How can I stop being too empathetic? (Getting teary)

[CactusRabbit]

Not sure if I'm alone in this, but I feel I'm too empathetic, but not sure how or if I i can change...
I can get teary and emotional talking about things that affect other people.
I was just watching the downhill skiing, and was telling DH about the horrible accident that's just happened, and I started getting teary.

It's obviously not a bad thing to feel this, but I just wish I didn't show the emotions all the time...

I definitely don't comment on it with other people, it's more just my physical reaction, but I do hide it from others (hopefully!). That's a big part of it too, I don't want others to see it, as I don't want them thinking I'm being dramatic.

I also felt teary when telling DH about the skiing accident! I don't think I am generally super emotional but she had worked so hard 😞

You're projecting massively! You're writing sad stories for strangers, this really isn't healthy.

For example if it's lashing rain and I'm driving and I see someone getting wet at a bus stop, I feel bad for them and guilty for being in a nice warm car. what about people who are car free by choice? They feel sorry for you trapped in your car!

I’m the same and have no answer I’m afraid, trying to detach and think about something else sometimes helps, I have tried to reframe it in my head too - it’s something I can’t help and I shouldn’t be ashamed that I feel this way

It sounds very indulgent to me, making someone else’s misfortune all about you. I always think people like you have never had to face much adversity in their own lives, given how ready they are to ‘borrow’ grief and sorrow from others. Believe me, if you are dealing with the worst of times or an horrendous event, the last thing you need is someone else ‘empathising’ and weeping so you have to manage their emotions as well as your own very valid feelings as the actual victim.

If you have this emotional energy to spare, try turning it outwards. Someone upthread mentioned feeling sorry for a person at a bus stop if they drive past. Well offer them a lift then! There are hundreds of people in our communities who need help - elderly people who are lonely and could do with some company; people who go to Citizens Advice because they don’t know how to access help they need, etc etc. Take your empathy and actually do something positive with it, to make it real empathy rather than something that bolsters your image of yourself as too caring or too sympathetic.

It is common. Resolving one's own trauma helps, I think. And realising what belongs to oneself and what belongs to other people helps, too (emotionally, I mean).

This is wrong. I've had plenty of adversity in my life. You probably wouldn't believe some of it tbh. I've always approached it very stoically and v practically and I actually think that why I respond like this now! Should've been a bit less stoic at the time. It's not self indulgent because it's impossible to control at this stage. If I did it when a victim / the person suffering was present I would obviously absent myself rather than burden them with it, but it tends to be more TV or story related which is only a burden on me!

I am the same, OP. I actually made a thread about it some time back on here but hardly anyone responded! I seem to remember reading, as PP said here, that it can be linked to trauma in childhood.

Well, maybe stop approaching your own trauma so stoically and practically? Allow yourself to feel sad, frightened, overwhelmed, or whatever, and then maybe you won’t be weeping helplessly over news stories. Ask yourself why it’s ’safer’ to cry over someone else’s misery than yours?

Blimey, that's you told, @Poppingby 🙄

I’ve had a lot of adversity in my life (cancer) so I don’t think the above post is true. Nothing about this is self indulgent and I’d just quite like to be less sensitive. I do hide it well most of the time…

I mean, yes. That's what I said basically. I do appreciate your straightforward style and you're not wrong but I prefer not to do a live Mumsnet therapy session. Just saying it is not a self-indulgent lack of adversity that causes this response.

I'm the opposite - I can read/see all sorts and it just doesn't bother me at all. It's like I box it all off and see it as happening to "other people" - almost like a film or something.

But no one is suggesting you reveal your own traumas on here, only that the way you’ve usually dealt with them is probably contributing to the way your emotions around other people’s are dysregulated.

I understand why it might sound indulgent to someone who doesn't experience it. Indeed, it is for this very reason that I have to fight myself like crazy to control my reaction, because I understand that others might think I'm making it all about myself.

But it is an involuntary reaction that I don't think you can actually understand if you don't experience it yourself. I know that someone who is experiencing distress doesn't need me to sit there and weep, and so I do everything I possibly can to swallow back my response. As for turning my empathy outwards, I already do loads of that - it is one of the ways in which I try to manage it.

I think it's just one of those things that will sounds ridiculous and performative to people who don't have that response. I understand that others don't get it. That doesn't mean that I can just switch it off at will.

For the people talking about crying over other people's misery, it's not that (for me) it's 'nice' things eg I could never watch the TV show where people are reunited with long lost family members, I still cry over something lovely I read years ago if I try and verbally tell someone, I feel overwhelming happiness to the point of tears for other people if I read about something amazing happening to them etc.

I was like this until perimenopause put a stop to it. I went off people in peri, lost a lot of empathy, and am more neutral now. My empathy is probably average now. It makes life easier.

😆😆😆

What I’ve learnt in therapy is you really should challenge yourself about why you feel like this.

I don’t think it’s indulgent but I do think it’s linked to a need to consider yourself good nice and sensitive. I think those qualities make you feel good about yourself. But- importantly- they’re meaningless to other people, so actually don’t reflect goodness niceness or sensitivity, objectively. They are all about you. I would really explore why it’s so important to you.

I don’t think people are saying it’s important to them or that it makes them a good or better person. It’s not something that you can control. It’s part of emotional disregulation. Whatever the cause of that is.

i think strategies to manage it are the best bet.

It doesn't actually make me feel good about myself, though, and it isn't important to me. Quite the contrary, I find it ridiculous, and it makes me annoyed with myself.

Unfortunately, I can't just switch it off at will. I can learn strategies to try to hide it, and I have got much better at that over the years. But I do still have to try very hard to mask my reaction.

I think a lot of people are carrying tremendous sadness. This lets it out bit by bit. I feel compassion for sensitive people and I certainly don't think it's self-indulgent.

I take low dose sertraline for general anxiety and it has stopped my over the top empathetic reactions which I think were a symptom of the GAD

I got teary earlier watching Lindsey Vonn being airlifted, so you’re not alone! I am also full of admiration for the guy who airlifted her to the helicopter. I know it’s their job and they’re used to it, but it was a very emotional watch!

True though. Stress and grief by proxy is pointless and performative. . Best sort out your own life.