One that comes to mind for me: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is not always true. Maybe even only half the time! Are there any phrases you tend to hear and shake your head at?
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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Lol, no. Every autistic person I know, myself included, is engaged in anti-racism, consent culture, body-positivity, and other forms of harm reduction. You're understanding of autistic people is flawed. We don't lack cognitive empathy, and we don't have a difficult time reading other people's emotions. What we struggle with is when people mask their emotions, when they put up an emotional wall, rely heavily on sarcasm, or any other technique that shields them from authenticity. When people are open and vulnerable with us, we are capable of great empathy.
Did you fail to read what I said? Or do you not know what cognitive empathy is? Because an inability to read emotion and social cues is one of the basic diagnostic criteria for being on the autism spectrum. And that, by the way, includes NT people "masking" their emotions, using sarcasm, etc. A failure to understand those things IS a lack of cognitive empathy.
Signed, Level 1 ASD.
Cognitive empathy is the ability to put oneself mentally in another person's situation and try to understand how they might be feeling (as opposed to emotional empathy in which one experiences those emotions with another person and truly understanding how they feel).
Where I (also ASD Level 1) have long struggled is with emotional empathy. At age 15, I told my mom that I didn't know if I loved her. I understand now that this was a symptom of my autism, that I didn't understand a variety of emotions, apart from excitement about hyperfixation and annoyance at most of the rest of the world for moving and think so slowly relative to me.
And, yes, cognitive empathy was also lacking when I was younger. I did have difficulty imagining what other people's life experiences were like, mainly because I was...well...young and inexperienced, not necessarily because I was autistic.
What I take issue with is the blanket statement that autistic people lack cognitive empathy because it is a sweeping generalization that doesn't allow for nuance. The implication in your statement is that we're born without it and never possess it, and that simply isn't true. It isn't difficult for autistic people can learn cognitive empathy and other sorts of emotional intelligence.
i am not. I just like fair rules.