Learned Empathy vs Genuine Empathy

[EchelonHunt]

Ok I apologize for the mess of a post this is - I go talking into one thing then go off on a tangent about an argument I had with my sister regarding ADHD. Then I go back into my original topic. lol

Lots of swearing and rant-y stuff.

This is something I've realized lately about myself. I've had to learn how to express emotions because I had trouble identifying them in people and myself. I've had to learn how to be empathetic. I've had experiences in my life where people told me I came off as cold or distant, or I'll say things but there's no emotional inflection behind it that makes it sound genuine, (e.g. "I love you" being the most popular one lol)

One instance I remember very clearly was my family were in the car on the way home from dinner, my older (and only) sister started picking on me about something (it was so mundane that I can't even remember what it was), she kept going at me again and again until I just lashed out and hit her. I don't remember where I hit her but she got upset and my parents got all disappointed in me and told me to apologize to my sister. Here I was, like "are you fucking serious?" She was antagonizing me for some trivial non-issue and because she wouldn't shut up and leave me alone, I'M the one at fault? If anything, I thought I should've been the one apologized to! Why didn't my family tell my sister to shut up? They just sat there and laughed, they thought it was funny. It's not some cute sisterly rivalry! I had to apologize and give her a hug, expecting an apology in return. Did I get one? Nah.

Not even a few months later, she jumped on me about another non-issue (I really wished I remembered what it was, in case there's a pattern), she kept persisting and I lashed out but instead of being physical, I threw a post-it note. It smacked her in the mouth and I think one of the papers cut her lip. Of course, I was the BAD PERSON again!

I mean, I GET IT. Throwing things and being physical towards another person is being hostile and nasty but COME THE FUCK ON, why didn't she take the hint the first 5 times when I said, "I don't want to talk about it, shut up. Shut up. Leave me alone."? Even when I tried walking away, she kept following me and persisting!

My relationship with my sister wasn't very close because of these ways she acted towards me. We recently had an argument lately (on Messenger) because she was "annoyed" by the ADHD memes I was posting on Facebook. She has ADHD but she's not open about it.

So apparently, it was a perfectly acceptable behaviour to start attacking me, saying "Oh, you're doing a REAL good job of convincing people you have ADHD! Everyone has some level of distractibility and procrastination"

Yeah, true but not to the extent of where it interferes with their day-to-day life. I am literally struggling to function. I'm sure EVERYBODY experiences that! I've been annoyed by my friend saying "you're just procrastinating", it's SO MUCH more than just a person delaying a task because they don't want to do it. I ACTUALLY WANT TO DO THE FUCKING TASK, I just can't get past the mental block and its infuriating!

"ADHD medication is bad, it makes you have mood swings, like get really angry, its not great long term"

Not that I was planning to use it long-term anyway, I'd only use it when I need to focus on important tasks. I pointed out that there are different ADHD medications (obviously, what she experiences, it doesn't mean EVERYONE experiences the same side effects!)

Then she prattled off, "Ok, so you sound like you have done your research, I'm sure you will convince the psych of your illness. Not that hard to."

THIS pissed me off. Does she REALLY think I'm going to laugh loudly, just spend $410 on a psychiatrist consultation JUST TO LIE TO THEM for shits and giggles?! I told her I did research because I wanted to be informed about something I'm struggling with. I thought she, of all people, would be understanding since she suffered with the condition. I guess not.

She goes on to say, "I think you have too much time on your hands to think about what your latest condition is."

I've been going to uni full-time, studying and trying to balance commissions with my uni load (and failing miserably, HENCE WHY I AM SEEKING HELP aka hoping to get ADHD diagnosis and treatment, so I can get extra support from Curtin Disability Services! I've already had to apply for two extensions on two assessments I couldn't finish in time). Just because SHE thinks she has a busy life, is a full-time mom with two children, does she think I just sit around and go, "ho hum, I wonder what illness I can be afflicted with now?" I find it incredibly ironic she accuses me of this when she is the FIRST person to jump onto Google and play Dr. Google about whatever anyone has (be it herself, her child, mum's health issues, etc.) I actually threw that insult at her during the argument, "Oh look, Mrs Dr Google over here!"

