To think I’m not a nice person?

[He1h]

I CAN be nice but overall I don’t think I am. There are genuine sentiments I feels where I want to do the right thing or where I feel genuine empathy towards someone. Mainly family or close friends which I guess is normal.

But there’s so many things I hear about where I basically can’t understand how anyone could be bothered… examples…

Stepping on a snail or killing a spider in your home. I feel nothing, maybe a mild acknowledgment that it’s a bit cruel but a few seconds later I’m over it.

My friend’s family pet died when she was in her late twenties and she was devastated for around 3 weeks. I thought it was ridiculous (I didn’t say that obviously).

People getting bothered when they’re above the age of 18 and their birthday can’t be celebrated on that specific day.. who cares?!

Gender reveals… I literally could not give a fuck what gender your baby is, I do not want to have a ‘reveal’ because I am simply not interested.

When someone’s child is crying at a park of soft play because they want the toy my child has…I have zero compassion and just want said child to go away.

Whoever is about to cross the road and I could slow down and stop, I don’t, even if elderly. I simply don’t care.

If my toddler needs to use the disabled bathroom when we are out, and the baby changing is in there, I will actively rush past a wheelchair user on their way in (if I can manage it in a socially acceptable way). I don’t care that they may need it more than me/DD.

There’s lots more. I can be very kind and considerate but largely I think I’m mostly about myself/immediate family and couldn’t care less about anything else. I often think I will make up for this shitty behaviour later on in life. Then of course I don’t. How awful are these things? Am I just a bit shit?

I was specifically talking about pets.

My own father died after a decades long illness and it took me the best part of a year to feel okay. But he was not 94, and he suffered for a long time.

If a child had cancer for 10 years and died at 19, it’s awful forever and there’s no timeline for that.

But if you have a cat you loved and it dies at 16 then I don’t think you should be grieving to the point others notice it for weeks and weeks.

Thing is there was no irony to see (ironically)

Please see a therapist. You need to find your happy place again.

Hi mean, I am not a fan of gender reveal parties either, but each to their own. The other examples may show lack of empathy though and as others have said you might want to look into this. Not sure they make you an awful person though. I probably don't share your examples, but there are other things I do that I think do show a lack of empathy in different ways, certainly when I was younger I was also extremely tackles. I am working on this. In other ways I often have a lot of empathy, but then am at a loss to know what to do to help, which just makes me feel useless.

I assume you want your children to grow up to be likeable caring people, so it might help to examine how you feel and react in these situations. Also, as your children grow up and become more independent, having empathy might help you understand them better and react better to teenage years ect. It is good that you have recognised this and are reflecting on it. Hope all goes well for you.

You sound like a complete cnut and end up alone.

The hilarious thing here is the nice people are the ones responding with kindness and the ones that think they are nice are telling the OP that they are the devil and should hand any children over to SS immediately.

I haven’t read the full thread but did read all OP’s posts.
I can say if someone behaved towards my profoundly disabled child needing a disabled toilet to change their normal child I’d walk right in there with them - they could decide whether they wanted to see a doubly incontinent non-ambulatory child be changed with them or not.
Narcissists sicken me. To my very core.
Im married to one and this is precisely the kind of self- absorbed bollocks he would spout given the right audience.
Therapy is a waste of money for narcissists.
Live your life OP and when you get your comeuppance I’m sure you’ll recalibrate your lack of feeling.

You are a selfish loser

Maybe you are just more honest about your feeling than other people. Many people only really care about close family. It’s not what you feel that would make you a bad person it’s what you do

You sound depressed, OP. It sounds as if you feel angry towards the world, and have decided that there's no point in caring about other people (or insects and animals). Therapy might be helpful for you to figure out why you've changed, and to be sure that you aren't modelling unkind behaviour for your child.

The disabled toilet thing is a misnomer I think, everything else was pretty honest but not massively worrying.

Narcissists don’t worry about their behaviour, or allow it to be questioned in any way, so you will never find a narc posting like this.

Someone earlier hit the nail by stating it sounds like compassion fatigue or some sort of PND. She’s clearly feeling brave and saying the quiet stuff out loud. Perhaps a bit of self flagellation.

i don think she sounds like a terribly person but should let the kid with the wet nappy wait.

I don't think it's that you're not a nice person; obviously, you have empathy and compassion for those close to you. However, it seems you struggle to extend that same understanding to people or situations that don't directly affect you. I can understand the issues around gender reveals and all that, but other aspects might be less understandable and unfairly judged. Plenty of people speed up, rush into the toilets when their child needs changing, stand on creatures and not be upset all day ,have no understanding of losing a dog or care about a stranger and not everyone can put themselves in others' shoes.

By the way, I'm still not over my dog dying, and that was eight years ago. Some people understand and get it , while others don’t. It doesn't make them less nice just because they can’t understand it. Also, the world would be a pretty boring place if everyone were the same! 🤷🏻‍♀️😅

It’s not about whether you’re nice or not. It’s about your brain being wired differently. There may well be a professional ‘label’ for it, but that will not change the way you think or act. I’d be more concerned that your lack of caring could hurt others. And, sadly, others may eventually learn to care less about you. You could take your thoughts/words to your gp and ask for help, if you want it. Understanding the reasons for your thinking may be of great help to yourself and others around you.

you might be an entitled sociopath, which would explain all the behaviour.

