nathanael.ink

Do you imagine you know how someone else is feeling? Well stop. Your thinking you do is the problem, and I can prove it. Whatever “problem” you think you are solving with such an exercise I propose is destitute upon arrival. On the contrary, my sense is that most problems between humans are caused by exactly this sort of thought experiment. I can think of (almost) no definition of empathy that escapes it from the criticism I intend to levy. What is that criticism?

Empathy is antithetical to conflict resolution. Have you ever worked up the courage to address the person whose behavior brought up the most profound pain in you? Only for them to say something like:

Well, I don’t understand why that bothered you so much, it wouldn’t bother me! In fact, it doesn’t bother every other soul I have ever said it to!

Ouch.
Have you ever heard something any more invalidating than that?! Well, news flash, that person just exercised empathy. They did just as we recommended to them. They imagined themselves in your shoes. They walked through what feelings might have come up for them if they were in your situation and they concluded… that you are the problem. Empathy has taught them that what you are *saying* you feel is flatly incorrect. Because they know how you feel! Maybe they truly have had an identical situation, and so they know just how they felt when in it. Therefore, they conclude, you are describing the feeling of that situation incorrectly. And if you are describing it incorrectly, it is presumably on purpose, or else you ought to allow them to more correctly tell you how you are feeling. And if you do not allow them to tell you how you are feeling then therefore you must be doing so for some ulterior motive. Thus, their mind begins racing “why, why is this person lying? Do they just want to get out of work? They want to manipulate me with their emotions? They want me to pity them so that they can get their way?” and on and on it goes. Arguments of this sort never truly end.

But Nathanael, you might say, that is just an example of someone who *lacks* true empathy! To which I respond: I disagree. Empathy is, as a matter of fact, a subjective experience. Definitions of empathy all hover around something like “understanding how another person is feeling and feeling it too.” The problem, it seems to me, lies in the use of this word understanding. A word whose definition gets even slipperier. Yet we can nevertheless notice that to understand is a subjective experience. The scientist studies objective things in such a way so as to bring about the subjective state of understanding. The tree does not care what we know about it. It makes no difference to the tree whether we understand it or not. Furthermore, neither I, nor the tree, can know when the scientist has or has not acquired understanding. Therefore, understanding is, in the most basic sense, a subjective mental state.

All this to say, when we take ourselves to understand someone else’s experience (yet alone to imagine we are experiencing it too) we inherently restrict ourselves from believing their firsthand testimony. To “empathize” just is literally for me to take myself to know what another person’s experience is like, an experience which, by all accounts I do not have access to. Nor do you.

The diversity of human experience is much too wide an array for us to think we might, after any amount of effort, suddenly know what another person is experiencing. Rather than empathizing, I propose we just start believing what others tell us about their internal experience. Make space for it.

 

Well Nathanael, you are saying to yourself, you truly have utterly eviscerated empathy… but then why does the title of this article include the word “usually” in parentheses at the end there?

That is a great question, and I will answer it.

We could well define empathy as something more complex like:

To believe others who describe when a need has not been met in them and subsequently imagining what it is like for you in cases when that need has also not been met in you.

Even this is not quite as clear as I’d like but at least it does not presume that our experiences are identical. I’d wish it to include more commentary on how problematic it is to take yourself to understand or know what another person’s experience is like. I’d wish it to include reference to the observation that all feelings are just ways that our bodies remind us of our underlying basic human needs.

Do I want to say more? Yes. Will I? No. Not here.

What is the antidote? In my opinion, it is non-violent communication.

If I’ve sent you this, please hear that even though you may not have been directly in mind when I wrote it you nevertheless are, and have always been, the intended audience. I would like a chance to be fully known and so I have constructed this document to give myself precisely that opportunity – to be known. I am afraid that you may interpret some or all my words as excuse for inappropriate behavior or a kind of preemptive justification for future manipulative techniques you fear I may employ. While I cannot control how you interpret my words, I’d like for us to notice that I can only control what I do and do not say. I would like to take responsibility for any and all actions or behaviors I have ever done that caused you harm or failed to communicate your value. I desperately want you to believe me. I want you to understand me. I want to be known. Nothing more and nothing less.

