Over-empathizing?

[DogwoodTree]

Do you feel re-traumatized when hearing about or reading about someone else's experience?

I was scrolling through Facebook this morning, clicked on an article talking about how two brothers went into a public restroom and only one came out and the dad had to run in to get to his younger son...anyway, I clicked on it because I had thought sending my boys to the restroom together was enough protection, but this article was giving an example of how it's not enough protection...and gave enough detail about what happened to the little boy that I was really upset by it. All kinds of pictures and sensations and emotions running through my mind and my body.

I'm wishing I hadn't read the article, but at the same time, I'm thankful to know that even 6- and 7-year-olds in the bathroom together can be at risk if someone is in there who knows how to brainwash them. I needed to know this, as my boys are generally in that same age range. But I am so sickened and disgusted, and dealing with flashbacks, and intrusive images, and generally thrown into a bit of a panic/shutdown mode (though not entirely).

I recognize a big part of the issue for me is that I over-empathize (thanks, codependency...not). I need better emotional boundaries so that someone else's suffering doesn't so deeply affect me. Just sitting in church this morning (before I read the article), it felt like a whirlwind of emotional energy and struggle all around me, and I was having a hard time keeping it all out of my space. It's so hard to find a peaceful place inside me when I'm around people.

And yet, there's another layer to all of this. The boy in the article was the same age I was for one particular incident. Why am I so angry about what happened to that little boy, but I still believe I deserved nothing better than what happened to me? I don't know that family in the article, but I'm furious about what happened to their innocent child. It sickens me to think about the fallout from that one incident for him. Five minutes, and his life is changed forever.

But for me...of course that happened to me. Of course it did. Sure, I was only 6, but I came from a long line of generations where that was the norm. It's just what happened. It's the price I pay for being born into this family. I was created to fight that battle, and by necessity, it started early. Generations before me haven't achieved victory over that enemy, and now I have my turn at it. Knowing this is a war against codependency and generational sexual abuse and all of the other stuff mixed in...that's part of what keeps me going. That's the biggest part of what keeps me going...to change my family tree for the sake of my children and their children. So I have very little empathy for that 6-year-old that I was. She had to lose her innocence early, become battle-hardened from the beginning so she would know what's at stake here.

How can I hurt so deeply for that other child, but not feel much sympathy at all for the child I used to be?

 

[LadyUndomiel]

I can sort of relate, it's painful. If I see someone going through a similar situation as me I really hurt for them, but I hurt so much that I can't do anything productive to help. I can listen to them or cry with them but I can't do like a therapist or someone and say you need to do this, etc. I lost my parents when I was pretty young. My best friend works with orphans in Ukraine and I couldn't do what she does. It would remind me too much of what happened to me. I know I wouldn't be able to handle it.

 

[MysticRose]

I think I can relate to this.

Whenever I read, or hear, or see something happening that happened to me as well, I can feel SO extremely sorry for the other person. I can cry for them, feel depressed the whole day because it happened to them. It's like it is happening to me or someone very close to me, while it can be a newsflash from the other side of the world.

But when I think of myself, when the things happened that gave me PTSD, I can only say to myself that I've been so stupid. That I shouldn't have let it happen and that it was all my own fault.

In my eyes, I feel this way for others, to compensate that I have no feelings of empathy for myself. Or something like that.

 

[Go Hungry]

This sounds a lot like my troubles with Shame. One thing that I have to do is stay away from articles about child-on-child violence or bullying. I read that and I'm 12 years old again, trying desperately to find an escape from an untenable situation. There was no escape, no respite, no safe place. I get confused as to where I am and what my situation is. I dissociate like hell.

Same thing when I hear certain songs or other things that remind me of another bad time in my life. It is really odd, because it was during an age of great beauty and terror. I have strong nostalgia for a situation that nearly killed me. Strange, no?

But in both cases, I feel great shame because I feel that if I were only a stronger person, I would have blown off the abuse like water from a ducks back. That I would have known (and carried out) perfect tactics for the situation. I have no empathy for myself, though tons of self-pity. They aren't the same thing, but it is so easy to mistake one for the other. Caring about oneself, acknowledging the pain, isn't the same as self-pity (or butthurt, in the modern term).

I think one thing to keep in mind is that there is only so much that an embattled 12-year old with no support system can do. That is the hardest part.. empathizing with oneself without pitying yourself.

 

[DogwoodTree]

That is the hardest part.. empathizing with oneself without pitying yourself.

Yes...I haven't figured this out yet at. all.

 

[Friday]

How can I hurt so deeply for that other child, but not feel much sympathy at all for the child I used to be?

I'm currently trying to wrap my head around denial... This seems like it would be a part of if.

 

[seedling]

I'm getting to the point in working on my memories of my young traumas that I can see that I believed what was said to me, even though, from my adult point of view now, those things were/are completely irrational.

So, at the age of 3 or 4 or 6 it's easy to believe it when someone in charge says "you deserve it" or "you are bad." That belief is still stuck in that memory, even now.
If I read now about a child that is hurt I don't believe that they deserve it, but I still carry the belief I deserved it because it seemed so believable then.

My current therapist told me once that it is less scary for a young child to blame themselves for what is happening than to believe that the adults, who are in charge, are in the wrong.

 

[sun seeker]

How can I hurt so deeply for that other child, but not feel much sympathy at all for the child I used to be?

Because then you'd have to feel how vulnerable you were, and how badly you were hurt. A child can't possibly let themselves feel the full extent of this when they are still dependent on the abusers, so they blame it on themselves/dissociate/forget/any number of other mechanisms. That's how they survive. At some point, the survival mechanisms fail and it becomes more important to feel how bad it really was, release the frozen trauma energy, and learn self compassion.

I say this because I am at that point now so it's fresh in my mind. Until I got there, though, these would just have been empty words.

 

[DogwoodTree]

I say this because I am at that point now so it's fresh in my mind. Until I got there, though, these would just have been empty words.

I still go into fight mode when I hear this. I do know, on some level, that it's true. But that dark, cold, black ocean of the reality of what happened...I don't know how to face that. I don't know how to let it exist.

I think I would first have to care about that child I was, and I'm not really there yet. Nope, not at all. It's so much easier just to believe she deserved it.