to not weep at international & other tragedies?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I get that what's happened in the Philippines is a terrible thing or that it's shocking when children are starved to death by parents etc. But I don't understand why others get so emotionally involved to the point of 'weeping'. How do they get through the day if they find all these things to which they are not directly connected so physically distressing? How do they get to the end of a newspaper? There's always something tragic happening somewhere after all. Anyone else save their emotions for problems closer to home or am I just a hard-hearted Hannah? AIBU for not sobbing?

YANBU, everyone reacts differently to everything...there is no 'right' way.

Having said that, I just don't believe all these people on Facebook etc who claim to be 'in floods of tears' at these things.

Competitive misery irritates me.

YANBU. I'm the same. I never cry at anything on the news/in the paper.

Don't get me started on the whole Diana thing. Total mass hysteria.

I can get weepy at individual things. I remember years ago seeing an elderly woman being interviewed saying how lonely she got at Christmas and I wept buckets for her (and made sure I did what I could for others). And while I can acknowledge something is dreadful, and might take a moment of quiet to think about it, I don't get the reaction some people seem to have. I wonder, often, how genuine they really are.

Thank goodness. I was starting to think I was some kind of emotionally disconnected fruit-loop. Once made the mistake of saying 'why are you so upset?' to one particularly distraught and rather miffed friend ... can't remember what the tragedy in question was but it was pretty distant. She looked at me through her teary eyes and hissed some of us are just highly strung!!!!

I watched Diana's cortege from a bridge over the M1. The crowd around me was actually quite cheerful & chatty until the hearse came into sight. Then there was not only tears but actual wailing (!)... which all stopped as quickly as it started. Bizarre.

I choke up a bit when the news focusses in on a particularly tragic outcome for an individual family. Lost children, etc. I won't go into details but there was a story about a child born in the aftermath that died, just because of bad timing really. I don't break down or anything though!

I think it depends on whether YOU can completely empathise with the situation. it depends on what your personal experiences are.

yanbu. I think a lot of people like to be seen to be emotional over these things because it somehow makes people think they have empathy.

I remember when Jade Goody died there was a thread where people were questioning why people would lay flowers/teddybears/camp outside the house etc, and someone came on to the thread and basically accused all the posters of being heartless and actually said "some of us are grieving."

and when mmc went missing there were posters saying that they cry every night, and even one who took the day off work to try to help to spread the word to find her.

I'm afraid though it gets closer than that though, and I'm even a bit when I see a poster write "your thread has made me cry," or "I'm sobbing reading this thread,"

Now we all have different emotional states, and what upsets one doesn't another and so on. What I have issue with is the fact that people seem to need to be publically seen to be upset. why?

Cogito, I agree that it is hard to get overly involved with stuff that has little to do with us. Things nearer to home, I mean involving our loved ones, well of course that is upsetting but when it is constant natural disasters and so on in places we have never been near, it would be exhausting to be so affected by it.

I think doing something to help though is a good thing, but then again I think 'what use is my 25 quid when other people are millionaires?'

It is a difficult thing for sure.

If something resonates with you then it affects your emotions. If it doesn't then you'll not be affected.

I do cry easily, I admit. I cried when I heard about Diana and I cried during her funeral. Mostly for her sons. Nothing to do with 'mass hysteria'.

I even cry at some adverts. The Co-Op funeral one where the cortege goes past the river where the dead man used to fish and they all stand and pay their respects. It reminds me of my father's funeral where an old man at a bus stop took off his cap and bowed his head as we went past. It meant such a lot at the time.

It's just how you are.

I rarely cry at a MN thread.

I do cry at news stories about children who have been killed though - I mean individual children who were deliberately hurt.

I also get VERY upset at threads about babies being left to cry. I guess it just resonates.

Wow that crowd reaction watching the cortege you describe there Cog is fascinating. I wonder someone hasnt done some sort of in depth study of that sort of behaviour. I'm the same as you. I can feel very sad and empathise to a point but actually crying I save for closer to home things. I do wonder at people who get so very emotional about events that are removed; it's like they want to join in at the same level as those directly affected for some reason.

I don't cry at the news and if I do it's normally means I'm pregnant and it's a story to do with a baby/young child.

I don't get how people can live crying at everything that happens but then I also don't get why we get 24 hours news that Michael Jackson had died it was a nightmare trying to find something to watch, yes he died its sad when anyone does but I'm pretty sure within about an hour of it being breaking news everyone knew.

