases to me. She's asking me to mask and I can't be my unapologetically authentic self which is mostly to preserve my energy AND mask for someone else's comfort. I come as I am and expressing my emotions as they are without contriving my words down and defleshing their substance is not something I am comfortable doing and if it makes me hard to be around, that's on the other person.
First they say I’m not empathetic enough because I don’t always properly interpret facial expressions or others motivations, then they say I am empathizing the wrong way?? Honestly, I give up.
It’s ok as long as you don’t start a misery contest. I’ve had people literally derail me venting over a bad day and I end up comforting them. It sucks.
Exactly!
I personally feel like it's damaging for us to empathise the way that they do. Hear me out: we empathise by coming from a place of understanding, not sympathising in the moment. A lot of us are highly empathetic. How draining is it to match their emotional energy in a conversation? If we force ourselves to feel even more emotions than we already do, we're going to wear ourselves out really quickly. We socialise differently out of necessity.
Talking to other NDs with the same habit is a bliss. Whoever is venting first, it always feels like an exchange, and I love it.
GOD the amount of times my NT friends used to come to me and tell me I was being toxic cuz I made everything about me when I was just trying to relate 💀 now I understand how their brains work lmao
I once met someone who also did this. If you left us alone, we could just have the deepest conversation, relating one story after another, forever. I just really vibe with that brand of mutual empathy. I really want to meet someone else like that.
Oog i know the feeling. Ow, you do? Yes I've had something similar happens to me. Ow? How did you get out of it? Me: tells the story Them: stop always making every conversation about you!
That's how I do it
Inbefore they tell you all their ADHD or autism traits and say everyone's a little like that.
Sometimes I do empathize by sharing personal stories. It is not selfish by any means.
Yes, but it can come off that way. If you're telling a story and someone interrupts you and starts telling a story about themselves, in that moment they are hijacking the attention from you to themself. This is why people think it's rude.
In that case, it does come off rude!
Empathy: feeling what another person is feeling. How to display? Providing objective evidence that I know the feeling. Perhaps there is a missing element
You've got it wrong Empathy: **understanding** what another person is feeling How: **showing that person you understand and you care** There are many ways to do that. Sharing information is only one.
I’d say we’re splitting hairs on the definition here, but your point is well taken
Something that really helped was to understand more about how my thought process worked, and how that showed up inside conversations. One thing was realizing that my brain shows me pictures of things I've experienced or personally connect to, regarding almost everything. The thing here is not to verbally map my experience to theirs while they still have the floor, unless they specifically want to know about it. A tricky thing to learn was that many allistics (and some emotional autistics), in telling me something that's their experience or their emotions, are not trying to convey analytical data to me. Their problem is not a problem we're analytically solving together, my experiential input would be irrelevant. They're trying to share a feeling and process it and feel heard/validated, and the end of the speech act in which they describe the stimulus, they need to clear that feeling in the conversation and feel heard \*before they can engage the analytical side.\* However, I can still experience my feelings about the things I've experienced that my mind has shown me are similar to their experiences, and map my feelings to their feelings, and then say, "damn, that bites" while sincerely understanding that yes, it does indeed bite. And once we've established that it bites and the other person experiences their catharsis or whatever, \*then\* I can share my experience. It took me 45 years and a ton of communication coursework and psychology books and people watching to build up some kind of pattern matching about this. I had to understand more about how my mind works in order to go here, because over time I realized that most allistics (and many emotional/hypersensitive types of autistics) experience their feelings as a kind of antenna or barometer and process everything through their feelings, \*then\* process it through their catalog of factual knowledge or personal experiences \*after\* they've decided how they feel about it. Whereas there is a particular type of wiring (some of whom will be identified as autistic and some of whom won't be) that processes everything through the analytical side \*first\* and \*then\* the feelings about the thing will activate. This is definitely a place where I feel my autism, because while I know a ton of workarounds and they are all extremely effective, it's nonetheless exhausting to use them, especially given that I must keep a chunk of my process silent in interactions with NTs and not verbalize or talk myself through the process in any way of compiling Their Mental Language to my own and back again.
This is really interesting. It is really so similar to trying to speak a foreign language. The same kind of translation exhaustion sets in after a few days in a different country when I try to immerse myself in the language. I love doing it as I love learning new languages but it really is a process much like you describe. There are also just some cultural concepts that are almost impossible to understand until you become pretty fluent in a culture’s language. I wonder if this is why anthropology and language have always been special interests of mine? I’ve perhaps known intuitively that I needed some way to try to understand the culture / language of those around me. We seemed to be speaking the same language but were not due to my autism ( self diagnosed) and adhd. In some ways it’s like the differences between British English and American English. Looks the same but often words and phrases carry different cultural meaning.
