Page 6 | Is it normal to not feel empathy

RavensWig · 26/10/2021 09:27

I'm quite glad to have read this OP, thanks. I've often wondered - as has my DH, and actually my DB mentioned it once - why I have absolute raw emotion when it comes to animals, but less so when it comes to people, particularly if I don't know them.

It's not completely absent but it just feels distant somehow. Relieved I'm not so weird after all.

Lollipop444 · 26/10/2021 09:30

What bad things have you done before op?!!

amillionmenonmars · 26/10/2021 09:43

I suspect that many people who proudly proclaim that they are empathetic are in fact grief grabbers. I know people who are wildly over the top in their emotional response to other people's pain or sadness. In truth, I believe they enjoy it - it becomes more about them than the sufferer. There is also a degree of competitive pity. They must be wonderful, compassionate people because they feel so much more profoundly than everyone else - even if it is not their pain and grief to own.

I think that if you work in a filed where who support people who are experiencing loss, pain, tragedy, terrible circumstances then you need to be able to park your emotions to some extent. Those who claim they could not do their job without empathy - I'm not convinced. I have had to support people through some terrible events that go far and away beyond my own experiences. To say that I empathized with them would be to trivialize their experiences.

thepeopleversuswork · 26/10/2021 10:29

@amillionmenonmars

I’m with you: I’m very suspicious of people who profess to feel huge empathy for other people’s grief like this. I also think unless it’s someone you are very close to it usually comes from a selfish place.

It’s like these people who always gravitate towards the person in the group who has the most problems. I think some people get a vicarious thrill from “fixing” other people and I would always give them a wide berth.

saraclara · 26/10/2021 10:38

@amillionmenonmars

I suspect that many people who proudly proclaim that they are empathetic are in fact grief grabbers. I know people who are wildly over the top in their emotional response to other people's pain or sadness. In truth, I believe they enjoy it - it becomes more about them than the sufferer. There is also a degree of competitive pity. They must be wonderful, compassionate people because they feel so much more profoundly than everyone else - even if it is not their pain and grief to own.

I think that if you work in a filed where who support people who are experiencing loss, pain, tragedy, terrible circumstances then you need to be able to park your emotions to some extent. Those who claim they could not do their job without empathy - I'm not convinced. I have had to support people through some terrible events that go far and away beyond my own experiences. To say that I empathized with them would be to trivialize their experiences.

I think your definition of empathy is different from mine.

I don't claim to feel the same emotion as others. But I understand it.
I could put myself in my pupils' situation and see what they were seeing and understand what strange and minor thing it was that was bothering them.
There would be other workers in my classroom who couldn't get into the non-verbal children's heads at all, and would be very impatient with them and with the strategies I asked them to employ with those children. Yet I can pretty much guarantee they'd be on their sofas crying at the kid with cancer, like the gogglebox people.
Empathy and sentimentality are very different things.

I don't feel the same as my friend who physically wants to throw up if she touches foam rubber. But I don't laugh at her for it and I don't put foam rubber in her way. Because I have a different (and more logical to me!) fear. So I know how it feels to be panicky and terrified. I'm not feeling it for her, I'm just understanding it. That's empathy to me.

Original poster

Polmuggle · 26/10/2021 10:40

I don't feel the same as my friend who physically wants to throw up if she touches foam rubber. But I don't laugh at her for it and I don't put foam rubber in her way. Because I have a different (and more logical to me!) fear. So I know how it feels to be panicky and terrified. I'm not feeling it for her, I'm just understanding it. That's empathy to me.

Whereas I wouldn't put foam rubber in her way because she'd get angry with me or dislike me. Not because it would upset her...

OP posts:

Clandestin · 26/10/2021 10:46

[quote thepeopleversuswork]@amillionmenonmars

I’m with you: I’m very suspicious of people who profess to feel huge empathy for other people’s grief like this. I also think unless it’s someone you are very close to it usually comes from a selfish place.

It’s like these people who always gravitate towards the person in the group who has the most problems. I think some people get a vicarious thrill from “fixing” other people and I would always give them a wide berth.[/quote]
I agree. My mother does a version of this, entirely unconsciously — she seeks out sad stories because they make her feel better about her own life, and she chooses to be around people who are ill, unlucky, or vulnerable over and over because (again entirely unconsciously) it makes her feel powerful and fortunate that she can help them. She’s unaware of how quickly she switches off if in the presence of someone confident/successful/fortunate/self-sufficient, even if it’s her own adult children.

amillionmenonmars · 26/10/2021 10:46

Those who walk amongst us who are super good at empathy are also often those pestering me to sponsor their latest charity Peru mountain trek or sky dive.

MrsColon · 26/10/2021 10:50

The DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Waspie · 26/10/2021 11:02

My mum thinks I'm a sociopath because she took me to see Bambi when I was four and I was the only person in the cinema not crying. She tested her "theory" by taking me to see Dumbo - same reaction.

You're supposed to cry at the "Lion King"? Seriously? I can't understand why people would get emotional about cartoon animals. I couldn't at four years old and I can't now over forty years later.

I also don't understand why strangers would want to watch programs about other people's illness, pain and suffering. Emotional vampires. I don't see how it helps the suffering people in any way. If you want to help in some way then donate money to the charity, or give up your time or skills to the cause. I fail to see how watching TV and crying is in any way helpful to anyone.

saraclara · 26/10/2021 11:09

@Polmuggle

I don't feel the same as my friend who physically wants to throw up if she touches foam rubber. But I don't laugh at her for it and I don't put foam rubber in her way. Because I have a different (and more logical to me!) fear. So I know how it feels to be panicky and terrified. I'm not feeling it for her, I'm just understanding it. That's empathy to me.