Well, it's not rational and it is very subjective - it's a reaction to what we're told about after all. There are horrible things going on all the time, one could live in a perpetual state of turmoil by bothering to find out about them.

What I wonder about is the relationship between emotional involvement and action. Generally I think it's people who are more detached, strategic and able to place things in context who actually do the work of tackling the issues that cause these tragedies. But, some emotional people do act and it's often an emotional response, or outrage at an injustice, that prompts examination of the wider issues and adoption of a course of action.

So, while I understand that some people are more outwardly emotional than I am, I do always want to ask what they're doing as a result of their feelings. I have little tolerance for example, for people who can only eat processed, packaged meat because the idea of eating a cutesy wootsey little lambikins, or confronting the reality of animal slaughter, upsets them. That is straightforward hypocrisy because there's an easy and obvious choice.

Getting upset by distant tragedy can be an expression of empathy that is hard to connect to the event but is played out in daily life though. So I'd perhaps distinguish between warm, empathetic people who are great friends and members of their own community and those for whom the upset is all about their self-image.

I am shocked and whatnot about these things but i do not weep yanbu people imo have no right to be weeping but i suppose they feel that way we all feel different emotionally I am not hard hearted , but i do know somebody who can't watch the news without being so distressed ,

I agree Zoo that on a sociological level the crowd response that day was definitely worth a study!

I don't understand how people can be affected so much about some tragedy I know things are upsetting but people saying this has really affected me emotionally, I always want to say but it didn't happen to you it happened to them !

Maybe I am just hard

I am one of these people you don't get.

I've always been this way and wish I wasn't.
I rarely read newspapers and avoid upsetting stories on the news.

Well not always, It started when I was about 19 and has got worse over the years, especially since I had the DC.

I'm not the type to post ''oh I am in floods of tears at x,y,z'' on facebook though as I find my reactions to things embarrassing really.

I don't think there is anything wrong in being over sensitive I just don't understand people who turn round something sad to be about them IYSWIM we can be upset for the people it is happened to but there is folk out there that bring it back to them, that is what i just don't understand

I think people are a bit lost these days because there is no recognised way of greeting the presence of death. Years ago, people would have known that you stop and remove your hat and stand with your head bowed until the coffin has passed. Or in the Middle Ages, say the relevant prayers.

Psychologically, I think we need some kind of recognition: we feel instinctively that just carrying on laughing and taking tourist photos while the cortege is actually passing would be disrespectful, but we don't know how far to go, so people end up outvying each other for fear of not getting it right.

In the olden days there were handbooks in the way of dying in a proper and uplifting way.

I must say though, I find people without empathy, who think they and their family are the only people who matter, inhuman and repellant.

So some overspill of empathy is better than having none but constant passive reaction to events in other people's lives does suggest some emptiness or impotence in ones own life. Surely if your emotions are already invested actively in your own life you just don't have the emotional energy lying around spare to spill out in constant reaction?

The only time I cry is when I become deeply immersed in a story and some tragedy happens, usually involving the death of someone they love, and I weep like a bitch.

Other than that I'm really hard faced and never cry at anything ever. I wouldn't watch the news and cry. It's when I see stories like on CIN on Friday that I sob. The story has to really grip me and it's usually when I empathise that it makes me weepy. I started crying when I went to Auschwitz when I saw the babies shoes, it still gets me now when I think about it.

The story has to really grip me and it's usually when I empathise that it makes me weepy. I started crying when I went to Auschwitz when I saw the babies shoes, it still gets me now when I think about it.

I would probably cry at that, I have a very sensitive dd and when she went to france with school to the battlefields she said she just burst into tears randomly and was very about it, I suppose we all react differently to things

Of course people react in different ways - some of which I don't understand, some of which you don't understand.

I think what some have said on this thread is nasty though. There is just no need whatsoever. It's not about mass-hysteria or needing to be a part of it - it's about empathy.

For example, I cried watching Diana's funeral. I cried for those two little boys who had lost their Mum - their best chance of a semi nomal life & real love. Who were so very brave to face the public while grieving. I wasn't crying for me, but for two little boys & their loss.

On the other hand, I don't cry about things like the Phiippines. We all have different levels of empathy & desire to help.

I cry for people on MN, I feel empathy for people who have lost a child/parent/partner etc or are going through scary & uncertain times of illness etc. I don't actually think having empathy is a bad thing.

Of course it's not happening to me, it's happening to them - but surely understanding that hurt and hurting for them is not a bad thing?