Sometimes I feel like I'm being carried along by the current of a turbulent cataract - now drowning, now gasping for breath as my head broaches the surface - overwhelmed by the relentless surge of my own thoughts and the sights, sounds, smells crashing in on my senses - unable to block any of it out, I am dragged down into a maelstrom of fretful anxiety - frozen and locked into a tense immobility as I fight against myself to regain some measure of conscious control over my body - unable to move as my muscles oppose their own motion, unable to speak as the words log-jam in my throat - caught on the cusp between shutdown and meltdown, trying to restrain myself from exploding into the irrational red mist of berserk rage - too agitated to withdraw into the soft oblivion of shutdown.
After some time has passed I either succumb to exhaustion and gratefully sink into restful shutdown or I expend my last energy erupting in a paroxysm of violent, undirected anger before quickly subsiding. Whichever route I take I end up drained and need time to rest and recuperate, to regain some strength. But at least there is usually calm once the storm has passed.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Can I Feel Empathy?
What is empathy?
What do we really mean when we use the word? I know what I mean but does somebody else understand it in the same way? There is a lot of on-going discussion about whether autistic people can have empathy and I am wondering whether everybody is working from the same definition.
Simon Baron-Cohen defined empathy in his 2003 book The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain: "Empathy is about spontaneously and naturally tuning into the other person's thoughts and feelings [...]". He goes on to describe cognitive and affective empathy: "the cognitive component: understanding the other's feelings and the ability to take their perspective" and "the affective component. This is an observer's appropriate emotional response to another person's emotional state."
Frans de Waal defined it this way in his 2008 paper Putting the Altruism Back Into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy: "The capacity to (a) be affected by and share the emotional state of another, (b) assess the reasons for the other's state, and (c) identify with the other, adopting his or her perspective. [...] the term 'empathy' [...] applies even if only criterion (a) is met".
These appear very similar to me. So how can it be that primate social behaviourist Frans de Waal can conclude that there exists a spectrum of empathy, saying "I've argued that many of what philosophers call moral sentiments can be seen in other species. In chimpanzees and other animals, you see examples of sympathy, empathy, reciprocity, a willingness to follow social rules", while clinical psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen can describe autistic people as having "zero degrees of empathy" (although this is at odds with his comment "I have met many adults with Asperger Syndrome who can display their excellent empathy [...] when there is less time pressure creating demands to respond in real time")?
I find myself unable to see why there should be any requirement for an empathic response to happen "in real time". This seems to imply that there is an unwritten component in the definition of empathy that differs depending on who is using the term - at which point we are in Humpty Dumpty territory: "When I use a word it means what I choose it to mean. Neither more nor less." Now I am well aware that language is an imprecise tool, and that the meaning the author intended is not always the one interpreted by the reader. But the subject of autism and empathy is such an emotive one for so many of us on the spectrum that I believe greater transparency is essential.
And so to my question that started this essay: can I feel empathy? I score low on the EQ (Empathy Quotient) test - around the mean for people with AS. But what does this test actually measure? Is my interpretation of the questions the meaning the author intended? For example, "21. It is hard for me to see why some things upset people so much." - I have to agree with this because it was hard for me to see why someone ended up in tears because of some trivial event. With the incident I am thinking of, it was hard for a lot of neurotypical people to see as well. But would they interpret that statement in a more general sense? For me, one example is enough to make the statement true.
And then there's "32. Seeing people cry doesn’t really upset me." That's absolutely, literally correct - it doesn't. Knowing that people are upset does upset me, but not just seeing them cry. I need more context - there must be more than the isolated fact of them crying to indicate to me that they are upset. Chopping onions makes my wife cry - it doesn't mean that she's upset, or that it would upset me.
Is there something about the literal way that AS people interpret language that skews the results of this type of test? Remember that it was written by neurotypical researchers looking to demonstrate differences between NT and AS minds. You will have to pardon my scepticism but while I have to agree that there is a statistical correlation between EQ scores and autism, I am not convinced that a causal link has been demonstrated. I am not satisfied that the hypothesis that autistic people have low empathy is correct. I need to be convinced that social and communication factors have been adequately considered as alternative explanations.