Whereas I wouldn't put foam rubber in her way because she'd get angry with me or dislike me. Not because it would upset her...

That couple of lines explains how you think and feel really well, OP. It's interesting how we put controls on our behaviour in different ways.

50ShadesOfCatholic · 26/10/2021 11:11

I was just like you! Then I was diagnosed with C-PTSD, had a lot of therapy etc and now I can relate to emotional stuff. Might you be traumatised?

saraclara · 26/10/2021 11:11

Having explained that I have the strong empathy needed in my job (and now in my retirement voluntary work) I absolutely do not consider myself 'an empath'. Everything I've read about people who call themselves empaths makes me want to scream! They almost always seem to be quite selfish and sentimental, sucking other people's pain and making it about them!

(I'm probably being unfair, but despite being empathetic, I'm a very practical and logical person)

Hemingwayscats · 26/10/2021 11:13

DH said he felt like this before we had DC but as soon as DC1 was born, he totally changed and now struggles to even watch anything with sick children.

Simplelobsterhat · 26/10/2021 11:13

I'm no psychologist so can't really comment but I'm surprised about people giving examples of being more upset about children since they had kids or being upset in lion King if they think about their own parents as examples of empathy- to me that's about your experience and your feelings, so I don't see why it makes you more empathetic?

I've always seen empathy as being able to imagine how someone feels, put yourself in their shoes etc and react to them accordingly e.g. might you pick up on the fact that someone is uncomfortable in a situation despite them not saying so, or realise someone is acting in a certain because they are feeling xyz etc. Not whether you cry at things or are actually really actively upset by other people's problems!

Maybe I'm wrong on that but certainly in training for my job we talk about showing empathy and it's to do with identifying how the other person is feeling, not feeling it ourselves.

MasterGland · 26/10/2021 11:21

I have always had high very levels of empathy, even before I had DC. It has some serious drawbacks; as a child I would lay awake at night sobbing about starving children in Ethiopia. I found it very hard not to obsess about the suffering of others.

QueeniesCroft · 26/10/2021 11:23

I think that for some people, empathy can be as much a practical thing as an emotional one. I don't sob at images of sick children, or feel faint at the sight of an injured animal, but I do have a strong urge to do something to help. My sobbing would not help the animal, or cure the child. It might help if I righted a rigged* sheep, or donated/raised money for research into a particular condition, though. So I do that.

My family is populated largely by very emotional people who make any crisis about them, their distress and their needs (I mean when the crises have nothing actually to do with them). They think that they are better people than me because I don't weep and wail. As an example, there was a young person missing a few years ago. My parents made a huge fuss about it and were terribly distressed, but they did not join in the search, they did not offer help to support the parents and they did not attend the eventual funeral. I think that empathy should be an action as well as an emotion, so I did.

flipped over onto its back

saraclara · 26/10/2021 11:24

Maybe I'm wrong on that but certainly in training for my job we talk about showing empathy and it's to do with identifying how the other person is feeling, not feeling it ourselves.

Exactly. Psychologists and psychiatrists would quickly go insane if they felt everything that their clients feel. But of course empathy is vital in their roles.

There is massive confusion about what empathy means.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 26/10/2021 11:43

@steff13

I had a friend who tried for many years to get pregnant, then she finally did. I cried when she told me, because I was so happy for her. That's normal.

I thought the yawn test was the ultimate test for empathy. If someone near you yawns and you don't, no empathy.

Oh, I play this game with the animals. It's very entertaining, especially with cats, as they're supposed to be the ultimate self centred, uncaring little sociopaths - albeit yawning is also a non verbal means of communicating that you aren't about to attack them, there's no other threats around and all is well.

But then again, I did essentially grow up scrabbling around on the floor with the animals rather than the arsehole humans in the house. So I was always going to understand/empathise with their feelings more than sensationalised accounts of shitty things happening to other people repackaged for entertainment, to elicit cash out of you or to make you feel better about yourself and your life.

Lollipop444 · 26/10/2021 12:15

“
I also don't understand why strangers would want to watch programs about other people's illness, pain and suffering. Emotional vampires. I don't see how it helps the suffering people in any way. If you want to help in some way then donate money to the charity, or give up your time or skills to the cause. I fail to see how watching TV and crying is in any way helpful to anyone.”

Yes this is me too, I don’t get it at all.

chocolatecerealcampingbrekkie · 26/10/2021 12:21

I am more of a softie since having my dc. I am even thinking about cancelling our first camping trip next year due to the terrifying case of the kidnapped child in Oz.

Embroidery · 26/10/2021 12:22

Like they say in sex education, if youve had a bad childhood you struggle with all emotions.

Also on (esp celebrity but also normal) Googlebox theyre acting and acutely aware of their public perception. Not showing what the public would percieve as appropriate empathy would be v bad for their reputation = work.

You arent being filmed so dont need to worry about this.

JudgeJ · 26/10/2021 12:40

@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?

Presumably the people on this programme are well paid to show their 'genuine emotions' .

Clandestin · 26/10/2021 12:45

@Embroidery

Like they say in sex education, if youve had a bad childhood you struggle with all emotions.

Also on (esp celebrity but also normal) Googlebox theyre acting and acutely aware of their public perception. Not showing what the public would percieve as appropriate empathy would be v bad for their reputation = work.

You arent being filmed so dont need to worry about this.

Absolutely. These people aren't you in front of the TV, they're people who know there's a camera in their faces as they watch, and that only their most witty, comical, frightened or emotional reactions will be broadcast. And that these have a huge impact on their public perception.

Mnusernc · 26/10/2021 12:52

The test is, if you see a grotesque crime scene photo do you feel upset or interested?