Is it normal to not feel empathy

[Polmuggle]

There was a thread recently about if you can see things with your 'minds eye'. This is similar - I'm wondering if you can feel things with your 'minds heart' or whatever the equivalent is!

I'm sat watching celeb gogglebox, and everyone on it - celebs and the regulars - are feeling genuine deep emotions, tears etc to a documentary about a child who has cancer.

It's moments like this that make me wonder if I'm unusual or lacking. It's not that I don't know it's sad, or know it must be horrendous for that family. It's more like, I can't quite relate to or can't quite feel the emotion, so it doesn't effect me. That's true in real life as well - I care, but don't feel anything. Like I have sympathy but not empathy.

I don't know if I'm describing that right, but does anyone else get this?

Like, when mufassa died in the lion King it didn't make you shed a tear (ultimate psychopath test lol)

Did you have to mention Mufasa? Major trigger for me

I think you're fairly normal, OP. I have a feeling far more people pretend to care than actually do and there's nothing wrong with that. It's an issue if you don't care about your own loved ones though, or worse, quite enjoy when shit is horrible for others.

Now I'm the opposite and I have to pretend I don't when I do, because otherwise I would never be able to stop crying. If I tell myself I don't give a shit, I can keep it together, at least most of the time. Fake it 'til you make it.

For me it’s age related. Def. more sympathy and empathy where it’s warranted these days, but also a harder attitude to those “one the take”.

@Hopeisallineed

Since I had DC, I cry at toilet paper adverts. 😩

I cried at a KFC advert when I was pregnant

Recent studies have found varying degrees of this trait in 50 to 85% of individuals with ASD.

There does seem to be a strong correlation but it isn't clear cut in the autism literature as not everyone with autism has difficulty with social relatedness inc empathy.

I'm a bit like that. I don't cry at call
The midwife! TV adverts with starving/ sick children etc don't move me at all. But I am a paediatric nurse. But I can't watch any adverts about animal cruelty. I have to turn the TV off when they come on. Especially the donky ones.

Dunno if it's relevant but I don't 'see things' in my mind and I don't 'hear' my voice in my head or music etc.

I do feel emotions for others though, as others have said much much more so since I had kids.

Not just towards kids in particular though eg I watched Its a sin and was a sobbing mess at the last episode. The news sometimes too gets me.

Dh doesn't get like that I don't think, it's not that he doesn't care it's just that he doesn't 'feel' it.

@thaegumathteth

Dunno if it's relevant but I don't 'see things' in my mind and I don't 'hear' my voice in my head or music etc.

I do feel emotions for others though, as others have said much much more so since I had kids.

Not just towards kids in particular though eg I watched Its a sin and was a sobbing mess at the last episode. The news sometimes too gets me.

Dh doesn't get like that I don't think, it's not that he doesn't care it's just that he doesn't 'feel' it.

I don’t hear my voice in my head either, just “think” the words to myself if that makes sense

I think we are different towards people on tv, regardless of it being real, because they're not someone we know.
If it was your own child, or that of family, a neighbour or friend, I'm sure you would feel differently. Not necessarily much more than that of the child on tv, but differently because they would be someone you actually knew!
I think many of us feel indifferent towards people, things or situations that we aren't personally affected by.

I'd rarely get sad about something on tv. If someone around me is displaying/experiencing a sad or negative emotion I won't feel it myself. What would be the point? I'm busy gearing what they are saying, figuring out how to console them or help or how to stay out of the way of others helping and planning next steps. What's the point in me being rendered useless because I'm just sat near them feeling what they are feeling? It's not a time for my emotions, it is a time for theirs.

When it comes to positive and happy emotions I find it easier than most people (I think) to be genuinely pleased. I see many people not be able to separate their own life circumstances from the person with good news, I'd say that is a lack of empathy. I would be pleased, happy and proud of friend who landed a shiny new job, even if I had just missed out on a job and been dumped. They aren't connected and I'm always so surprised that to many people, it would be.

Honestly OP, I don't think a lot of people truly understand what empathy is. I hear people use it and I think 'that's not empathy, you are just feeding off their misfortune'.

Mufaasa dying made me sad but not at all because it reminded me of my own lovely father, that's a bonkers idea. It made me sad because the film up until that point had clearly indicated that the two characters had a deep bond and that this moment was clearly going to have a huge impact on Simba. That is empathy. Being sad cos it makes you think of losing your own dad sound self obsessive to me!

@Neolara

I think I'm the opposite of OP. I seem to "catch" other people's emotions. I'm very tuned I to how others are feeling. I wonder whether I have a disproportionately high number of mirror neurones.

Yes, me too.

I believe compassion is more important than empathy. For me, empathy is putting myself in someone else's position- I see that as a selfish response. I don't know what it's like to lose a child, for which I'm very grateful and thankful. To 'pretend' I have even an inkling of what it's like to lose someone you love, I am uncomfortable with that. Taking someone else's grief and making it your own, I don't like that. Sympathy is a bit condecsing, but compassion for me covers everything better. I cry at movies, I feel sorry for people when they are in a horrendous situation, but I don't pretend to know how they feel.