She texted my mum telling her that "I would be mad" and that she "was trying her best to be civil." I had to laugh at that because she was ANYTHING but civil. I actually maintained my cool throughout the "argument" until she made the insuination that I would convince a psychiatrist that I have a condition she believes I don't have. That just hurts me because my family believed for years that I was NOT trans and that I was simply convincing the professionals that I was. For some reason, my family love to jump onto the denial train about anything I may have and just blame it "on the internet". Like, fucking GOD forbid someone is struggling with mental health issues, finds out what it could possibly be and get treatment for it to alleviate their suffering in their day-to-day life.

I'm not going to let her shame me into not posting ADHD things. Like God forbid I try to raise awareness about ADHD and refute negative misconceptions about it. She is still stuck in believing a lot of the outdated information about ADHD (that you are either ADHD aka hyperactive or ADD aka inattentive, it's actually been both combined under ADHD umbrella now and you can be a mixed type) but I wouldn't dare correct her because she's pretty adamant she's correct.

I JUST don't understand the logic my sister operates on? She is a very mean person, she always has been. My mum is refusing to give me advice on how to talk to her. I wanted her to know who she agrees with (like I genuinely wanted to know if my family think I'm just making all this shit up.), she just immediately says "Its an argument between you two. You sort it out"

I've rarely had anyone in my corner, defending me. Most of the time, my Dad will agree with Mom, my Mom will agree with Dad, my mom will agree with my sister or my sister will side with my parents. It's like, ???? Nobody ever sides with me. Is it because I'm the youngest child? I'm 28 though! I feel so alone and I fucking hate it. I have zero support and I'm constantly having to advocate for my own issues and defend myself and fucking fight with my family over it because they disagree, they don't think I have it, they minimize what I'm going through and it's been such a long struggle. My self-esteem and confidence issues could've been resolved much sooner, had my parents believed me instead of dismissing me or blaming me for my problems.

BACK TO MY TOPIC!!!



(Link to Part 2 is in the description)

I don't know if any of you are watching Shane Dawson's latest series on Jake Paul, in Part 2, he explores symptoms of sociopathy with a therapist and some of the things they talked about really resonated with me, like it made me realize things about myself that I never thought from a different angle.

We had a Year 6 teacher pass away from a heart attack, everyone who was close to her were emotionally distraught (practically the entire class). The whole class went to the funeral. I couldn't cry because I couldn't feel anything. I saw all my classmates crying and I was confused, why wasn't I crying? I actually ended up crying because I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't mourn the loss of the teacher because I didn't care about her. I can experience emotions but I seem to lack empathy. I've learned how to exercise empathy, I suppose? But I worry when I ask people how they're feeling and attempt being empathetic, that I'll come off as fake because the words are hollow. I WANT to care, I WANT to be a good friend, I just don't know how to do it properly or in a way that people will know I'm trying to be genuine.

I'm not saying I'm a sociopath (I'm like Shane, I'm very much an empath in many ways) but ever since I was a child, I had trouble expressing my feelings, much less identifying what feelings were? Things like love or sexual attraction are things I literally don't understand??? The entire thing about mimicking emotions from TV shows or movies, this seems really relatable to me because I never had any idea how to do anything. I framed "my first kiss" around the Angela and Hodgins first kiss scene S02E07 from Bones. I never got the "Wow" factor from that. All I was worried about was that I wanted to appear "normal" to the person I was kissing, I didn't care about things like "first kiss." I had to look up porn to figure out how I should act during sex, like.... am I alone with having zero idea how to act and having to literally look up resources to figure out how I'm supposed to act?

[Avery]

I'm not sure I'm the right person to respond here because for the most part I haven't experienced this. But you are most definitely not alone. I know someone else who generally can't or doesn't express emotions in a "normal" or conventional way and for a long time she thought that meant she didn't experience them. But the majority doesn't have a monopoly on feeling and we don't have to experience or express emotions in the same way to be sure we have them. You know?

