To think this is neuro diverse?

[mushypaperstraws]

I've recently realised that I've never felt embarrassment or shame. Ever, in my entire life.

I used to think I just didn't get embarrassed because I'm just really confident, but I'm not that confident really. I'm fairly shy, I've just never felt any emotion after falling over/saying something stupid/realising I had something in my teeth/ballsing up a presentation/saying hi to someone I realised was the wrong person.

Is this a symptom of a disorder or ASD? I'm just wondering if actually embarrassment and shame is a useful and necessary thing the human brain has developed and I'm missing out on something potentially useful!

100% - most people on the neurodivergent spectrum feel empathy, sometimes to an extreme degree.

Yes, me too. I'm extremely self conscious and if I feel like I've said or done the wrong thing or done something embarrassing, I usually have to fight the urge to leave the situation and never go back 🫣
I remember minor embarrassments or social mistakes very clearly years or even decades later.
When I was a kid (and less so as an adult), at night I would go over the whole day in my head thinking about what I did right and mainly, what I did wrong.

It does dpeend, most of my friends are the same, overanalyse and agonise over things.
But I have also taught ND students who were very much aline to the feelings of empathy and shame and embarassment.
I also know NT people who have no shame nor embarassment.

The bototm line is that ND is a very broad term and one thing does not put anyone as ND at all, it has to be a set of traits and even then, it's a very wide spectrum. OP would need to seek diagnosis that can help her navigate this.

Sorry left the thread to make dinner! These are all really interesting responses.

Yes I definitely feel empathy, and I feel lots of guilt if I cause a problem or upset for anyone else. Just not the embarrassment of social exclusion as pp's have described it.

The poster who said about social exclusion meaning death for hunter-gatherer societies - never thought about it like that. I suppose I don't have many friends or even neighbours so I don't rely on their needing to accept me

I'm nd, I've spent my whole life feeling ashamed and embarrassed. Isn't it narcissistic people who don't?

I’m quite tired of hearing this. My H has autism and he absolutely lacks empathy and the ability to understand other people’s thoughts, perceptions and bahaviours. His lack of empathy is the only area of his autism he has insight into ( very limited insight into). it’s not a communication issue. It’s a serious impairment into being able to know other people as separate people in their own right. He doesn’t have zero empathy, but his ability to empathize is limited and very context specific.

He does also have Alexithymia which is correlated with low empathy, and as Alexithymia is highly correlated with autism, some have suggested it’s this that causes the poor empathy associated with autism. So that may be it, but it’s rather a moot point given the high coincidence of the two conditions.

Indeed, it had crossed my mind.
well worked out 👍

Autism is a communication difference.

Your husband may lack empathy - I don't know him - but lacking "the ability to (to perceive or) understand other people’s thoughts, perceptions and behaviours" is not the same as lacking empathy. Not understanding is not the same as not empathising. It's also rather unreasonable of you to say that autism is " a serious impairment into being able to know other people as separate people in their own right". You cannot extrapolate from your knowledge of 1 autistic person into deciding that you know all autism, and better than autistic people. Fwiw in my work with hundreds of autistic people over quarter of a century I would say you are completely wrong that autism is a lack of being able to know other people as separate. I would say well over 90 percent of autistics are acutely aware of their difference from other people and that they are somehow unacceptable to most "mainstream" people. They don't always understand why, but they almost always perceived the difference.

Not understanding is not the same as not empathising. This makes absolutely no sense. If you can’t understand what someone else is thinking or feeling then you cannot empathize with them.

It's also rather unreasonable of you to say that autism is " a serious impairment into being able to know other people as separate people in their own right". It would have been unreasonable if I had said it. Read again.

You cannot extrapolate from your knowledge of 1 autistic person into deciding that you know all autism. I also didn’t say that. Your hyperbolic black and white thinking is out of place ( though extremely familiar).

However, my husband is autistic, this is how his autism manifests ( or one of the ways), and I know from the many support groups I am that his expression is far from unusual.

