Not all autistic people have low levels of empathy - some people are hyperempathetic (I am sure you know this, question asker, I am just clarifying for our other readers!)
I will use myself as an example and describe what I do and feel when trying to comfort another person:
What do I do?
It depends on a few variables, including who I am comforting, whether I can sympathise with the situation, whether I have any scripts that I can copy from TV/movies/real life etc. I will be trying to read the situation - do they want comfort, or advice, company, to be left alone?
- If I know the person well I am more likely to have learnt how to interpret their body language and what methods work well when they are upset.
- Sometimes I cannot really understand why something makes someone upset, which makes it harder to work out what I can do comfort them.
- If it is a situation I have encountered a lot before, or if I have seen an example of a good way of comforting someone in that situation, I am able to adapt the words used, and create a script for myself.
- If it is a situation I am not familiar with I have a bunch of generic things that I try, but I don’t know how well they work. I worry that I seem like a robot-person who has learnt how to comfort people by reading books and articles (which is mostly how I have learnt it, but I don’t want to do a bad enough job that they notice)
- I use generic scripts like “do you want to talk about it?”, “that sounds terrible”, “are you ok?”
- I have some default gestures like bringing the person chocolate, or a cup of tea, or a pack of tissues, but shows like The Big Bang Theory seem to make fun of characters who do that, so I am not sure. If it is a physical injury I know how to deal with it, but if their pain is emotional, I don’t know what to do (especially if it something that I cannot understand).
- Sometimes I ask the person if they want a hug, but this is difficult because I don’t like to be touched, so I only offer hugs to people who I trust and who understand what it means as a gesture from me. I do sometimes arrange hugs from other people though.
Mostly what I do is a lot of thinking. I am combing through my memory trying to think of similar situations and find suitable scripts. I am trying to work out what might have caused them to be upset, and trying to pay attention to what they say and do to work out what they want me to do. Actually, I usually explicitly ask if there’s anything I can do, if they want me to stay with them or leave, can I get them a cup of tea etc., but people mostly say that no, there’s nothing I can do; they don’t mind if I stay with them or not; no, they don’t need tea.
In your story, if the other character knows them well, they might tell them what they want them to do, it depends on the dynamic between the characters.
How I feel
There can be an element of panic - I need to help this person, but how ???? What is wrong with them? Do they want to be comforted or am I annoying them?
If it is a situation where I do know the appropriate words and actions, it’s different. I don’t feel panicked, I have a job to do and I do it, like if the other person had injured themselves and I was doing first aid.
I might also be affected by the situation that has caused the other person to be upset. I can also become very distressed because of injustice, so if their pain is due to circumstances I perceive as unjust, this upsets me.
I have alexithymia, and struggle to identify my emotions, so this section is quite difficult for me to write! But I think that probably for me
seeing
people in upset/pain is upsetting
-
not because I “feel” their pain, but
because I think that morally we should help people and animals to not feel
bad. As well as this, if someone I care about is hurting this makes me feel bad because I want to help even more because I don’t want them to be sad.
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