[Ativan Prescribed]

Most anything can be learned well enough to fake your way through it.
It of course depends on a lot of things, but seriously, most people just bs their way through life, know just enough to seem like they know what they are talking about.
Genuine feelings are just that and they aren't always the same for each person for each thing, it isn't even that much in degrees.
Once a person is exposed to some things, they don't have the same impact as before, and it just keeps on in that direction until something comes along that reminds them of the root feeling.
It's easy to be genuine and to not show it, it is just as easy to not be and not show it, life is a stage and the actors are all of us.
The general thing to always keep in mind is that just because most people react in a certain way, it in no way makes that a legitimate thing.
In the old movies when woman saw a dead body they shoved their knuckles up to their mouth and scream loud enough to give someone a heart attack, another dead body to scream over.
In real life it just isn't so, yet it is a reaction for a lot of people to wonder why they aren't affected like that, because the movies...
Just an example, but that is the same as people not having what is a given normal reaction, when that given normal isn't even genuine, made up shit so people think you have that feeling.
Think about how when people will rise to the occasion and just blow everyone away with calm and reason, moving past the problems at hand to get to the problem that started it all.
Think about how people will react in an emergency situation, traffic accident and blood all over and people screaming in pain and some could be dead, but something needs to be done to save someone.
It's fine to think you would and it's fine to think you wouldn't be able to handle it. Those are the learned, the genuine is what you do when the time comes, and even so, it isn't for everyone either way.
There is no normal emotions, only the ones in a given moment are true, empathy is as elusive as anything and maybe more.
I know people who can have an extreme of empathy and then once used, turn and walk away like nothing happened, they used their empathy and that's all they have left, they used it up for now.
Doesn't mean they won't ever have any again, it's just how the situations present themselves to each person, two people with equal empathy in the same moment, same place are likely to have different reactions.
There is the what to do and the what happened, the perspectives can be the entire determining point of reaction for them both.
But the sad thing is that we are trained from day one to have certain reactions to things in our lives, we are told how we are supposed to react, told how to feel and when not to feel.
Some people just can't feel at all, and others can't get past the simplest things.
But those are still tearned reactions to things they were told have to be this way, because the person telling is like that,
The woman beaters, and such, they weren't born that way, it was taught to them by the same person they are now, an asshole teaches how to be an asshole and to make the point, teaches to be a bigger asshole.
The opposite is true as well, and a person can be consumed with empathy and feelings and reactions to things, and yet they weren't born that way.
But most of us have had to find out who we are on a regular basis and we learn as we go, so even then it is going to depend on what life dishes out for us.
The true personal empathy and feelings and reactions are the ones that a person takes the time to sort it out as they go, it might be in a second, it might take a lot longer, but we will take the time we can have.
So if a person makes a mistake and makes the wrong call, are they condemned but those armchair experts who seem to know it all?
They shouldn't be and the ones who do condemn others for their mistakes are likely covering their own faults and mistakes they have made in life.
The genuine is the person who learns from those mistakes and knows how to move on with them, the person who rolls with the punches and knows how to use critical judgement in a situation, if they can.
The others that are not genuine are the experts on it, as if they have been there and done it all and never ever made a mistake and just the same know the answer to everything, we all know this person.
It's one thing to offer up empathy for the sake of having it, it is another to offer it up as if you actually have some when you don't, just to cover your ass and not have others think you are not normal.
When it comes to feelings and reactions and emotions, there is no real normal, there is an assumed normal and it is rarely the same as an actual normal.
Just my opinion and it isn't as if I actually know, but I do know where my empathy's go to and where they come from most of the time, and sadly it is sometimes to far after the fact.
I have no way to know if what I know is even true because of all the wading through life that is too often a contest with others to maintain that appearance of normal, I have a hard time with that alone.
The trouble with the world is that people will believe a plumber turned therapist all because he found a friend in someone who once she made it in life, had to give away cars to the audience.
It's an abnormal worldview that is shown to us in all forms of media, and the teachers we learn from are in no way a guarantee that they are not the mass murders they could be.
I often thought a few of my grade school teachers could qualify, and the same for that guy who lived at the end of the block, they are all just shy of a full load.
Best you can do is trust yourself and always have the checks in place to be able to tell if you are going off the rails as well.

[EchelonHunt]

Reaction memes aside, you've given me some food for thought.

I need a few days to process it but I agree with the points you've made ahah.

[Ativan Prescribed]

I kinda had that reaction as I was writing it myself.