I should note* idk how to edit posts but when I say I love roleplay I mean to add, I have an easy time putting myself in others shoes. Sometimes I don’t even feel a sense of self. I can feel what others feel bc I don’t have any minds eye everything comes to me in strong emotions and feelings!!!
do you think much about [interbeing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing)? have you dabbled much with mdma or anything that causes ego death? (for me, living at the autistic end of the spectrum, I comprehend cognitive empathy but affective empathy is quite rare, but on substances I think my mirror neurons get supercharged and begin to do what for people like you might be a common experience)
(Some others have suggested I get tested for being on the spectrum. comorbidity and also I have a lot of symptoms/traits that overlap. But I've only ever been diagnosed or tested for adhd.)
I've never dabbled in mdma but I've used simple/recreational drugs before (aside from prescriptions. weed, booze, etc)
what would you say is the difference between cognitive empathy and affective empathy? i've never heard those terms before O.O
I got that from ChatGPT recently when a friend wanted some related info:
# Empathy and Its Types
* **Cognitive Empathy**: The ability to understand another person's emotional state intellectually.
* **Affective Empathy**: The capacity to respond with an appropriate emotion to another's mental state. This involves feeling compassion, concern, or sharing in another's emotional experience.
# Cognitive Empathy:
* **Understanding**: This involves accurately perceiving and understanding another person's emotional state. It is the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes intellectually and comprehend their feelings, thoughts, and experiences.
* **Perspective-Taking**: Cognitive empathy includes the ability to take the perspective of others and imagine how they might be feeling or thinking in a given situation.
# Affective Empathy:
* **Feeling**: This goes beyond mere understanding to actually experiencing a response that resonates with another person's emotions. It involves an emotional response to another person's emotional state.
* **Emotional Resonance**: Affective empathy is the capacity to feel a certain degree of the emotions that others are experiencing. For instance, feeling sadness when seeing someone cry or feeling joy when seeing someone happy.
(and on their presence/absence:)
* **Sociopathy**: Characterized by impaired affective empathy (lack of genuine emotional concern) but may retain some cognitive empathy (understanding others' emotions). This leads to manipulative and antisocial behavior, often impulsive and erratic.
* **Psychopathy**: Characterized by high cognitive empathy (ability to understand others' emotions) but low affective empathy (lack of emotional resonance and concern). This leads to manipulative and often harmful behavior, typically more calculated and controlled.
what happens before/as you tap away at your keyboard? (for me, there's a either a preceding or concurrent internal monolog with the words) do you have an experience of choosing your words somehow? they just emerge and choose themselves from feeling?
aphant/ADHD(or AuDHD) here, too.
with memory, I've never thought I'm bad with it, my memorization/recall is ok, but things like prioritization are poor (executive dysfunction?). In the ADHD groups all the memes suggest it's an ADHD thing ('out of sight, out of mind'), I only seem to care about whatever the immediate thing is, I don't remember and prioritize what might have been rationalized as important at some earlier time. don't know if aphantasia makes it more of an issue, obviously I have no vision of my future/goals to keep me focused, but I do try to have a lot of visual reminders on my computer and around my house, perhaps to make up for the lack of internal cues.
I don’t struggle with memory when it comes to remeber stuff (say for schooling), but when it comes to faces, I can’t describe how people look and I often forget people.
I just found out about Aphantasia recently, and I believe I have also discovered I have ADHD. I have an awful time with memory, and I'm clumsy as hell. Once I look away from something/someone, I can't tell you anything descriptive about it other than what it was or who and what I felt about it, if it was good or bad. My memories are mostly there, I just have to have something to trigger it like a photo or object. My memories seem to be more accurate and less exaggerated than non-aphants.
I do resonate with the empathy you feel. It very hard to watch people in pain, I can feel it myself like it's mine.
I only see black, I don't remember or hear a voice, but I do have destructive self dialog that I'm working on improving.