Finally, in answer to the question, yes - I can feel empathy. It doesn't matter how I arrive at that empathy, or how long it might take me to get there. No, it's not intuitive to me. No, it's not particularly rapid. But that doesn't matter - those aren't defining characteristics of empathy. I do get affected by and share the emotional state of other people, particularly those whom I know well. Sometimes it's because they simply tell me how they feel - does it matter whether they communicate their feelings verbally or non-verbally? The end result for me is the same. Like they say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it's a duck!
What do we really mean when we use the word? I know what I mean but does somebody else understand it in the same way? There is a lot of on-going discussion about whether autistic people can have empathy and I am wondering whether everybody is working from the same definition.
Simon Baron-Cohen defined empathy in his 2003 book The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain: "Empathy is about spontaneously and naturally tuning into the other person's thoughts and feelings [...]". He goes on to describe cognitive and affective empathy: "the cognitive component: understanding the other's feelings and the ability to take their perspective" and "the affective component. This is an observer's appropriate emotional response to another person's emotional state."
Frans de Waal defined it this way in his 2008 paper Putting the Altruism Back Into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy: "The capacity to (a) be affected by and share the emotional state of another, (b) assess the reasons for the other's state, and (c) identify with the other, adopting his or her perspective. [...] the term 'empathy' [...] applies even if only criterion (a) is met".
These appear very similar to me. So how can it be that primate social behaviourist Frans de Waal can conclude that there exists a spectrum of empathy, saying "I've argued that many of what philosophers call moral sentiments can be seen in other species. In chimpanzees and other animals, you see examples of sympathy, empathy, reciprocity, a willingness to follow social rules", while clinical psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen can describe autistic people as having "zero degrees of empathy" (although this is at odds with his comment "I have met many adults with Asperger Syndrome who can display their excellent empathy [...] when there is less time pressure creating demands to respond in real time")?
I find myself unable to see why there should be any requirement for an empathic response to happen "in real time". This seems to imply that there is an unwritten component in the definition of empathy that differs depending on who is using the term - at which point we are in Humpty Dumpty territory: "When I use a word it means what I choose it to mean. Neither more nor less." Now I am well aware that language is an imprecise tool, and that the meaning the author intended is not always the one interpreted by the reader. But the subject of autism and empathy is such an emotive one for so many of us on the spectrum that I believe greater transparency is essential.
And so to my question that started this essay: can I feel empathy? I score low on the EQ (Empathy Quotient) test - around the mean for people with AS. But what does this test actually measure? Is my interpretation of the questions the meaning the author intended? For example, "21. It is hard for me to see why some things upset people so much." - I have to agree with this because it was hard for me to see why someone ended up in tears because of some trivial event. With the incident I am thinking of, it was hard for a lot of neurotypical people to see as well. But would they interpret that statement in a more general sense? For me, one example is enough to make the statement true.
And then there's "32. Seeing people cry doesn’t really upset me." That's absolutely, literally correct - it doesn't. Knowing that people are upset does upset me, but not just seeing them cry. I need more context - there must be more than the isolated fact of them crying to indicate to me that they are upset. Chopping onions makes my wife cry - it doesn't mean that she's upset, or that it would upset me.
Is there something about the literal way that AS people interpret language that skews the results of this type of test? Remember that it was written by neurotypical researchers looking to demonstrate differences between NT and AS minds. You will have to pardon my scepticism but while I have to agree that there is a statistical correlation between EQ scores and autism, I am not convinced that a causal link has been demonstrated. I am not satisfied that the hypothesis that autistic people have low empathy is correct. I need to be convinced that social and communication factors have been adequately considered as alternative explanations.