Autism is a communication difference

Its not. This really minimizes the impact autism has. It’s not helpful to misrepresent it like this.

It’s so much more than this.

I asked my DH (who was diagnosed with ASD at 4) and he says he feels embarrassment, so I wouldn't necessarily say it's as black and white as that. Everyone is different, neurodiverse or not.

"It's also rather unreasonable of you to say that autism is " a serious impairment into being able to know other people as separate people in their own right". It would have been unreasonable if I had said it. Read again."

I quoted you directly. That is exactly what you said.

I didn't say it isn't more than this. However at its core it is a social communication difference characterised by differences in sensory processing, social communication and interaction, and flexibility of thinking. That is the very definition of autism and as a person in the business of diagnosis for 20 years or more I know what I am talking about here.

I don't care what your support groups say, tbh. NT support groups have a history of almost invariably totally misunderstanding and mistepresenting autism, as exemplified by the horribly ablist long running threads about autistic people here.

Ah how nice, a ND bashing thread. I was wondering if we were having a full week without one but I should not have worried.

No not a sign of being ND. Not at all. A sign you might need to read up on the topic but that is it. Not everything or everyone needs a label.

Ok I have re read your initial post and I have made an assumption that the "it" you are referring to is autism, as that is the most recent object of a sentence before this sentence containing "it". Re reading, you say(removing your parenthesis for clarity):

"His lack of empathy is the only area of his autism he has insight into. It’s not a communication issue. It’s a serious impairment into being able to know other people as separate people in their own right."

I inferred you are referring to the autism as "not a communication issue but a serious impairment..."

I don't know what other way you intended it but it's not my hyperbolic black and white thinking that has misinterpreted it. It's your ambiguous and unclear writing.

Incidentally I am not autistic myself.

It's not us NTs with our brimming empathy and fabulous social understanding. It's you NDs doing being human all wrong and causing us distress and stress, don't you know.

The only person or people I have come across that lack the feeling of embarassment are people with narcissistic traits.

Try again, but this time reading within the context.

The whole theory of mind thing is decades old, written by neurotypicals from a deficit perspective with no experience of autism. Rightly, it has largely been debunked.

What I find fascinating is the complete lack of empathy from many neurotypicals discussing autism - and the total lack of self-awareness in doing so. Not aiming this at you, PP or intending to be facetious, but it's utterly bizarre. I find autistic people to be deeply empathetic even when socially awkward and unable to express it - even more so perhaps because I read how deep feeling goes. Neurotypicals - not so much! There is some interesting research around double empathy and the difficulty of neurotypicals and neurodivergents ability to read each other. But please stop saying autistic people lack empathy, it's an outdated trope, nonsense and perpetuates ignorance.

@Thepurplecar this 100% NT equates to being 'normal' apparently but if you look up normal in the dictionary you get this : conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected:=.

Therefore if NT people are conforming it means ND people are just doing what comes natural - not faking or conforming.

Not getting involved in this spat, but as someone 'in the business' of diagnosing autism for over 20 years, you'll know very well that the medical community has been no friend to autistic people. The harm done to us over generations has been a scandal so you'll excuse the lack of deference.

Again, not read through the threads, but your dismissal of support groups sums it up - presumably these are individuals with lived experience that your dismissing because you know best. Nothing changes.

I'm not neurotypical @Thepurplecar

I am dismissing "support" groups of NT people where the focus is on NTs empathising with each other about how difficult it is to share their lives with autistic people.

Now not all support groups are like that of course and I was being a bit hyperbolic. But there are a lot like that, including on this site.

I have my own lived experience with many autistic family members (including a parent, sibling and 2 kids) both severely impacted and very functional in the NT world. I do know that a mindset of blaming autistic people for being autistic and therefore different from NT people is not helpful. Tbh I am a bit surprised you think otherwise.

@Thepurplecar I am also not a medical person.

Just to say I think you (and others) mean neuro-divergent. Neuro-diverse is when there's a mix of nd and nt people