Thread by @AutieAdorableMC

I feel like even the cognitive empathy deficit of Autism is wrong for me. I have plenty of cognitive empathy, in fact I think I consider multiple perspectives more than allistics do. I can hypothesize other people's suffering just fine, it's the empathic part that I feel less.

But when I do feel the empathic part, I feel it intensely because it's a situation that would deeply hurt me too if it was me. But there are certain types of suffering that I just don't feel because it's not driven by the same value system as allistics.

For example, say I love blue sweets but hate red sweets.

Someone loses their red sweets. I don't feel emotive empathy because losing red sweets would not upset me. But seeing someone lose their blue sweets *would* set off my empathy because I care about blue sweets too.

The way my empathy is distributed flies in the face of both the general empathy deficit model *and* the cognitive empathy deficit that Autistics spread. It doesn't represent me. It feels too close to "Autistics don't have Theory of Mind". In reality I'm tormented by so much TOM.

I feel like my emotive empathy works pretty much the same way as allistics (e.g. I feel hurt when I see stuff that would also hurt me, and conversely, I feel nothing about stuff that wouldn't hurt me).

It's my cognitive empathy that differs/is more intense.

I get consumed by other people's minds so much that I have scopophobia (fear of being seen). When I was a kid I thought the walls had eyes or there was a "seeing force" permeating everything. This isn't a deficit of cognitive empathy but a surfeit. I anticipate minds easily.

I have lengthy and distressing imaginary arguments in my head about every subject under the sun, anticipating the other person's defence. It's like having a debating team of hundreds of people in my head and most of them don't like me. It's so exhausting and painful.

My second school refusal (Year 12) literally started partially because I could no longer enter a classroom or exam hall due to the cognitive overload/anxiety of there being so many minds I can feel observing me.

I can only rest when I'm truly alone.

On my Autism wheel, my cognitive empathy scale would actually be off-the-chart high.

I often refer to this as hyperempathy and it gets misconstrued as emotive but actually it's mostly cognitive.

So I feel quite alienated when I see most Autistics pushing the cognitive empathy deficit theory. It makes me doubt myself. I don't want to be the only Autistic who suffers from a surfeit rarher than a deficit. 😔 Am I truly a freak?