Empathy

Empathy is something that you emotionally feel. There is no texture to it, but it is there. Empathy is an emotional response to a stimuli that someone witnesses.

Empathy can be genuine and it can also be sarcastic...

Example:

Genuine - Helping someone less fortunate than you.

Sarcasm - When you hear a dropped plate or glass shatter at a restaurant and someone states "welp, don't have to wash that one anymore!" That compassion goes out to the dishwashing person. :-D

I had empathy when I was young and foolish, and did not understand who deserved it. Am I empathetic to a drug addict? Am I empathetic to a homeless person and at this point who deserves empathy? it’s all measure by someone’s willingness and mood from day-to-day. How many times have you heard someone my dog is a rescue dog. is that empathy or is that them bragging wanting empathy? One could fashion an argument I show no empathy for a drug addict as they knew what they were getting into, on the other hand, one could say I have no empathy for a veteran that lost his legs because he knew he was eventually going to go to a war as a soldier. Empathy is a feeling that some and some don’t some more than others depending on the day and the mood. So all I really wish is you have empathy to me as you read this. as I wish I had more

AKA: Terribly written.

Interesting topic. Slightly surprised that there weren't more responses, but I think the grammar and verbiage used may have been a little confusing.

I am not an empathetic or sympathetic person. I had never thought of myself as narcissistic, (conceited, yes), but maybe I am.

In perusing the older threads looking for something else, I came across this topic. I shall contribute my experience...

All my childhood and all my adulthood, I have been self-sacrificing and also been the peacemaker/peace keeper. I learned about the term empathy about 7 or so years ago, but never really understood my life's path up to that point.

It was not until I learned about empathy, empaths narcissism, et al, did I start to realize that I have been pigeon-holed my entire life by narcissistic personality disorder. It also wasn't until I looked within my inner circle of people that I found a friend and two immediate family members were narcissists. I alienated and banished the now ex-friend and have been building distance between one of my sisters and myself ever since. When my mother entered the dying phase, my sisters and I did what we had to and have gone back to our respective lives after our mother's passing.

Since commencing the second half of my life, no longer physically sick from a surgically corrected diseased large intestine (genetic from my father's side of the family) and no longer being mentally abused my a narcissistic mother, I am almost done cleaning up everything so I may get to the clean slate. Not many people get the chance to have a clean slate in life. Not many people get the second chance in life to do their life 'right.'

As an empath, I have to learn how to protect myself and no longer get pigeon-holed. This comes along with cleaning up everything to get to the clean slate.

Understand, It was a different time, I was referring to more recent mean kids, now there has been recent killings done by teens, caught on video...

Hi TM45. I have to agree with you on what you said, but unfortunately there are more reasons people act like that. I was the object of bullying in school for about 6 years straight and the ratio was about 15 : 1. I was small, underweight compared to others who outweighted me by 25 to 35 lbs. I moved away and things changed. I grew from about 5 inches shorter and about 135 lbs to 6'3" and 235. I worked at a night club and fights were the norm. I became good at my job and entered many Tough Man fights. Later I went back to the area of my childhood and I began collecting overdue debts from long ago in a bad way. Some got hurt in a bad way. My point here is I actually became an a*#hole and very mean to protect myself from people and 50 years later I still will fight at the drop of a hat if I see a bullying either physically or mentally and something just snaps when I do. I never wanted to be that kind of person but situations can turn a person. We as a whole need to change the reasons for that type of character I became.

A lot of it is the parents fault, kids grew up in the back of Suburbans/Expeditions as mom or dad driving rude, tail gating, hearing parents cussing out other drivers as the kids also were watching videos of killing and smashing up shit....

I was a volunteer firefighter and worked for a private Ambulance company and I have seen too much trauma. For the last 30 years, I have been trying to solve human suffering and I have found that Hubris from the Bible renamed narcissism by Sigmund Freud is the problem. These types of personalities are psychopaths, sociopaths and will never change. I use the true-life movie Lorenzos Oil as empathy that we need to follow. You can read articles of a father and mother who found a cure for their son but was too late. They did in fact prevent the suffering of other boys that had this condition. Bullying has been a problem for I don't know how long. A narcissist just loves to see others suffering and will not search, read, and question in order to solve the problem. Can people from this site find an end to bullying? I think anyone can do it. Yet the school system likely will prevent it. What does everyone think?