Finally, in answer to the question, yes - I can feel empathy. It doesn't matter how I arrive at that empathy, or how long it might take me to get there. No, it's not intuitive to me. No, it's not particularly rapid. But that doesn't matter - those aren't defining characteristics of empathy. I do get affected by and share the emotional state of other people, particularly those whom I know well. Sometimes it's because they simply tell me how they feel - does it matter whether they communicate their feelings verbally or non-verbally? The end result for me is the same. Like they say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it's a duck!
Monday, 12 September 2011
Learning to be More Understanding
Over the past few months my relationship with a certain other person, whom I shall refer to as W, has been up and down so much that visualising the turns it has taken is enough to make me sea-sick. At the heart of the problem is difficulty in communication: W is neurotypical while I have Aspergers Syndrome.
When W is suffering with health problems or depression she will talk about it at great length in a highly emotionally-charged way and her language will become much more figurative and abstract than normal. I find this combination particularly difficult to handle. Because I know her so well I have learned to interpret the emotional cues in her voice - when she is feeling so tired and frustrated and even angry at her illnesses this comes through to me in her voice and mannerisms. I find the strong emotions very difficult to cope with and tend to shut down.
It appears that this response is not very helpful to W - how could I have known? My own reaction to pain - physical or mental - is usually to keep it all inside. I become more withdrawn - even though I might be yearning for some comfort, for a hug that will make me feel safe and less anxious. But in that state I can't express how I feel or what I need to help me deal with it.
So it turns out that what I need at times like this is almost exactly what W needs too. And now we've figured it out. I know it sounds simple, almost trivial, but between my inability to speak about my feelings and my literal misinterpretation of W's descriptions of her feelings - when I haven't just shut down from the emotional overload - we've been failing to communicate. Which has been causing far too much unnecessary stress on both sides.
I'm not saying that we've completely resolved the problems - time will tell on that score. But we have reached a new level of understanding. I know it sounds contradictory but I'm learning to be more supportive by taking less notice of W - I have to partially block her out so that I avoid overloading and shutting down. So that I can continue to function and respond. Which all helps her deal with what she's going through and in turn helps me.
Yes, it would probably have been easier for both of us to have ended the relationship rather than work hard at discovering problems and trying to fix them. But what seems easy in the short term often turns out not to be the best option in the longer term. We both feel that there is enough value in our relationship to make the effort of repairing it worthwhile, because when it's working it is so strong and strengthens both of us.
When W is suffering with health problems or depression she will talk about it at great length in a highly emotionally-charged way and her language will become much more figurative and abstract than normal. I find this combination particularly difficult to handle. Because I know her so well I have learned to interpret the emotional cues in her voice - when she is feeling so tired and frustrated and even angry at her illnesses this comes through to me in her voice and mannerisms. I find the strong emotions very difficult to cope with and tend to shut down.
It appears that this response is not very helpful to W - how could I have known? My own reaction to pain - physical or mental - is usually to keep it all inside. I become more withdrawn - even though I might be yearning for some comfort, for a hug that will make me feel safe and less anxious. But in that state I can't express how I feel or what I need to help me deal with it.
So it turns out that what I need at times like this is almost exactly what W needs too. And now we've figured it out. I know it sounds simple, almost trivial, but between my inability to speak about my feelings and my literal misinterpretation of W's descriptions of her feelings - when I haven't just shut down from the emotional overload - we've been failing to communicate. Which has been causing far too much unnecessary stress on both sides.
I'm not saying that we've completely resolved the problems - time will tell on that score. But we have reached a new level of understanding. I know it sounds contradictory but I'm learning to be more supportive by taking less notice of W - I have to partially block her out so that I avoid overloading and shutting down. So that I can continue to function and respond. Which all helps her deal with what she's going through and in turn helps me.
Yes, it would probably have been easier for both of us to have ended the relationship rather than work hard at discovering problems and trying to fix them. But what seems easy in the short term often turns out not to be the best option in the longer term. We both feel that there is enough value in our relationship to make the effort of repairing it worthwhile, because when it's working it is so strong and strengthens both of us.
