This cannot be Empathy..

What you are describing here may not related to empathy. Empathy is recognizing, understanding, and appreciating how other people feel. Empathy involves being able to articulate your understanding of another's perspective and behaving in a way that respects others' feelings' Qoute rom Bar On EQ 2.0 Emotional Intelligence Assessment.

George Anderson

Sounds like me and I would consider myself empathetic.

I would like you to bear with me on this response as I highlight and point out some things from your post that it might be useful for you to reflect upon.

Example 1: Lets say hypothetically, my girlfriend cheats on me by going to a bachelorette party and does stuff with a male stripper. I find out, become furious and upset, but when I uncover the invitation to the event on our computer it is dressed up pretentiously and girly, with a stupid social slogan like "Its time for us girls to have some fun!", thinking about her then it seems like she is trying to fit in with her peers, but its the slogan itself that triggers the feeling because the slogan is pathetic and because its being issued for a night to go party so it then just seems really naive and short sighted, and I start to feel overwhelming umm I dont know what the feeling is yet so I'll just say 'tenderness' towards her. Immediately my anger is diffused and I just feel so bad for her that I just want to forgive her, be gentle and tell her that it is ok. I would like to ask you whether or not you are afraid to express your anger? Have there been situations in your past where someone has expressed anger which you feel was out of line - when you just wanted to be forgiven or accepted? Where in your life are you not able to be authentic and do you try to fit in? With your very reaction to this situation are you trying to fit in somehow?

Example 2: My little brother deliberately breaks something valuable of mine and when I confront him his excuse is that he is pretending to be a ninja from the Naruto series. My only feeling then was again, that 'tenderness' and 'gentleness' like I just realized this is a fragile, naive person, so I had to be careful in handling them. Immediately I forgave him and just wanted to comfort him (why I don't know, its not like he needed it). Again, same questions as above. When have you not been handled with tenderness and gentleness and you needed it or wanted it? The same theme is popping up about forgiveness and comfort.

Example 3: In my entire life I could never ever bash someone that was vulnerable and defenseless emotionally. Like someone overweight. Whenever I hear someone disparaging and dropping someone else's self esteem it just brings that feeling full force. My feelings are often played out in a sort of cognitive verbose where I communicate to an invisible projection of them, and try to say comforting things like ohhh no its ok, dont feel sad please. Are you vulnerable and defenseless emotionally but trying to put up a facade? It sounds like there is really some stuff going on underneath, including some anger that you feel unable to express for fear of judgment.

Example 4: My friend who plays WoW and usually pretends to be a character in that world. Other people make fun of him for it, but when he makes out his 'displays' I just get caught with so much sadness I just want to hold him and comfort him with some words. Again those feelings of 'this person is fragile and I must be gentle'. But the feeling is more complex then that, there is always an accompanying 'sadness' to it.. Ditto on above - who are you really?

The feeling makes me feel so 'tender' and unarmed. Like there is nothing that would propel me to hurt the other person and I just feel like I want to be so gentle to them. So, look, I know this will sound really weird for a lot of people, but it is what I feel and I can't control it. Not that I don't want to feel this way anymore I just want to know if there is a name for it.

Thanks.

I have received input on this issue before, and it was suggested that this was related to awkward social situations. I cannot agree. Maybe it is, but I do not think it is a cause and effect relationship. As it happens a lot in those situations but also happens a lot in situations that do not relate to that cause.

I can't even say that it is empathy, because in those situations I do not feel any emotional withdraw which I could relate to. I do not get horrified and acknowledged that there situation could happen to me. I know what empathy is, sort of, and I just don't think that's what it is. I don't feel fear or bad for myself because there hurt could be my hurt. In fact I feel very strong, emotionally. Actually I would say that I feel very stoic during that moment when I get the feeling. I feel sort of emotionally superior, again, like I feel this person is somehow inferior and fragile and I have to be very gentle and careful. But its a strong feeling and makes me cry and act in uncontrollable ways. This is sort of hindering my day to day life.

As far as empathy goes though, I am really squeamish, I posted about this too in the psychology section under the title 'Squeemishness becasue of truama?'. I would like some answers, thank you.

Thank you

I personally feel that this is just the opposite of empathy. It sounds as if you have a lot of stuff buried that you don't want to let open up and so you push your emotions and feelings out on other people - living through them. That is also why you make the comment about being emotionally strong and stoic - it sounds like you need to do some deep soul searching and figure out for yourself what it is your really feel - own your own emotions.[/u]

Yes, it is not empathy. However, it is not lack of empathy either.

As far as my knowledge and experience is concerned, this is a sort of weakness that resists you from behaving emotionally intelligent. This is not a very rare case in my views. I have seen people having similar behavioral patterns. This is even lack of assertiveness.

I would like to know, whether you feel that you lack on self-esteem or self confidence?


thanks....