I have been clinically diagnosed with autism. A clinical diagnosis is not a luxury everyone can afford for a thousand reasons. You, or someone you know, may be on the spectrum. It’s best to think of this spectrum like a color wheel rather than a linear percentage amount. Please do not diagnose others. It is best left as an act of self-discovery or with a qualified professional.

I am thirty-one. I want you to know my experience because it has come to my knowledge that it is not as universal as I imagined. Much like when I learned I had aphantasia I was very surprised to hear that people genuinely had visual experiences when they “imagined” things. I thought that was a metaphor. I am also realizing others may not have had my experience or even understand it. I cannot make you understand. But I’ll be damned if I cannot try… in fact. If you have known me very long you’re likely aware of all the efforts I have made throughout my life to express myself. I have rarely taken much interest in the “quality” of the music I make, the poetry I write, drawings, video games, etc. Rather, I am trying to be understood. It has all come from a place of feeling so profoundly misunderstood by the world. While I believe we all feel misunderstood to some extent I would like for you to grant that the autistic experience is a unique one. It turns out that there is a lot of nonverbal communication which I am not picking up on. Likewise, part of why I am likely misunderstood is because my nonverbal cues do not precisely match the normative way of expressing one’s interior life. My entire life I have done my best to say only exactly what I mean and yet people do not understand. I’ve made it this long through a kind of brute force method. I explain then re-explain, then check, then re-explain the same thing a hundred times. While it’s true that half of learning is being able to explain/teach a subject and there is always a learning curve to that. I’d like for you to imagine the experience of having to do that absolutely all the time unrelentingly. Not just on complex subject matters of science or academics. A constant awareness that if I open my mouth at all I will likely have to engage in a half hour dance of trying to get clear how I am feeling if I want to be understood at all.

So what do I normally do? I just allow people to misunderstand me after the first attempt or I just avoid social situations all together. That’s how I’ve coped with it my entire life. My assumption was that we all had this experience. In small talk I learned that it basically doesn’t matter if someone understands me or not. They tend to carry right on just fine meanwhile my interior life is boiling. Which leads me to something I’d very much like for you to know: it is not that I don’t like talking to you. I very much want to talk to you. It’s just that it is hard. So fucking hard. At family events or reunions, or parties, or events I experience no connection with almost anyone ever. It seems to me all completely vacuous. I do wish I could connect with you… desperately I want to connect with you. I want to be known. I want to be understood. And I want to hear about what is alive in you. What gives you meaning and purpose? I want to know how you are feeling at the present moment and what you are needing. I want to know what I could do right here right now that could make your life more wonderful. I want to know how you’d like me to respond, how you’d like me to engage in the conversation. You have likely never had to make these things so explicit because you, like most people, pick up on all these things nonverbally. You naturally understand the social situation you are in and can navigate it more or less comfortably. I had always assumed the reason social situations drained me so much was because I was an introvert. But it turns out there is more to the story.

My guess is that I come off as aloof or disinterested yet my internal life is crying for connection. I am often accused of “over analyzing” things. Like I’m a cold calculating robot. What you fail to understand is that it is precisely this kind of calculation that has allowed me to make it this far in life with undiagnosed autism. It is through a kind of rigorous science that I have made it through social situations by the skin of my teeth. I’m aware that when you hear something like “I can’t connect with anyone at a family reunion” it may sound cold or crass or even unloving. That is why I usually wouldn’t say it. I have faked it. I have learned to pretend. And honestly, I was assuming we were all doing that. My guess is that to some extent everyone can relate to my experience to some degree. My request, however, is that you do not equate our experiences. Unfortunately, it turns out, they are meaningfully different.

I remember when my friend in high school was diagnosed with aspergers. I remember him telling me and thinking “that’s weird I would have never guessed.” Turns out everyone else could have guessed. They all experienced that something was different about how he navigated social situations. I did not notice that. Not even a little.

