My 18 year old DD has no empathy

[Lou197]

My DD has always struggled with friendships and is now in her first year of uni.

I was hoping this was going to be a new start for her but same patterns seems to be happening. Has a small group of friends but struggles and is often excluded from groups etc. I know that she does not help herself, she is very rigid, sees things in black and white and can be hard work - she is certainly not easy going!

She was very upset yesterday as they were in a lecture and told to get into groups for a term task. She was excluded from all the groups even though she considers herself to be friends with her classmates and they have all been out together for nights out. She told me there was one boy left who is often off uni as he has a problem with his leg and is currently at home or hospital. She could work with him but she did not want to as he is never there. I said maybe he is also struggling that it could be good to support each other but she said she did not want to be doing all the work on her own and him then taking credit. The other groups have said she is being unkind to him (and I agree) but she is adamant she would rather be on her own.

This just seems very cold and selfish to me and if I am thinking that as her mother I am sure others are thinking the same. I worry how she will get on in life and wonder if she is on the autisum spectrum and if so how I can help her.

In all other respects she works very hard, is very focused, can be good company and gets on well with older people rather than her peers.

Any advice??

I wonder if everyone would have said a male student was automatically autistic in this situation? A female not bending to the will of social convention (ie help out the poor lad with the leg) is treated and judged much more harshly than a male

If she was male she would have been diagnosed years ago. It’s shocking how females are diagnosed later because they don’t display the recognised male symptoms. I think a male nd would behave in the same way.

@NocturnalClocks we were asked about empathy in my DD’s formal assessment 3 months ago by the psychologist assessing her….

If her 'mates' think it's so mean to exclude him why the hell aren't they including him in their groups? Why is it OK for them to not want to work with him but not for her to not want to?
And why is it OK for them to exclude her?

Exactly my thoughts. Where is their empathy, their kindness? More importantly, where is yours?

People on Mumsnet are obsessed with “empathy”. It’s worn like a badge - and any suggestion someone lacks it is the ultimate insult. But being empathetic doesn’t mean taking on everyone’s problems as your own, to the detriment of your own wellbeing.

This is your daughter’s degree. She’s taking it seriously, which means not settling for being stuck with all the work in a supposedly group project, just because it would be nice to help out the boy with a bad leg. You should be glad she's putting herself first.

Are you actually worried that your daughter lacks empathy or kindness - or that she might be perceived to lack these emotions? Because there isn’t actually anything wrong in not wanting to work with someone who, through no fault of their own, can’t pull their weight. What isn’t seen as socially acceptable is to actually say it out loud. That’s what the others on her course were probably banking on. They want to guilt her into being the nice one - without having to do any of it themselves.

Maybe you should be proud that your daughter isn’t a pushover instead of falling for the whole “Why can’t you just be niiiiice?” guilt trip nonsense.

Me too!

Indeed. So what they really mean is that they themselves lack the empathy to observe that the autistic person is in fact empathetic. How ironic!

Unfortunately there are still many professionals who are out of touch with the actual evidence in academic, peer reviewed research which debunked this myth.

Also, part of the autism assessment for a child is about the parents' perceptions. Therefore the question was presumably about whether you think she lacks empathy (i.e. you may well have had difficulty in understanding how she expresses it because she expresses it differently as PP said) rather than the professional implying that she does in fact lack empathy.

As stated earlier, of course some autistic people lack empathy, just like some NT people do. But it's not related to autism and is nothing to do wjth the diagnostic criteria.

Anyway OP, I'm sorry your daughter is struggling. It does sound like there are some indicators there that would make an assessment beneficial. Has your daughter always had these difficulties, or did they develop later? If she is autistic a diagnosis will likely bring her relief, self-understanding and also more support from university and future employers, so worth gently encouraging her to go ahead with it. If you can fund it privately it's probably worth it since NHS waiting lists are a disgrace.

I don’t agree at all. My child is diagnosed autistic. Yes there are absolutely thing he needs accommodations for but he also needs help to navigate neuotypical social situations. Often understanding why people think or say certain things means he has huge empathy for them but he needs support.

OP - regardless of a diagnosis, a counsellor with autism experience could well be useful. Autistic people need support and mental health support just like NT people do.

And I agree with everything @Onnabugeisha said!

If I was on my last pound my son is the person you’d want to ask for help, he has boundless compassion. But he wouldn’t notice you were on your last pound unless you told him.

I should point out that a lot of people are concentrating on the group work incident and saying “I see no autism here!” but many more of us read what the OP said more generally about her daughter, her daughter’s behaviour and her daughter’s friendship issues over the years and THAT’S where all the klaxons were blaring.

The group work situation is kind of a red herring.

As a PP said, those who live with autistic people (and those who are autistic themselves) can see the signs really, really clearly.

Exactly.

And very often NT people neither realise when an autistic person is expressing empathy, or indeed when they need empathy from others. So it cuts both ways and is simply the result of communication differences and a lack of understanding of those on both sides, not a lack of empathy in itself on either side. The NT way of recognising when someone needs empathy or expressing it is not the "right" way, it's just a different way. The communication gap is for both autistic and NT people to bridge and not a failing of the autistic person.