If there are 10 kids who see another kid fall and hurt their knee and cry, 8 will feel varying degrees of compassion and be upset, 1 will be beside themselves with sympathy, and 1 will feel nothing, and maybe even pleasure/satisfaction/amusement.

If this kid also lives a secure life with lots of love and money, then they might grow up to be like you.

Hard to know if your wiring is more conditioned or inherited, but either way, imo you should have been brought up to at least know how important it is to be nice.

@Backinblack2025
I disagree (for above stated reasons of being married to a diagnosed (the rare thing! Narcissist). There are plenty of ways people like this pretend to care (about their own child) but don’t. They are irritated up to irate about people not recognising them as special - that’s the core point. Doesn’t matter what she’s saying to make it sound like PND it won’t be.
And it’s categorically wrong to say narcissistic people don’t care about their behaviour- they don’t in the sense that they’ll probably act on their desires but they calculate how to spin it to gain attention (good or bad) and worry if they overstep about repercussions for things like career or valued friends (who give them lots of what they meant), family (especially the parent who made them feel special- namely do they don’t get “uncovered” to them).

You sound like a nasty arsehole. World would be a better place without your attitude.

OP, I found your post refreshingly honest and authentic. (I've read all your posts but not the full thread so apols for any repetition). It seems that you only have so many fucks to give right now (for whatever reason) and you are rightly and rationally assigning them to your friends and family.

The things about a globally connected society with instant news updates is, we are expected to give a fuck about absolutely everything and anything, but it's simply not possible to do that, except in the most superficial way eg issuing solemn Facebook statements when a.n.other celeb dies or a tragedy happens several thousand miles away ("..solidarity").

I am not like you - five mins ago I went to some lengths to rescue and revive a tiny fruit fly that suicided in my tea - but I think you are more rational than I am.

Is that where you got the idea for this thread ?

I think the first five examples are fine.
I don’t care about them and I don’t feel bad that I don’t. But if somebody else cares about them I will take an interest.

@Cannongoose

Yes narcissists are absolutely capable of feigning any kind of behaviour when it suits them, I would imagine the majority of the fathers for justice are NPD’s.

Your ex-partner and anyone like him are not posting their innermost thoughts on anonymous forums looking for feedback though.

I don’t think you are a psychopath or even a sociopath either.

Your examples are interesting because many of them I think are normal and nothing to do with being nice or not. But others do seem to lack compassion for others, eg not slowing down when you could to let an elderly person cross, or rushing to get the disabled loo. With regard to those, can you say why they aren’t nice or why they lack compassion?

I am no expert but I do listen to the odd criminal profiling podcast and from what I have gathered, psychopaths are not self loathing or down on themselves. They don’t question whether they are nice, they don’t care and don’t want to change. They won’t have memories of times they felt genuine compassion.

Can I ask…have you experienced much anxiety or fear in life, either on behalf of yourself or someone else? Do you worry about things, or even feel fear in terms of physical things like reckless activity or extreme sport? Did you ever hurt an animal purely for your own pleasure or entertainment? Do you ever feel worried or burdened by serious responsibility for others in your job or personal life, I don’t mean worried about the impact on yourself but rather worried about doing enough or doing things well so that others won’t be hurt or disadvantaged. If you found yourself on a thread on here late a night and someone seemed suicidal, how would feel if you had to engage with them? How would you handle that situation?

I would be interested in those things if you would like to say but understand you may not want to. My impression so far though is that while you may not be the most selfless empath out there, you are really just a bit emotionally withdrawn, defensive, jaded.

Tbh I think more people are like you than they would care to admit. I see this behaviour all the time in London! I feel like the city brings out the worst in people, including me. There’s so much bad behaviour you just end up doing it yourself (I am generally considerate but lately have started being really aggressive, I think I am just sick and tired of all the anti social behaviour).

You seem to have a complete lack of empathy and this is leading you to act badly when you think you can get away with it. In particular towards those you perceive to be weaker than yourself - children, animals, disabled people.
It sounds like you meet some criteria for antisocial personality disorder - if you want to change the way you behave then therapy such as CBT can help.
i note that only 1/3 think you are not being unreasonable but wonder if this is because of the way you have phrased the question (ie 1/3 think you are not being unreasonable to believe you are a horrible person rather than 1/3 thinking your behaviour is not unreasonable)

This is a good point. I used to always be putting others first and I had a long period of being a carer. I’ve noticed since burning out after a few really tough years of it I lack empathy and am so much angrier. I have wondered whether it is compassion fatigue.

The birthdays, gender reveal and child crying as they want a toy at soft play are bad examples because I don’t think any of us give a crap to be honest. I could care less about the gender of other people’s children, other people’s kids crying because they want a toy my child is using doesn’t make me feel bad or anything really and birthdays for other adults I also don’t care about. Weird examples!

The rushing past someone in a wheelchair to get to the bathroom is really weird. How often does that even come up?!