Looking for insight into compassion and autism
I'm 50M and at a point in my life where things have just stopped working, and I'm trying to understand why. I apologize if I come off as ignorant--I actually am ignorant. I started learning about autism in an effort to support my son, who struggles pretty hard in school. He has an ADHD diagnosis, but people in the know have suggested that there are some indicators of autism as well. I've come to realize that autism is nothing like what I always thought it was.
I've also come to wonder whether I, myself, fall somewhere on the spectrum. I won't go into all the reasons I suspect this, because there's just one aspect that doesn't quite make sense to me, and that's my sense of compassion. I am often highly attuned to the people around me. This is both a cognitive and an emotional understanding of what people are feeling. I'm really good at being with people who are going through difficult experiences. I'd probably make a great counselor, if people weren't so damned exhausting for me. And this is the other side of it: after any kind of social engagement, it takes me a _long_ time to unwind afterword. I brought this topic up with my therapist last week, and she expressed skepticism about my fit on the spectrum. We're going to explore it further next time we meet.
I mainly wonder if I have the wrong understanding (and my therapist has the wrong understanding) about the relationship between autism and compassion. Do other people have experience with this? Or am I really just not fitting any profile on the spectrum and should focus my search for understanding elsewhere?