Friday, 9 September 2011
Theory of Mind?!
Theory of Mind Treated Unkind Not of Mankind Empathic Blind Hurting Behind Aspergers Kind
Word Association
Empathy
—Sympathy
—Affinity
—Resemblance
—Likeness
—Image
—Appearance
—Pretence
—Deception
—Illusion
—Fantasy
—Sympathy
—Affinity
—Resemblance
—Likeness
—Image
—Appearance
—Pretence
—Deception
—Illusion
—Fantasy
If This Is Empathy I Don't Want To Play Any More
The petty games that people play,
A product of their playground minds.
Who's going to be "it" today?
What target will the bullies find?
Behind your back they put you down
And to your face are nice as pie
The knives are out so gather round:
You mustn't miss the latest lie.
It's "Did you know what this one said?"
And "Isn't that one so two-faced?"
Hypocrisy: "Wish she was dead!"
Then she turns up to be embraced.
With double-standards hoisted high,
Their friendliness is but a fake.
They wouldn't care were you to die
As long as they were at your wake.
Their games are cruel; You've had enough
Of finding knives thrust in your back.
You don't know why they act so tough
Perhaps to hide the heart they lack?
They put you down, these NT folk,
They may not mean to but they do.
'Cause "Aspie empathy's a joke!
Perceived emotion's not for you."
Because we can't say how we feel
They just assume we don't: they're blind
To how they've ground us under heel.
Show me their Theory of our Minds.
A product of their playground minds.
Who's going to be "it" today?
What target will the bullies find?
Behind your back they put you down
And to your face are nice as pie
The knives are out so gather round:
You mustn't miss the latest lie.
It's "Did you know what this one said?"
And "Isn't that one so two-faced?"
Hypocrisy: "Wish she was dead!"
Then she turns up to be embraced.
With double-standards hoisted high,
Their friendliness is but a fake.
They wouldn't care were you to die
As long as they were at your wake.
Their games are cruel; You've had enough
Of finding knives thrust in your back.
You don't know why they act so tough
Perhaps to hide the heart they lack?
They put you down, these NT folk,
They may not mean to but they do.
'Cause "Aspie empathy's a joke!
Perceived emotion's not for you."
Because we can't say how we feel
They just assume we don't: they're blind
To how they've ground us under heel.
Show me their Theory of our Minds.
Thursday, 8 September 2011
Why I Hate CFLs
Fluorescent lighting can cause me problems. Older strip lights are especially bad with their 100 Hz flicker (UK mains AC frequency is 50 Hz) - I am particularly sensitive to flickering light and it causes me eye strain and headaches. Newer fluorescent lamps pretty much avoid this. Until they start to fail, and then they flicker and flash. And cause me discomfort.
I grew up with incandescent light bulbs - I'm very used to their colour temperature which gives warm, comforting yellowish hues. I'm used to flicking the switch and having the light reach full intensity as near to instantly as I can discern. There's an old joke about a bedroom being so small they you could switch off the light and be in bed before it went dark. With a CFL it's the reverse - you can switch on the light and be in bed before it gets bright! Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) are different. I don't like different - I don't do change.
Light from CFLs appears cold by comparison - it has a higher colour temperature which is more blue. At low intensities (my wife and I like low lighting levels at home in the evenings for that cosy atmosphere) they appear particularly cold and dim. They don't light up instantly - there is a warm up period that can take up to a minute or so. They get noticeably dimmer long before they fail - about halfway through their lifespan - so their useful life is reduced. And the powers-that-be have decreed that we shall all use them hence forth - I take a special dislike to having inferior alternatives forced on me. Yes, their energy efficiency is higher in use, but they require much more energy to manufacture, and manufacture and disposal exposes the environment to more hazardous materials. I remain to be convinced that the argument in their favour is as clear-cut as some people make out - especially as their stated longevity is far higher than their practical useful life, taking into account frequent switching and disposal when light output falls below an acceptable threshold rather than when the lamp fails.
