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Poll Empathy/compassion - How Much Do You Have & Why?

How much empathy/compassion do you have?


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Abstract

MyPTSD Pro
Does the capacity to have empathy come to you very easily and to an unusual extent, so called "normal"/average extent, or with difficulty? Compassion is when we care but are not necessarily personally feeling the same feelings the other person is feeling in the way one does with empathy but I think we will include it here. Emotional numbing obviously puts a spanner in the works and I don't want to exclude those who are emotionally numb hence including compassion. How are you generally?

If anyone wants to discuss why they think they are like they are then they can. Also how they feel it has affected their lives. Has it played a part in putting you at risk or protecting you? Do you distrust it and avoid it, pretend you have less than you really have, pretend you have more? In other words - what is your relationship with empathy and compassion and to what extent do you exhibit them?

The first three choices are the main answers.

The second group of three are merely qualifying the first lot. Just answer the first lot, or both - your choice!

Minor edits for clarity.
 
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I voted 'little'. Mostly becasue I think in my heart and head that I have lots of compassion but when it comes down to it...I have no idea how to show it! It's almost like I wasn't ever shown how or maybe I just never got much as a kid.

I also should say that I also struggle when others show me compassion. I have no idea how to response or what to say back or what that means in the relationship.

So yes...the effort to show compassion can be a struggle.
 
I voted "too much" ......because empathy, for me, in the beginning, was so profound that I would pick up others feelings to the point of not being able to tell if they were my feelings or the other persons. Eventually, I learned to 'screen out' others feelings, to separate them from my own, and to "block" the negative feelings.

As per the reason that empathy is so pronounced....I think it comes down to boundary intrusions in early childhood, but I am just offering a guess.

As to compassion, I think it is simply a natural extension of having suffered and not wanting to create more pain for myself and/or others.

Nice thread/poll!!!
 
Too much. With others. Not with my self. Not sure why. Some of it might be abilities I was born with, and some I might have cultivated. Too much, because it creates stress sometimes. And since I am better at feeling for others than for my self I can end up pretty lost. It's sometimes the biggest reason I isolate- in order to not get overwhelmed. Also I don't always know how to give good support, and then feeling for others make me feel a bit worthless..

Good poll/thread! :)
 
It used to be too much, and like lionheart, I was never sure how much of what I was feeling was actually mine, and had to learn to get into the habit of asking myself "Is this my feeling, or someone elses?" on a regular basis.

Now, I"m honestly not sure? Sometimes I feel numb, and like I don't care at all when I see others suffering, and I wonder if my capacity for empathy has been stunted or that my wounds have caused me to shut down this part of me, but I know that I am ordinarily quite empathic and have had much compassion for humans and animals in the past.

I sometimes worry that I will permanently be this way, but actually when I was highly empathic I used to see it as a bit of a curse, since I didn't know how to turn it off. Maybe I've just become better at this, and I don't know it? I seem to operate in a world of extremes, going as far one way as possible, only to go the other way at another time.

I started training myself to focus more on my own feelings, but lately I've found that I do pull away from myself and focus on others feelings moreso, which has made the process of estrangement from my blood relatives even harder, as I worry all the time how much I am causing them to suffer.

But lately I have managed to pull back from this and center more on what I am feeling in my own reality, and leave them to theirs. I am not responsable for anyone elses feelings, only my own.

Not sure. I am prone to being hard on myself, so maybe that is what is happening here...it's just that sometimes I feel like I am not that empathic and compassionate at all, and it kinda worries me. Especially given where I used to be. I used to take on other peoples physical pain, that's how empathic I was. Maybe it's a good thing that I'm not doing that anymore.

So, not sure where I stand on the poll at the moment to be honest? Maybe it's just like lionheart said, and I've simply learned how to block out the feelings of others, as an extreme reaction to once having felt them so intensely that it became impossible to be around anyone for too long, but even then, I would pick up on their stuff as a hermit as well?

Can I say Not sure right now as my answer?
 
Can you add an extra category for those of us that don't actually have a clue how to answer that? ;) Slightly tongue in cheek, but actually, I honestly don't know.

Interesting, because my counsellor said something a few months back about people who have had to walk around on eggshells as children and to learn to have to figure out a parents mood and whether it was 'safe' or not etc tend to be quite good on picking up on how others are feeling as adults (is that empathy?I'm not sure now as I'm typing if it is the same thing) and that she thought I probably would be...she said to maybe think on it or to try to notice, but I still don't know.
 
Hi abstract, I could not vote because empathy and compassion to me are totally different.

As a supporter to a sufferer (from combat PTSD), I can only have sympathy and compassion. I was diagnosed with acute stress disorder years ago and can have empathy for symptoms, but never empathy ( I wasn't there). Same way people can have sympathy for the disaster we lived through, but I could only feel empathy with the rest of us that survived. There is a big difference between empathy, sympathy and compassion.
 
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