Not me! *pukes empathy everywhere*
If all we puked was hearts, the activity of puking would have a totally different meaning.
:thinkinghard:
If all we puked was hearts, the activity of puking would have a totally different meaning.
:thinkinghard:
I did run out of empathy once and it wasn’t a voluntary thing. When two long-term family problems were both in major crisis in close succession some time ago, I got a bad dose of “compassion fatigue”. The only feelings I had for a couple of weeks were anxiety and sadness - the rest was just numbness, blindness and emptiness. It was horrible. For me the need to take rational control of empathy (e.g. using well developed Fe for INFJs) is pretty important – it’s finite and can run dry.
On a more general level empathy can get me tangled up in other people’s problems without any control of the process or outcomes. I do find it impossible, however, to respond to difficult behaviour by turning nasty without doing myself awful harm: some of these are the sort of moments that I remember with dread years, even decades, later and wish I could undo them. As several others have suggested, there is a whole spectrum of possible responses to difficult people other than being too nice or rather nasty, and they are probably well summarised in terms such as assertiveness, setting realistic expectations, setting boundaries, managed avoidance, etc. I didn’t find these necessarily easy to use up front, they need conscious effort and take energy, but it gets better with habit.
Where I run into very difficult empathy challenges are with what I think of as unconditional relationships – close family in my case - where withdrawal is much more difficult and damaging than with more distant relationships. The problems I face are not really like those that have been talked about so far in this thread, where it may well be reasonable to place some sort of blame on the other. I am primary carer for two members of my family who both suffer from significant mental illness problems – “primary carer” means I am their main support, advocate, first port of call for anything they can’t do for themselves, and I’m also their next of kin.
One of these, my father, is nearly 99 years old, is in a care home and has an unusual form of dementia. I have power of attorney for him and handle all his financial and medical affairs. This has been a slow bereavement lasting over 5 years so far: I have had to gradually remove his independence from him in violation of all my natural instincts – his mobility, his finances, his medical decisions, his home. We go through crises of one sort or another every few months - these are mainly medical problems now, but in the past included things like sorting out subsidence in his house prior to selling it or getting his driving licence revoked. Empathy is so important in maintaining our relationship, but if I get in too deep it puts me into the shoes of someone very close to me who can be rational one minute, have bizarre delusions the next, is infirm, deaf and who is slowly withdrawing from the world – it can do my head in and I sometimes have to fight hard not to get fearful, angry, guilty and frustrated with him. Again, if I get in too deep I can find making hard decisions for him is emotionally impossible, so I have to keep a close but safe distance. I’m just hoping he makes it to 100!
The other family member has a severe chronic depression / anxiety disorder that has resulted in the risk of suicide - we have had several crisis episodes over many years each needing several months of hospitalisation. The treatment medicines are nasty, have a lot of unpleasant side effects, and don’t fully control the situation. Empathy gives me at least a partial insider experience of the problem without which I couldn’t share it – but unmanaged empathy meant that at one point I ended up unable to be rational about things and risked severe anxiety and depression myself which helped no-one. I had to learn to take care of myself as well as the other person and back off to a safe distance empathically – this felt like a betrayal to both of us at the time, but it was the only way through. This is a more challenging relationship problem than that with my father.
For me, there is no withdrawal from these unconditional relationships – they are truly unconditional! Over the years, and after making many mistakes and getting a lot of scars, I have some coping tools and we have survived, even thrived a bit. I have found that sharing the problems of other people can be a huge privilege - though it does sometimes feel like I’m living on the slope of an active volcano. Of course, empathy is only one small part of coping with these sort of things, but learning to use it in a managed way has been vital – it’s hard work and I’m still learning …
On a more general level empathy can get me tangled up in other people’s problems without any control of the process or outcomes. I do find it impossible, however, to respond to difficult behaviour by turning nasty without doing myself awful harm: some of these are the sort of moments that I remember with dread years, even decades, later and wish I could undo them. As several others have suggested, there is a whole spectrum of possible responses to difficult people other than being too nice or rather nasty, and they are probably well summarised in terms such as assertiveness, setting realistic expectations, setting boundaries, managed avoidance, etc. I didn’t find these necessarily easy to use up front, they need conscious effort and take energy, but it gets better with habit.
Where I run into very difficult empathy challenges are with what I think of as unconditional relationships – close family in my case - where withdrawal is much more difficult and damaging than with more distant relationships. The problems I face are not really like those that have been talked about so far in this thread, where it may well be reasonable to place some sort of blame on the other. I am primary carer for two members of my family who both suffer from significant mental illness problems – “primary carer” means I am their main support, advocate, first port of call for anything they can’t do for themselves, and I’m also their next of kin.
One of these, my father, is nearly 99 years old, is in a care home and has an unusual form of dementia. I have power of attorney for him and handle all his financial and medical affairs. This has been a slow bereavement lasting over 5 years so far: I have had to gradually remove his independence from him in violation of all my natural instincts – his mobility, his finances, his medical decisions, his home. We go through crises of one sort or another every few months - these are mainly medical problems now, but in the past included things like sorting out subsidence in his house prior to selling it or getting his driving licence revoked. Empathy is so important in maintaining our relationship, but if I get in too deep it puts me into the shoes of someone very close to me who can be rational one minute, have bizarre delusions the next, is infirm, deaf and who is slowly withdrawing from the world – it can do my head in and I sometimes have to fight hard not to get fearful, angry, guilty and frustrated with him. Again, if I get in too deep I can find making hard decisions for him is emotionally impossible, so I have to keep a close but safe distance. I’m just hoping he makes it to 100!
The other family member has a severe chronic depression / anxiety disorder that has resulted in the risk of suicide - we have had several crisis episodes over many years each needing several months of hospitalisation. The treatment medicines are nasty, have a lot of unpleasant side effects, and don’t fully control the situation. Empathy gives me at least a partial insider experience of the problem without which I couldn’t share it – but unmanaged empathy meant that at one point I ended up unable to be rational about things and risked severe anxiety and depression myself which helped no-one. I had to learn to take care of myself as well as the other person and back off to a safe distance empathically – this felt like a betrayal to both of us at the time, but it was the only way through. This is a more challenging relationship problem than that with my father.
For me, there is no withdrawal from these unconditional relationships – they are truly unconditional! Over the years, and after making many mistakes and getting a lot of scars, I have some coping tools and we have survived, even thrived a bit. I have found that sharing the problems of other people can be a huge privilege - though it does sometimes feel like I’m living on the slope of an active volcano. Of course, empathy is only one small part of coping with these sort of things, but learning to use it in a managed way has been vital – it’s hard work and I’m still learning …
When down to the bone like this I give the problem some crazy and then door slam, really tired of how many of the normal people and the malefactors are when it comes to taking advantage.
Empathy is not just sharing the feelings of others, but also understanding them. So if you understand someone's pain and can feel x emotion e.g. first poster indicated understanding and feeling the anger... Just didn't care they felt that way. They still empathized... Just didn't give a ratz azz.
I empathized all the time, doesn't mean I must give a damn about how they feel, if they deserve it.
I empathized all the time, doesn't mean I must give a damn about how they feel, if they deserve it.