informative-feminist:

hoarder-of-stories:

Low-empathy people are not incapable of kindness.  We are not inherently abusive.  We are not bad people because of how our minds work.

If you have low cognitive empathy (which means you have a hard time figuring out what emotions people are having), that does not mean you’re bad.  It does not mean you can’t be a valuable friend.  You are wonderful the way you are.

If you have low affective empathy (which means you don’t tend to feel the same emotions as the people around you- you aren’t affected by them much), that also does not mean you’re bad!  People feel empathy and do nothing useful about it all the time.  Choose to be kind to people because it is right, not because you’re having emotions about it.  (That last sentence is directed at everyone who sees this, actually, low empathy or not.  Please choose to be kind.)

Your choices matter so much more than the ableist opinions of people around you.  You are definitely not evil.  …Not unless you decide to, you know, go be mean to people and stuff, then that’s not great.  But you most certainly aren’t automatically any worse than people who have the Normal Amount Of Empathy!  

Please don’t let society convince you that you are bad for something that is a good part of who you are.  Empathy and compassion are not the same thing.  You are good, and you deserve kindness.

My friend is diagnosed with ASPD (sociopath) because of intense trauma and abuse, and feels little to no emotions. But she still makes a point of expressing what she thinks she “should” be feeling, because she’s sensitive to what others feel and wants to be a good person, so people don’t feel as shitty as she’s felt in her life.

Just because you’re incapable of feeling emotions or empathy doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.