Is it normal to feel completely indifferent to strangers' lives?

[AmusedTaupePlayer]

Hi all,
Bit of an odd one, but I’ve been thinking about this lately and wondering if anyone else relates.
I’ve noticed that unless someone is part of my life — family, close friends, maybe a few colleagues — I just don’t feel anything about what happens to them. Whether it’s good or bad. Someone winning the lottery, getting cancer, becoming homeless, whatever — I can understand it matters, but on a personal level, I feel nothing. Take homelessness — I get that it’s awful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but emotionally, I don’t care. It doesn’t affect me. I don’t feel moved by it.
It’s not that I’m unkind or malicious. I just feel emotionally neutral about people I don’t know.
I suspect more people feel like this than let on, but whenever I’ve hinted at it, people react like I’m some sort of sociopath. So if it’s that common, why is it such a taboo to say out loud?
Is this just how emotional bandwidth works? Or is something off?
Genuinely curious — would love to know if others feel the same but just don’t talk about it.

@AllPlayedOut I didn't mention a lack of empathy. I just said that my brain (and that of people with ASD) is wired differently. I can be extremely empathetic too but in my case, my ASD means I can turn that empathy on and off almost at will. It doesn't control me or my emotional responses the way it seems to for some NT people.

OP, I think it is not the norm to feel as detached as you describe, although I would agree none of us feel quite the same emotional intensity of course about something happening good or bad to someone we are close to compared with a stranger. I think this feeling could fit with sociopathy so I guess I can understand that reaction from others (people think of sociopaths as innately “bad” or “evil” but there are sociopaths out there who function perfectly well in society and are just hyper logical/rational and unemotional). Autism was my other thought before I read your post saying that you do have autism. But I have been told off before on this forum for suggesting that being lacking in empathy to an extent (which is to me pretty much what you are describing here, though it sounds like you do have some empathy for those you are close to or causes you personally feel strongly about), can be part of autism. In your case if you have an established autism diagnosis I would put this down as part and parcel of the autism.

I think I care about what happens to other people but lately I have been telling myself that I need to put on my own oxygen mask and deal with my own self and family.

I feel overwhelmed with work, family, elderly parents and the constant negativity and race to the bottom of this country. I feel like I need to take a step back form caring and be a bit more selfish just looking after me and mine.

Not your situation OP, but yes I think people are caring less about others.

I think it’s a bandwidth thing. I find the more shit I have in my own life the less capacity I have to carry other people through theirs. Bothered me at first, as if something had broken in me, but I simply have too much on my plate and I struggle to sustain my own mental load far less take on other peoples’ at a local level.

Lack of empathy is one thing, extreme lack of empathy is normally tied to sociopathy or psychopathy, Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic PD, etc.

Have you been assessed by a psychiatrist?

Well just imagine a world where there was zero empathy and people only cared about themselves.

Actually, we seem to be heading that way, a world full of Trumps and Putins and multi billionaires without an altruistic bone in their body, yet no one seems excited by that do they?

I am on the other end of the spectrum: I do empathise and feel things for people I don't know and it can make it very difficult to cope. As I get older it becomes more extreme. As a younger woman I had to tell a class about the Dunblane disaster and I really really struggled to get the words out because I was so upset. (Just the example that springs to mind.) I was driving when the news broke about the twin towers: I had to pull over because I was crying so hard listening to the radio. I never ever watched the footage because I know I couldn't cope with it. I think being empathetic to others is normal, and not feeling anything for people because it doesn't affect you / you don't know them is not normal. Equally, I think the way I engage is not normal either and that actually humanity is made up of all kinds of variety.

This is really well put.

Carrying this thought to its logical conclusion — do you care at all then , in your ‘scaled up selfishness’ mode, for systems that absolutely won’t ever be relevant to you? Are you unbothered by, say, anti-racism legislation if you’re white, as are all your friends and family, and you live in an area with almost no people of other races?

Good God! Too many people confusing empathy with social conditioning. I can hang upside down on a branch but I’m not a bat!
People do not “feel the pain of others”. If this was true how could surgeons perform operations and remain pain free or broadcasters give news. What a lot of performative rubbish.

David Hume has entered the chat :)

Interesting. Is this restricted to human adults or does it also apply to animals and children? If you saw an animal suffering would you not care?

It's totally normal OP and everyone feels the same. Those who claim they don't are just virtue signalling.

There are children dying of hunger in the world right now. Right now. As you're reading this. Yet here we all are, on our laptops or computers in our houses on our wifi. None of us need these things more than those children need food yet we're not helping them. And no I don't mean your £3 a month direct debit to 'save the children' or whatever. I mean as a collective humanity we are selfish, self-interested individuals (myself included) who do not think or care about others outside of our own existence.

And we're not just ignoring drastic 'dying of hunger' levels of need of course. Basically everyone on this forum is enjoying luxuries while fellow humans, including children, are going to bed in their towns hungry tonight. But nobody will do anything (myself included), they'll just potter about their afternoons and evenings. You're just one of the few to actually be brave enough to admit it, OP.