So why now? Why does it matter? If I’ve made it this long undiagnosed then surely that proves I am fine. If it doesn’t affect my life that much, then why does it matter? Because that’s false. It does affect my life perhaps more than either of us could imagine. I am having to be intentional right now that I do not attempt to prove to you that I have autism. Although I do strongly sense that I should prove it to you somehow. But I’d like to give myself the freedom to not feel responsible to prove anything to anyone. I’m grateful in meltdowns I no longer punch myself in the head. I’m grateful suicidal thoughts no longer torment me. Because none of us knew I had autism I never thought to adopt stimming strategies to calm down. I didn’t know it was “over stimulation” that I was experiencing. I’m grateful I learned about non-violent communication (NVC) in order to connect to what others are feeling through explicitly verbal means. NVC is a kind of algorithm for me that explains the human experience in a way that I understand. While I believe NVC can benefit everyone it’s become clear that it is of particular use to those of us who otherwise cannot read the room, read the subtly of your expressions, intuit the response you are hoping for, or even understand my own internal experience. I took to poetry because it put language to something I otherwise had no contact with. I didn’t know I was feeling angry, but a torrent of seaweed and salt water made sense to me.

It is not that I don’t care. It is not that I do not want to help you or connect with you. I just genuinely am not sure what it is I am supposed to be doing.

I am not being difficult on purpose… I am trying to connect with you. I always have been. I want it to be okay to say that my experience is not the same as yours. I am hoping you can give me that room. It’s a difficult reality for me to accept on its own but it is made exceedingly more difficult if, perhaps in an effort to empathize, you tell me that you understand. There is a standard amount of variation between normal human experiences. What is weird to one person may be normal to another. To have autism means that I am outside of this normal range. I am weird to everyone without ever trying to be. Perhaps it has proven to be to my advantage to be “weird” sometimes. Sure. But I don’t enjoy it so perpetually.. It does seem to have been in vogue there for a while though. Being weird. It seems to me however that it has largely fallen out of vogue. Particularly as one gets older. I am trying to see that I am beautiful with low to moderate success. I am asking that you do not try to affirm that I am actually within the normal amount of variation. Perhaps you think this will help me feel included. Unfortunately, what it does, instead, is it attempts to invalidate or minimize my experience. Again, here, I have to curb my instinct to further defend myself…

I am choosing to believe that you mean well. I am asking that you choose to believe I mean well also. Rather than saying you understand consider seeking to understand. Allow me to tell you about my experience and just believe me… Please do not say things like “I’m sorry to hear that” … instead, just give me space to have the experience. Consider something like “holy smokes that is a big emotion, that sounds really difficult.” Most of all if you want to connect with me consider learning how NVC works. Tell me how your feeling, what need is alive in you, and what kind of response you are hoping for from me in a conversation. I cannot tell you how relieved I would be just to freaking know what exactly you’re hoping for me to do or say next.
I’m not ignoring you or avoiding you… you may notice how active I can be online, yet I don’t show up to events or engage much if I am there. It’s because I feel safer behind a wall of text. I wear glasses primarily because I like the barrier it puts between the world and me. I am growing a beard for the same reason. Inversely when I’m with close friends I can very much be a loud bombastic character but even then it takes me quite a long time to socially recover from the experience.

I’ve made it this far because I’ve been living on the very edge of my capabilities. I am asking for space to come back from that edge even if it makes you a little uncomfortable. You may not understand why I cannot talk to you with the TV on, or why I suddenly need to be in a completely silent environment. I don’t necessarily understand it either. I’m just asking that you believe me when I say what I’m experiencing… and that you not assume some whole other narrative or motivation. Please know that I want to connect with you. Truly I do.
I’m doing my best and I trust that you are too… writing this is both an attempt at accepting this is a part of who I am and at increasing the probability that you and I might experience connection. Autism does not define the totality of my personhood by any means. But it is a part of myself that I am just now feeling freedom to look at and accept. I am inviting you on that journey with me…

With grace,

Nathanael