It all began with the knock. Not a polite knock, nor the aggressive thumping of a drunk, but something stranger, – a hesitant tap that lingered like a question mark scratched into wood. I froze, wondering which version of reality had finally come to collect me. The silence that followed was worse than the knock itself, like the world was holding its breath, waiting to see if I’d be stupid enough to answer.
Now, contrary to the untrained mutterings of armchair philosophers, neurodivergent people do not lack empathy.
Empathy exists in two flavours: cognitive, the sort you use to deduce Janet is offended even though she’s smiling like a constipated mannequin; and affective, the ability to feel someone else’s pain as though it’s your own, which sounds noble until you’re sobbing uncontrollably at insurance adverts.
In ASD, the former, cognitive empathy, is often the weaker player, subtly lumbering behind like an untied shoelace. But affective empathy? That’s the plot twist. Many autistic individuals feel emotions so vividly, so viscerally, they’re left emotionally flayed. Hyper-empathy, not its absence, may be the real burden, and expecting someone to function normally while enduring another’s pain as their own is like walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, whilst that someone else is still wearing them.
ADHD, by contrast, has a different sort of malfunction: emotional dysregulation. It’s not that feelings aren’t felt, it’s that they show up, break the furniture, draw on the walls, and leave the fridge door open. While cognitive empathy, recognising what others are feeling, can still be present, albeit often hijacked mid-flight by an intrusive thought about cheese.
Now enter the neuropeptides: oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin, nicknamed “the cuddle” or “love” hormone by scientists who clearly have neither experienced love, nor a hug, is responsible for attention to social cues. – It helps with bonding, eye contact, and the sort of emotional finesse you need to convincingly nod while someone explains their dream in painstaking detail.
When administered nasally, it’s been shown to slightly improve emotion recognition in autistic individuals, provided their biological dance card aligns. But it’s no miracle fix, like using a scented candle to fix a haunted house.
Vasopressin, the lesser-known sibling, is the brooding intellectual of the hormone family. – It sharpens social recognition and vigilance, especially cognitive empathy, but also comes with an aftertaste of increased aggression.
So there is some science behind all of this, but ultimately, it is important to remember that empathy is neither broken nor absent in neurodivergent minds. It’s like how the recipes for a ploughman’s lunch, whilst are all ploughman’s lunches, are about as consistent as a bible translation.
The problem isn’t the lack of empathy, it’s that the empathy available is either misread, overclocked, or lost somewhere behind the metaphorical sofa of human interaction, next to a half-eaten crumpet and the meaning of life.
The “double empathy problem,” – a theory proposing that perhaps it’s not autistic people who fail to understand the neurotypicals, but rather that both parties are mutually failing each other equally. It reframes the narrative around autism from one of deficit to one of difference, because, like train timetables, and the purpose of parsley, there is no right or wrong, just humans.
:: REFERENCES ::
- Damian Milton – Originator of the Theory
- Neurodivergent Insights – Healthcare Implications
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