To think I must have a mental health problem/not be a nice person/something else wrong to feel like this about other people?

Yes I've known someone like this too. I noticed she only formed close friendships with people she was (using her words) 'supporting' but as the person got on a more even keel they seemed to end. I have no judgement for her, she's a nice person, it's just something I observed.

This is what I was thinking that was meant by it - glee. I think it’s the way it’s worded. If you didn’t mean that OP, then I take back what I said.

I thought schadenfreude was more a pleasure when someone gets their "just desserts"? Like if Trump got impeached for the crypto currency thing, I would feel pleasure and call it schadenfreude? But not if, say, a blameless friend got a divorce.

I guess many people get a frisson from "juicy gossip" especially where there are lurid details - for me, the amount of scadalised rather enjoyable frisson is like a bell curve - more limited for people I don't know at all (not even vaguely interested that a person I don't know had their husband leave them for a 21 year old he had known 3 weeks), peaking around contacts and vague acquaintances ("you know Roy from my work? You met him briefly at that event last year. Poor chap's wife has left him and run off with a waiter they met on holiday in Egypt") and then switches to compassion, empathy and more a desire to shut gossip down and protect for friends and family. When it's people that close that you can see the devastation, it's not just gossip any more.

BTW this is a pretty universal condition, however much people might deny it, as can be witnessed by all the people who follow FB pages of people they don't know who have cancer, or the reaction and popularity of some of the threads on here where people are dealing with really difficult stuff, like a child with a brain tumor. There are a lot of people posting "hope all is well" or "any updates" if things go quiet. They are supportive of course but there is an element of getting something from being the supporter. (Disclaimer - there are also often others posting on those threads who are there because they have medical or technical insight or who genuinely empathize as they have had similar experiences).

I don't think it's uncommon. I've come across a few people like this. I don't think it leads to particularly healthy friendships and relationships, but may be a trait that would be highly valuable in some careers? I'm thinking Social Worker or Parole Officer for example.

I wouldn’t call this schadenfreude. (MN is full of it though.)

Schadenfreude is more outright glee and delight in awful things. The OP seems to be more about being interested in and enjoying the drama. I recognise that in myself.

Google 'saviour syndrome'.
My dearest friend always has someone to save. When that person has been saved or has died ( she gathers up a lot of terminally ill people) she fills the vacancy created with another one. She gets a huge dopamine surge from being needed.

I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with you OP.

Others people's struggles can make you feel needed and it can make you feel more apprreciative of your blessings, or distract you from your own troubles and make you feel as if you're not the only one whose life isn't perfect.
So to a certain degree I think it's a completely normal feeling.
The fact you recognise it and are still a compassionate friend I think points that it's not huge problem but maybe you like to feel needed and have low self worth so possibly that is something you can work on or explore with counselling but from your post it doesn't sound like you are an awful person, just very honest about what you feel.

I don’t think there is an issue, it’s an incredibly common feeling- it doesn’t mean OP is a bad person, or that it would affect how they act towards others.

its extremely common - , many of us like a bit of gossip about someone, some negative news story… it doesn’t mean therapy is needed for goodness sake.

If you want to know the psychological causes Google shadenfreude- lots of research about it. It can stem from rivalry - competition.

This whole seek therapy - seems part of a trend of pathologizing every human thought and emotion, we have to turn something common into a mental health condition.

Industrial quantities of projection in the replies!

It's very common and shared by a lot of people on here. They love the idea that someone blows up their whole life and leaves their husband, or someone who was very excited about a new date has to cut them off because they apparently show "red flags".

If you want to be different, one thing I advise is to change your company. If you're around people who are similarly cruel, then it will rub off on you.

There’s a word for this it’s called

schadenfreude

Taking some pleasure in someone’s misfortune and I think it’s quite common, more than people care to admit anyway!
Same reason newspapers like to print doom and gloom stories, because we’re oddly drawn to it- positive stories don’t sell papers!

