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?

Opalite, I am a fairly empathetic, sympathetic person but no matter how much you try and excuse emotional haemorrhage at every tragedy that befalls someone else (lets not forget that bit, someone else's crappy, shitty bit of disaster) - I still don't believe it comes from a place of emotional integrity.

I'm not trying to say the Ms/Mr X shouldn't weep in the office about the Philippines but I'm not going to feel sorry for them - I'm going to feel sorry for the people who need my sympathy.

I don't cry about major disasters, perhaps with the exception of 9/11. I think in a lot of ways I am detached from these situations. Though the scale of some events is hard to comprehend, it almost doesn't seem real as you're watching it on a TV screen. But it doesn't mean I have a heart of stone and are ignorant of the fact that real people are affected. I feel my energy would be best spent trying to help in some way. My tears won't give them shelter or food.

Interestingly, I sobbed buckets over a little kitten that sadly died. I was following her story on an animal shelter's facebook page and willing this little thing to live. I was so upset when she died because so many people were rooting for her and I'd seen every update from the day she was found abandoned.

And I'm not suggesting that you should feel sorry for these people. I'm suggesting that maybe it wouldn't be a crazy idea if people didn't harshly judge them, criticise them and make assumptions about their intentions.

I do think that many people have been desensitised to these things because of the media. If you don't regularly watch or read the news then I think the effect is usually a lot stronger when you do hear about or watch these things happening

I had to hide from my students in the toilet at the 11am Remembrance this year I felt so tearful. It was only for a couple of minutes then I got on with my day, but I still felt upset and didn't want anyone to witness that or hear my voice shaking for that few moments.

I don't think getting emotionally involved or finding something emotionally resonant is a bad thing per se. I do a lot. But I don't usually want to share that with others- but I do take the opportunity to reflect on things in the news, and think more deeply about my own life, as they naturally come up.

I think the term 'mass hysteria' is over-used, I didn't see anyone engaged in mass hysteria on Remembrance Day or indeed at Diana's funeral, not in everyday life anyway. It can be very dismissive term, I think it's perfectly possible to shed a tear in sadness for Diana on the day of her funeral but not be part of some 'mass hysteria' or be deluded that they are grieving for her personally.

I think criticizing people who cry is a bit like criticizing people who don't cry. Not fair!

If you're the type who is emotionally incontinent on facebook then most of your friends will be too and most of your friends will enjoy hearing that you are catatonic because of the typhoon. No real harm done.

It's not for me, (or for most of my older friends) but I think for many young people having an unexpressed thought is a rare thing.

I read the papers every night, and yes, every few days, I will well up.
DH says stop bloody reading it then, but I can't I feel like I have to, like a testimony or something.

Anyway, despite being a good old blubber, I'm not (usually) a sharing blubber. You can be one without the other.

Some people are emotional, true. Others are grief wankers. It is easy to mix the two up.

I do not do maudlin or poor me fb posts.

I don't cry over things that happen to me generally.

I have seen many very sad things at work and I almost never cry over them, it wouldn't be professional and I don't like to bring work home.

But I do get watery eyes over things I see on TV.

There is an ongoing news story that affects people very close to me - that makes me cry.

And I still shed the odd tear when watching Queen videos some times.

I feel no shame about any of those things, they are my private emotions and don't impact other people.

I once cried watching a news report of the Haiti earthquake.

I don't normally cry over news reports, but when this one showed a group of elderly dementia patients in a makeshift camp on the streets, with someone describing how they were frightened and confused, slowly starving and without the medication they needed, and kept asking to go home, I cried.

Mostly I think because I knew they were never going home. I suspect many of them died on that street and they will have done so feeling frightened and confused, not understanding where they were or why they were there. It did upset me and even now I have a lump in my throat thinking about them.

I didn't take to Facebook to weep about it though.

Yanbu to react the way you do to such news stories.

Yabu to be derogatory about others who react differently - what's not to "get" -other people have different personalities abd emotional make ups.

I know people who got choked up/cried about the Philippines/Vietnam but they knew someone who had been affected badly.

I don't cry even though I went through those storms (and really bad floods) but nobody close to me was killed, thank goodness.

I got upset by the Lao crash, however mainly because it happened so close to where I live and I was going to fly that day. A few friends of mine knew the Aussie aid worker who was killed in the crash as I live in an area where landmine clearance is an ongoing process.