PrinnyPree 'People will probably think I'm a massive wetbag'
I love this! I'm a massive wetbag. I wish I was a bit more like op. Its seen as a weaknesses I think.

I think we've all been desensitized to death and violence since social media came along.
There is no filter anymore, there is so much of it it's unreal.
Covid hasn't helped having daily death figures thrown in your face every time the news is on.
You just get numb to it, because you can't sit in a heap and cry about it all day everyday. That doesn't mean you have no sympathy, just that getting upset isn't going to change things for others. It'll just make you feel bad.

@MolkosTeenageAngst

I would never cry tears of happiness in response to someone else’s good news but truthfully I have never ever cried tears of happiness in response to something in my own life either. Are tears of happiness really a thing outside of movies and books? Feeling that level of joy seems alien to me, I have been happy before but I have never felt extremes of happiness in the same way I have felt extremes of sadness, certainly not enough to move me to tears or any other uncontrollable response.

Yeah tears are for anger and frustration in my world! I have a friend who does the tears of happiness thing though. Cries at every wedding and baby announcement. I’m sure she can’t help it but in truth it can be a little irritating. Like I’m telling you my good news, there’s no need to make it about you.

I don't work in the field, but I would imagine that if you work in medicine - doctors, nurses, medics, then you just could not have that 'Gogglebox' response all of the time.

I am not saying they have to be devoid of all emotion or empathy, but they would have to be detached to some extent. I don't think anyone could work in ICU, for example, and be overly emotionally attached to every patient. For one, it would be emotion overload - just mentally exhausting. And for another, it would not be of much help to the families or the patients if the medical team were in tears every time they spoke to them.

I do hope that they are given training and support to help them with this. We are all human, and it must be incredibly difficult to deal with tragedy on a regular basis whilst maintaining your own well being.

I don't think I am a heartless person or totally without empathy, but sometimes I do find myself feeling a bit detached when someone tells me about something truly sad. I think I reach a point when I am on emotional overload - there is only so much sadness I can take on board, and so another piece of bad news on top of everything else - in a way it is just too much to process, so I don't.

@wobblywinelover

This is probably why the world has ended up the way it has

Huh?

OP
As a society, we are inundated with images/ stories/ social media campaigns. Not becoming engaged with every single thing you see doesn't make you completely unfeeling

I never used to cry, but now do post menopause. I was practical, a problem solver. I also had an abusive childhood.

"I think we've all been desensitized to death and violence since social media came along."

I agree with that.
I cried at the disappearing children in Syria and thought about them all, daily, but the scenes from Afghanistan hasn't had the same effect. I felt for the Mother whose baby girl was being sold for food, but the whole situation hasn't touched me the same. I will still donate.

I have great empathy. It's been part and parcel of my job, and without it, I couldn't have been as effective as I was for all those years.

Same.

"Are tears of happiness really a thing outside of movies and books? "

Three times I have. Once when my 11 year old who has additional needs got her choice of high school and when my grandchildren were born. The tears came after elevation, as I was 'coming down'. It was very unusual for me.

" I have great empathy. It's been part and parcel of my job, and without it, I couldn't have been as effective as I was for all those years"

I had a job which needed empathy. I couldn't give it in every case because what the person was struggling with eg MH, anxiety was outside of my experience. It's arrogant to think you can have empathy in every situation. But you can apply your knowledge via psychology, psychiatry, sociology, medical etc to apply help.

People saying that they know how/when to perform empathy, but don't actually feel it, explains so much. I've always thought that about 80% of the time shows of empathy seem false. Apparently I was right!

Unfortunately I do feel a lot of empathy for people, it's often very painful and debilitating (like a sad story might make me feel terrible for a couple of days, I wouldn't even go near anything that looked like it might be to with sick children). It's so unpleasant for me that I have to try to protect myself a bit, which means not making a big song and dance about things.

I teach autistic children and I find they're more empathetic rather than less. Like if one child gets very upset the others will usually get very upset too.
I heard it said recently that what it really is is that neurotypicals lack empathy with autistic s in the same way as autistics lack empathy with neurotypicals. So it's like an issue with reading others feelings when we don't relate rather than lack of empathy.

I have no reason to assume autism or any neurodivergence in myself. I don't find this impacts my ability to 'surface' interact with people - I instinctively know how to act in social situations, but when I react with sympathy or care, I'm not actually feeling any emotion about it. I can feel sorry for someone in the sense of I understand that what they're going through is hard, but I don't automatically imagine what it's like to go through or relate in any way.

Someone asked early on what stops me from doing bad things. In essence I'm not sure! If you asked me if I could kill someone, I'd imagine doing it and get grossed out or flinch at the bodily impact, rather than immediately think about the pain it would cause their family. I'm more attune to physical than emotional pain.

I've also done bad things before which were 'fine' as noone knew about them, so they didn't have an 'impact'. But that's the kind of thing other people would find astounding and say "but what about the impact on X person" and I don't know what to say, as I know it would upset/hurt/impact X person, and that's bad, but it's not my primary concern because I don't feel it, so it has less weight.

I'm really aware of how psychopathic that sounds! I swear on the balance I'm more good than bad!

Jazzy1000

Are they all getting upset for the other child or are some of them being triggered themselves by the noose, disruption, change etc?