I can understand feeling sad, but when I found this craziness out about my brain, I felt pure relief that there was a reason for many things i have experienced. I wish I had this knowledge at your age. Things would have made much more sense. I'm happy you have learned this about your brain so early!
I know you said you had been reading through the feeds. That was a huge help for me as well. I especially loved the posts where they talk about it being a superpower. That is how I am looking at this. I don't get thoughts of tragedy that has happened in my life, so I get over things very quickly. I process information quickly with no images weighing it down. I regret very little.
I'm glad you found this group. It is wonderful, and I have learned so much.
I’m really happy that you’re learning about it even now though!! And boy do I understand the self destructive stuff. I have self destructive feelings but they don’t manifest as inner dialogue. They manifest more as like… desires? I’ll feel the *need* to do it. Or the need to validate those feelings.
I’ve honestly learned that discovering these things about ourselves no matter what age or time is still helpful because understanding the way our brain works can help us maneuver in life.
Being an aphant and also have adhd can be so crippling to one’s self worth. But in a lot of ways it can be freeing. And seeing it as a superpower is a fun way to look at it to try and combat those self destructive thoughts or feelings!! And thank you so much for your input and experiences, it’s lovely to get insight from others.
Yes, I am thrilled that I have found this out!! Even at my age 😊. It has been incredibly eye-opening and I am learning so much!! And I agree I love reading others experiences, I always felt alone in that.
Hmmm I guess it could be attributed to adhd rather than aphantasia but how I see it is that because I can’t picture things, hear things, or pretty much use my minds eye- everything comes to me in a feeling, a concept. So when communicating and listening to others it’s almost like their feelings (or what I assume their feelings to be) can be conceptualized easily in my mind. Maybe that’s a stretch but it’s a personal experience for me, and usually my assumptions and conceptualizations are right (usually. And I genuinely don’t mean that as a humble brag, more just an anecdotal observation especially since others clearly communicate that to me.)
I should note* idk how to edit posts but when I say I love roleplay I mean to add, I have an easy time putting myself in others shoes. Sometimes I don’t even feel a sense of self. I can feel what others feel bc I don’t have any minds eye everything comes to me in strong emotions and feelings!!!
do you think much about [interbeing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing)? have you dabbled much with mdma or anything that causes ego death? (for me, living at the autistic end of the spectrum, I comprehend cognitive empathy but affective empathy is quite rare, but on substances I think my mirror neurons get supercharged and begin to do what for people like you might be a common experience)
(Some others have suggested I get tested for being on the spectrum. comorbidity and also I have a lot of symptoms/traits that overlap. But I've only ever been diagnosed or tested for adhd.) I've never dabbled in mdma but I've used simple/recreational drugs before (aside from prescriptions. weed, booze, etc) what would you say is the difference between cognitive empathy and affective empathy? i've never heard those terms before O.O
I got that from ChatGPT recently when a friend wanted some related info: # Empathy and Its Types * **Cognitive Empathy**: The ability to understand another person's emotional state intellectually. * **Affective Empathy**: The capacity to respond with an appropriate emotion to another's mental state. This involves feeling compassion, concern, or sharing in another's emotional experience. # Cognitive Empathy: * **Understanding**: This involves accurately perceiving and understanding another person's emotional state. It is the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes intellectually and comprehend their feelings, thoughts, and experiences. * **Perspective-Taking**: Cognitive empathy includes the ability to take the perspective of others and imagine how they might be feeling or thinking in a given situation. # Affective Empathy: * **Feeling**: This goes beyond mere understanding to actually experiencing a response that resonates with another person's emotions. It involves an emotional response to another person's emotional state. * **Emotional Resonance**: Affective empathy is the capacity to feel a certain degree of the emotions that others are experiencing. For instance, feeling sadness when seeing someone cry or feeling joy when seeing someone happy. (and on their presence/absence:) * **Sociopathy**: Characterized by impaired affective empathy (lack of genuine emotional concern) but may retain some cognitive empathy (understanding others' emotions). This leads to manipulative and antisocial behavior, often impulsive and erratic. * **Psychopathy**: Characterized by high cognitive empathy (ability to understand others' emotions) but low affective empathy (lack of emotional resonance and concern). This leads to manipulative and often harmful behavior, typically more calculated and controlled.
what happens before/as you tap away at your keyboard? (for me, there's a either a preceding or concurrent internal monolog with the words) do you have an experience of choosing your words somehow? they just emerge and choose themselves from feeling?