You can have a welfare state without emotional involvement, though. You don't have to weep and wail in order to help people. That seems to be where a lot of the disconnect is coming from; people assuming that not actively caring (as in feeling deep empathy and entering into others' suffering) means that you don't have any morals or any intellectual understanding of fairness and justice. This is nonsense and ironically a large part of why society is in the mess it's in: both hyper empathy and cruelty are symptoms of extreme individualism. I think that we are asking the wrong question: instead of saying 'is it bad not to empathise with people?' we should be asking 'is it right that people should be treated fairly regardless of our personal feelings about them (or lack thereof)'.

No, can’t say I do feel that way, but I’m not going to say your an awful person, you just lack empathy, if I see a homeless man on the street I always wonder if they’ve had enough to eat, if they have had a drink today, if I can spare some change I will, if I don’t I’ll usually grab them something in a near by shop, I’m not a better person than you because of it I just have empathy for strangers, not everyone does. As long as you aren’t actually mean and rude to strangers it’s fine. I wouldn’t go around telling everyone though because most people can’t relate and might think bad of you.

is it just people? Do you feel empathy for animals? Like for example if you see a duck and her ducklings crossing the road, and one gets stuck and can’t catch up, does it worry you that it might lose its mum or do you just not care? Because that would stress me out

@AmusedTaupePlayer how do you feel about films? What about fiction books? Can you ever feel the emotion portrayed about characters in a fictional story?

It's not performative rubbish though. Most people feel an echo of other people's pain, as an automatic impulse, just as our brains are wired to simulate actions we observe. If we see someone in front of us in agony (a starving child, or someone being physically hurt), we normally feel something, even if that means we just turn away because we can't take it. Not to feel anything instinctively is unusual, but it doesn't mean we can't train our imagination to compensate (just as we can condition ourselves NOT to feel anything). I'd be really interested to know if people here, like OP, who don't feel anything when they witness a stranger's suffering, can get interested in the lives of TV/ book characters.

Everyone has a limit and everyone's limits are different. Imagine if we deeply felt and internalised every sad thing? We'd all be emotional wrecks, unable to function!

For me, it's random what affects and me and what doesn't. I can think something is sad without actually feeling i. On the other hand, I saw a (completely unknown to me) teenage girl wiping tears away as she was walking to school the other morning and I felt really sorry for her. I wanted to stop her and ask if she was OK and it made me wonder what was wrong (I didn't).

Maybe that's because I was a teenage girl once and remember crying after a row with my mum or with friends or over a boy. I also have a daughter, so maybe that resonates more? I hate to see older children cry.

I get physical symptoms when my close friends and family have medical issues. e.g. dental problems. Someone I knew was having a root canal - I had excruciating tooth pain, assumed it was just coincidence. Went to the dentist, nothing there, the pain vanished when their root canal was successful. It's happened several times with several different people. It's possible for some people.

I haven't said that people should be weeping and wailing. I said that without empathy or a human connection, life would be awful. Why would you have a welfare state if you don't care about the suffering of others?

Charities wouldn't exist because first, no one would think to set them up and second, no one would volunteer.

I can certainly “feel” things about other people’s lives, particularly if it’s something really tragic, like they’ve lost a child or their spouse has committed suicide. I remember spontaneously bursting into tears at a news report a few years ago where a 15 year-old girl had lost her entire family to Ebola. But I don’t get involved in anybody else’s business / drama, and prefer to protect my peace. ‘Not my circus’ etc.

I think we’re all different. I am the opposite to you and have always been the person who sobs watching charity adverts featuring starving children, or eastenders storylines, or sad stories in the newspaper. I can’t console a friend on a bereavement without bursting into sobs myself because when I see their pain I feel it too.

I have always been embarrassed to be this way as I know other people can see it as dramatic or performative, and find it annoying. I’ve worked very hard over the years in reigning in my emotions and to some level have managed to hide the outward appearance of it but inside it’s still there. I would probably rather be like you.

ETA - Actually no I don’t think I would. I’d be a different person then, and maybe less caring to those around me. Maybe a middle ground would be the optimal state???

And I'm saying that you can care without actually feeling deep emotion or even pity. You can both do good to people and be impersonal. There is a reason that there is an expression 'as cold as charity'.

OP, are you a gamer playing games including violence, someone who works in the services, the police, other similar job roles where you see a lot of trauma, someone who has experienced trauma or do you watch a lot of news?

If you have a lot of exposure to these kind of things, some people learn to shut it off as it can be overwhelming and that can be like feeling nothing.

We all do it a bit, which is why little children get so upset at things that adults just shrug and say is how life is.
Small children haven't learned to harden themselves a bit against the world being an unfair place.

I think it's a protective mechanism so your mind can cope.

We are bombarded daily with pleas for help from charities, news about terrible things happening around the world or even just next door.
If we felt all those things that you hear about every single day for every stranger with the level of intensity we would feel them if they happened to someone we love, we'd be crushed.

I googled the difference in definitions:
"Empathy and sympathy, while related, represent different ways of relating to another person's emotions. Empathy involves understanding and sharing the feelings of another person, while sympathy involves feeling sorry for someone's misfortune without necessarily sharing their feelings. "

I can be sympathetic but only if I have been through the same can feel empathetic.