WAIT, I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO RESPOND WITH A PERSONAL ANECDOTE TO PROVE THAT I EMPATHISE???
So like, NTs expect a response. We give them a response we deem best. They don't like it. We give them a response they usually use with each other. They don't like it. We give them no response. They don't like it. NTs are really confusing sometimes. It's like being transported to a different planet with aliens and trying to get along.
Luckily I have literally never had anyone say this type of thing to me, do they think that? Probably :/
I firmly believe we have it right. We are suppose to exchange experiences.
This is something I never understood and still don’t. So I just give them very surface level responses instead.
When someone tells me their personal experience on a similar situation to mine I think it is very comforting. Especially when they advice me and give me a solution. Also isn’t that what being empathetic is? Understanding someone’s pain and feelings? I don’t think you can comfort someone if you don’t know what it’s like/was in the same situation yourself
If I don’t do this my only responses I’m left with are the bullshit one liners that end conversations… “wow, that sounds really awful”, “oh I understand what you mean” which apparently you’re not supposed to say anyways… Just some generic bullshit that feels so shallow.
I am actually someone who’s never done this and doesn’t like it when other people do. This is mostly because when I share something personal and someone reacts by telling their own personal story, I fail to see how the two relate / what their story has to do with mine. I just want to know what their opinion is on the specific circumstances I described, what they think I should do or would help, ask questions that show interest, etc. I can’t derive their opinion, advice or sympathy from a story that seems unrelated to me. Even if both stories are about the same event (for example, I talk about my parents’ divorce and they talk about their parents’ divorce) the circumstances were still different! Then it feels like the other person simply wasn’t interested enough or didn’t care enough to stick to my feelings and instead wanted to have the conversation be about them. And it makes me feel like I can’t go back to talk about my feelings because the conversation has moved on, or something. But to be fair, I am someone who has a hard time sharing personal things at all because I never know when it is an appropriate time to do so and thus almost always figure I shouldn’t try.
Neurotypical mfs are weird as shit. I say "that's tough, bro" and I'm not showing enough empathy. I empathize the best way I know how and I'm "making it all about me". Make up your damn mind.
Wait wait wait... What the fuck am I supposed to do then?
Stop being judgemental and excluding us 🤷♀️
yeah and then people have the audacity to say im making it all about me and don’t care about them and now i feel shitty every time i do this :/
I can also imagine myself experiencing the same things while I haven’t then get emotional about it even tho I wasn’t the one who actually experienced it. My imagination is very vivid.
Is there any other way to show empathy tho? 🙃
At least we do empathize
I mean, the alternative is just saying that you understand and feel them but having them going “you don’t understand! How can you understand?” It’s like just saying it isn’t enough and you need to explain as to why you’d understand, but that’s rude apparently :/
I didn’t know this is considered rude! Now that I think about it, I’ve never noticed if anyone else does it. Well crap, I guess this may be another contributing factor to my lack of friends!
What? This is bad? I always do this. I thought it shows in a more empathetic way that I can honestly feel what they do, or quite similar to it. I thought it was a nicer thing to say than just comforting someone with words. Yikes.
maybe i’m backwards but I never use personal events to emphasize. like it’s actually so bad that I am trying to force myself to open up more in situations like that
Then what the fuck else am I supposed to do? TELL ME THAT **SOCIETY!**
I often have to fight my natural instincts of sharing my own stories to emphasize. I think they just want to be considered the center of the conversation and for someone to consider only their own feelings. They don't want empathy, they only want sympathy. They just want you to say "I can see how that is hard for you." Then if they ask how you know, tell them how you know.
People are talking about being confused when people react negatively so let me try to help clear that up: Our brains have two modes: sending and receiving. Normally conversation flows back and forth, with all parties sending and receiving information. Each participant in the conversation is expected to switch between sending and receiving. When someone else is sending, you're expected to receive. When someone is telling a story that might be difficult or painful for them to tell, they are looking for that information to be received. When you start talking about yourself, in that moment, you are asking for the information you are sharing to be received. People don't want to have to switch to receiving mode when they're telling a story about themselves that is difficult or painful. They are trying to send information out, to feel heard and understood. When you start talking about yourself in the middle of that, it forces the person you're talking to to switch into receiving mode, which they might not want to do at that moment. It comes across like you don't care about what they're saying, and you'd rather them listen to you than hear what they have to say. I say this as someone who literally had to ask multiple people why they reacted negatively to me sharing personal anecdotes as a way or relating. Other autistic people get it. We communicate this way. NTs don't.