I think this is down to low self esteem or some sort of inferiority complex. Having evidence that you’re not the most unfortunate person in the room makes you feel better about yourself. My ex was like that. Nothing made him happier than other people’s misfortunes.

I hear you @countingdownforseptember and I understand what you are saying that enjoying being helpful is a species survival trait. I think most of us feel this, or I would hope so! However, experiencing positive feelings or enjoyment on hearing someone is going through a major issue is different to that. I agree that the OP doesn't sound horrible or has a mental health issue though, and it's to her credit that she is self reflective. None of us are perfect, including me!

Edited to say, OP you say you enjoy the drama and emotional ride. Perhaps a bit like a rollercoaster ride? I was just wondering if you feel life is dull or flat without the "excitement" of an injection of a real life drama?

It’s not the wanting to be needed and helpful that’s the problem, it’s the fact that it’s derived from enjoying the misfortune of others and hoping bad things will happen for no real reason.

You can get to feel needed and helpful without actively wishing bad on others by throwing yourself into charity work, or making an extra effort to help colleagues out at work or whatever.

You get to feel lucky every time you watch a tv appeal for starving children in Africa, every time you walk past a homeless person on the street, or every time someone you know gets diagnosed with cancer or any life altering condition. You don’t have to wish it on others though. That’s the nasty part.

I agree with this.

Therapy will help answer the why question.

*parent

I agree it’s more common than people would want to admit. But op if misfortune struck someone you really love like for example a patent or your child, would you have the same thoughts? Just curious.

It can be difficult to talk about things like this on here as a lot of posters start to twist it a bit so that you become like a friend or relative of theirs. I’m not criticising anybody; it’s easy to do. But to me, you don’t sound horrible or like you’ve got a mental health problem. The whole reason we enjoy feeling helpful is because it’s one that helps the species as a whole to thrive. Eating, drinking, bathing, sleeping, are all enjoyable for the same reason!

I’m a bit like this OP and I don’t like it about myself either. I think for me it comes from having experienced quite a few traumas in my life and feeling resentful / jealous when other people seem to have relatively plain sailing lives. One example is my second child was very poorly and had to have surgery as a baby, we spent his first month of life in hospital and never had that newborn phase with him. So it stings every time one of my friends has a baby and all goes well. It’s a horrible feeling that I’m ashamed of but I can’t help it.

Wow, I could have written that exact paragraph about someone. I thought they were being kind when they helped me with something but when someone in her circle came up to me and told me that person had told her about my very personal problem, and everything she had done to help me, I just wanted the ground to swallow me up. After that, the scales started coming off my eyes, and sadly I realised she was doing this with others - "helping" them, but needing to share with all and sundry the other person's personal struggles and what she had done to help. It felt really horrible, like nothing is sacred and humiliating people in the process. Contact with that person is now limited and superficial - I don't share anything meaningful any more.

@ItsSoFoggy Yes, the descriptions are so close, I think we may be talking about the same person!

@Iwqp I don't think the person I am describing has the self awareness you have. It sounds like you need to be needed, but like all of us, it's good to be aware and maybe dig a bit deeper into why we react as we do to things ... It all starts with awareness :)

You don't sound like a not nice person. You sound self-aware. Do you like the connection?

I sometimes think we are all craving connection. Events bring us together.

I think therapy would be helpful too. Even just going over your life, was there a time when bad events happened but they actually made you feel better, maybe more connected to your family. There has been research on how families are actually happier after major events. Just for an example, maybe you lose your house in a flood but realise how lucky you are to have your family and there's more thankfulness and less pettiness after. More pulling together, less bickering over insignificant stuff.

Or you are a pessimist and when bad things happen if feels like you are proved right. There's a quote about how you don't need therapy to learn how to deal with tough times, you are used to them...but about needing it to let yourself be happy (not expecting bad things to happen)

My DM is like this - i call it ‘altruistic narcissism - getting a kick out of being considered the helpful / good / kind one. She gets so much of her self worth from being considered helpful that she literally does not know how to exist in a relationship where she isn’t the ‘net giver’. She is exhausting company.