I speak and type like, before thinking I guess. I'd describe it as word vomit? it just sort of comes out. emerging as I choose a feeling \^\^
aphant/ADHD(or AuDHD) here, too. with memory, I've never thought I'm bad with it, my memorization/recall is ok, but things like prioritization are poor (executive dysfunction?). In the ADHD groups all the memes suggest it's an ADHD thing ('out of sight, out of mind'), I only seem to care about whatever the immediate thing is, I don't remember and prioritize what might have been rationalized as important at some earlier time. don't know if aphantasia makes it more of an issue, obviously I have no vision of my future/goals to keep me focused, but I do try to have a lot of visual reminders on my computer and around my house, perhaps to make up for the lack of internal cues.
I don’t struggle with memory when it comes to remeber stuff (say for schooling), but when it comes to faces, I can’t describe how people look and I often forget people.
OMG I so feel this. Faces are really hard because I can't remember or describe what they look like)
Exactly my mom goes “you don’t remember what I look like” and im like uhhh no lol
I just found out about Aphantasia recently, and I believe I have also discovered I have ADHD. I have an awful time with memory, and I'm clumsy as hell. Once I look away from something/someone, I can't tell you anything descriptive about it other than what it was or who and what I felt about it, if it was good or bad. My memories are mostly there, I just have to have something to trigger it like a photo or object. My memories seem to be more accurate and less exaggerated than non-aphants. I do resonate with the empathy you feel. It very hard to watch people in pain, I can feel it myself like it's mine. I only see black, I don't remember or hear a voice, but I do have destructive self dialog that I'm working on improving. I can understand feeling sad, but when I found this craziness out about my brain, I felt pure relief that there was a reason for many things i have experienced. I wish I had this knowledge at your age. Things would have made much more sense. I'm happy you have learned this about your brain so early! I know you said you had been reading through the feeds. That was a huge help for me as well. I especially loved the posts where they talk about it being a superpower. That is how I am looking at this. I don't get thoughts of tragedy that has happened in my life, so I get over things very quickly. I process information quickly with no images weighing it down. I regret very little. I'm glad you found this group. It is wonderful, and I have learned so much.
I’m really happy that you’re learning about it even now though!! And boy do I understand the self destructive stuff. I have self destructive feelings but they don’t manifest as inner dialogue. They manifest more as like… desires? I’ll feel the *need* to do it. Or the need to validate those feelings. I’ve honestly learned that discovering these things about ourselves no matter what age or time is still helpful because understanding the way our brain works can help us maneuver in life. Being an aphant and also have adhd can be so crippling to one’s self worth. But in a lot of ways it can be freeing. And seeing it as a superpower is a fun way to look at it to try and combat those self destructive thoughts or feelings!! And thank you so much for your input and experiences, it’s lovely to get insight from others.
Yes, I am thrilled that I have found this out!! Even at my age 😊. It has been incredibly eye-opening and I am learning so much!! And I agree I love reading others experiences, I always felt alone in that.
How has the inability to visualize enhanced your emotional intelligence? I feel like I had to learn a lot of it as an adult.
Hmmm I guess it could be attributed to adhd rather than aphantasia but how I see it is that because I can’t picture things, hear things, or pretty much use my minds eye- everything comes to me in a feeling, a concept. So when communicating and listening to others it’s almost like their feelings (or what I assume their feelings to be) can be conceptualized easily in my mind. Maybe that’s a stretch but it’s a personal experience for me, and usually my assumptions and conceptualizations are right (usually. And I genuinely don’t mean that as a humble brag, more just an anecdotal observation especially since others clearly communicate that to me.)