We've tried CFL lighting in our kitchen. The brightness of the illumination was subjectively equivalent to the incandescent bulb once it got warmed up but it was dim enough to irritate me before that - no good when you just nip in to make a cup of tea or a sandwich during a commercial break and don't want to hang around waiting until the light gets bright enough to work by. My wife has some vision problems and found it very difficult to see clearly by its light. I ended up throwing the CFL in the trash and reverting to an incandescent bulb - the CFL was just not fit for purpose. We don't have the choice of replacing the one in our bathroom because the fixture is specific to a particular type of fluorescent lamp. There's no regular heating in our bathroom - just an electric fan heater - and in winter the temperature in there can fall close to the outside ambient level. That means that the lamp takes much longer to warm up and produce an acceptable level of light - at the time of year when it is needed more. I can be in and out of there, ablutions complete, before it reaches full brightness. So much for technological progress!
Incidentally, I didn't know until recently that CFLs are supposed to be disposed of separately because they contain hazardous materials. Maybe it said something on the packaging but who keeps that to read months down the line? So I've inadvertently added a little Hg to our local landfill. Wonder how many other people have done the same because they either didn't know or couldn't be bothered? It's not like anybody's going to sift through all those tons of waste just in case there's a CFL that found its way in there. So there's going to be more toxic waste building up in the environment as a result. Sheesh! Sometimes I think we as a species don't deserve this planet.
I grew up with incandescent light bulbs - I'm very used to their colour temperature which gives warm, comforting yellowish hues. I'm used to flicking the switch and having the light reach full intensity as near to instantly as I can discern. There's an old joke about a bedroom being so small they you could switch off the light and be in bed before it went dark. With a CFL it's the reverse - you can switch on the light and be in bed before it gets bright! Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) are different. I don't like different - I don't do change.
Light from CFLs appears cold by comparison - it has a higher colour temperature which is more blue. At low intensities (my wife and I like low lighting levels at home in the evenings for that cosy atmosphere) they appear particularly cold and dim. They don't light up instantly - there is a warm up period that can take up to a minute or so. They get noticeably dimmer long before they fail - about halfway through their lifespan - so their useful life is reduced. And the powers-that-be have decreed that we shall all use them hence forth - I take a special dislike to having inferior alternatives forced on me. Yes, their energy efficiency is higher in use, but they require much more energy to manufacture, and manufacture and disposal exposes the environment to more hazardous materials. I remain to be convinced that the argument in their favour is as clear-cut as some people make out - especially as their stated longevity is far higher than their practical useful life, taking into account frequent switching and disposal when light output falls below an acceptable threshold rather than when the lamp fails.
We've tried CFL lighting in our kitchen. The brightness of the illumination was subjectively equivalent to the incandescent bulb once it got warmed up but it was dim enough to irritate me before that - no good when you just nip in to make a cup of tea or a sandwich during a commercial break and don't want to hang around waiting until the light gets bright enough to work by. My wife has some vision problems and found it very difficult to see clearly by its light. I ended up throwing the CFL in the trash and reverting to an incandescent bulb - the CFL was just not fit for purpose. We don't have the choice of replacing the one in our bathroom because the fixture is specific to a particular type of fluorescent lamp. There's no regular heating in our bathroom - just an electric fan heater - and in winter the temperature in there can fall close to the outside ambient level. That means that the lamp takes much longer to warm up and produce an acceptable level of light - at the time of year when it is needed more. I can be in and out of there, ablutions complete, before it reaches full brightness. So much for technological progress!
Incidentally, I didn't know until recently that CFLs are supposed to be disposed of separately because they contain hazardous materials. Maybe it said something on the packaging but who keeps that to read months down the line? So I've inadvertently added a little Hg to our local landfill. Wonder how many other people have done the same because they either didn't know or couldn't be bothered? It's not like anybody's going to sift through all those tons of waste just in case there's a CFL that found its way in there. So there's going to be more toxic waste building up in the environment as a result. Sheesh! Sometimes I think we as a species don't deserve this planet.
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