One of the first things people think of when they imagine a stereotypical autistic person is someone without empathy. It’s one of the reasons that I’m constantly being told I can’t possibly be autistic. “You’re too empathetic.”
Well, I’m a novelist. I make a living writing about the feelings of fictional people, and in doing so, making real people feel along with them. But this is largely because at an early age, I had to make a conscious, analytical effort to understand other people’s feelings. It was not at all natural to me to figure out what facial expressions or body language meant which emotions. I started guessing and became better at it. And I learned to show empathy by rote, studying the script that is considered empathetic in our American culture.
“Empathy is a social script,” I say to a friend as we are walking around a park during the Covid shutdown, both wearing masks.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand,” she says.
I wonder briefly if I should take off my “mask” to show her what I mean. But I’m trying to do less of forcing myself to mask for the sake of neurotypical people, because that sends a harmful message to me about my own humanity and value to the world. Instead, I use my words. I’m good at words, I remind myself.