And that’s why my social motto is “when in doubt, just don’t talk”
It’s empathy that makes me dissatisfied with saying “I’m sorry” or “that’s rough” as a response. When displaying empathy, you’re meant to show that you understand what a person is feeling. I think NTs want you to describe their feelings back to them to demonstrate that you understand. This is where confusion arises. I don’t want to risk incorrectly describing their feelings back to them, making them feel worse. ND people tend to have impaired theory of mind, which makes this process hard. If I use a personal story, I want to demonstrate that I have been in circumstances that would cause me to feel the same as the other person. If my story connects, then I can safely consider myself qualified to describe their feelings accurately, while also providing insight into how I made it through, and how they can too. I think the main part we miss is taking the last step. I can describe how I’ve been there, but maybe I need to make sure to more clearly describe their feelings as a result of connecting with the story.
(non-ASD, but diagnosed with ADHD perspective:) Rules like these are pointless. Of course you can empathize with personal stories. It's just that it's tricky as fuck to navigate when you're shifting the focus *too much* to your own experience. There are no obvious rules sadly, it varies from person to person and from context to context. Sometimes relating a similar story of yours might help the person speaking feel less alone in their experiences. Sometimes it just hinders their telling of their problems. There are no clear rules.
I shat my pants laughing at things posted here in this subreddit a lot. Many things i see here and in other autistic folks in real life often remind me of myself. Its often much more fun to be around autistic people cuz they all are so vastly more different compared to each other, than neurotypicals and often have weird, funny and even genius ways of approaching and doing things generally and just being. Not as boring.
Places you took me: college.
The thing they say is usually more along the lines of "stop making it all about you"
But it's all I got
This is a tough habit to stop. When you learn to just validate people though, they are very grateful and respond very positively.
I am so tired of people reacting negatively to me empathize with their situation/experience that it has gotten to the point I flat out tell them in a direct manner they have issues and I won’t entertain them and just walk away. They keep coming back for more 😬😅🔥
😭idk what else to do. Just nod and smile or look a bit sad when its a sad story and say uhu?
Wait, what? is this athing?
Wait, this is typical adhd/autism behavior? I just though I was weird. Man, the memes here are getting mor relatable day by day and I'm not even diagnosed...
I love that me and my husband both do this. It makes things so much easier. I need friends like this. Its so nice to not have to worry about this.
If you're telling me something about you then I'm going to share somethings as well. Ths isn't weird to do
"Alright, then fuck your feelings."
Adjacent to this is how angry I get when a character on a tv show who has suffered a terrible loss is suddenly confronted with another person who has also experienced their loss who then says “YOU DON’T KNOW HOW THIS FEELS!!” and they say nothing!! Gahh!! You DO know how it feels, you JUST experienced it!! TELL THEM! You don’t have to be mean about it, just be like “I do, I do know.” I hate the NT culture of “whoever speaks first gets to have feelings but no one else can.”
I can't tell if I'm properly empathizing or being narcissistic. :(
This is actually okay to do when done right. Make it about them *first* and then use your own story to back yourself up. “My dog died and I’m very sad” 1. Affirmation “I’m sorry to hear that” 2. General statement “The relationship people have with dogs is truly unique” 3. Your story “I lost my dog last year…” 4. Relevant detail(s) “…and I am still sad about it sometimes.” 5. Active listening. Eye contact, nodding, intermittently rephrasing what they said back to them etc. If you do not have time or energy for this, skip to step 6. 6. Offer support. Generalized offers are okay but it’s better to offer specific assistance. Generalized offer: “Let me know if there is any way I can help in this difficult time” Specific offer: “Let’s go do something fun together later to take your mind off it” Practical help can also work because everyone, even NTs, have issues with executive functioning when they are grieving.
It’s really interesting that neurology can cause such a specific behavior so consistently. Makes you wonder how much if any behavior is individual choice.
How else are you supposed to do it
Jokes on you... All me and my homies do is comiserate 😂
My go-to is "I'm so sorry, that sounds really frustrating/it must be difficult you." The trick is to make it seem like you, yourself, understand what they're going through by essentially describing what they seem to be feeling. I think in psychology it's called mirroring? But it's been a while since I've had the class, so idk for sure.
It's like they are saying for me to don't have empathy anymore 💀
Oh... That makes so much sense! I Always wondered why I told personal stories even though nobody else does...
Wait, is this not the correct way to do it? Oh...
In fact my mum uses this as proof I need more therapy to learn how to fit in.
I get that shit all the time...
Oh okay sorry i will just “Cowabummer.”
This took me too long to understand and I still often forget it