Having No Empathy

Anyone have examples of situations where they were "supposed" to feel sincere/sad/apologetic, but felt nothing, or rationalized their behaviour?

Trying to understand how exactly "lack of empathy" is defined...Cheers

There is lack of affective empathy which all aspd npd, have that is failure to consider other peoples emotions such as feeling what they feel.

In npd you have holes in your cognitive empathy where not only do you have the above but you are unsure of how to act out such as consoling someone. It could trigger guilt or be awkward.

SBBro wrote:There is lack of affective empathy which all aspd npd, have that is failure to consider other peoples emotions such as feeling what they feel.

In npd you have holes in your cognitive empathy where not only do you have the above but you are unsure of how to act out such as consoling someone. It could trigger guilt or be awkward.

This has definitely caused me problems in the past. For example my best friends father died and I to put it bluntly didn't give a $#%^. To make up for this I said, "I feel really bad about xxx..." and they looked at me and said "Oh, do you really?" as if they knew.

I wouldn't say it's necessary true all the time but I wonder how I did with this girl. She told me she was depressed and wanted to cry and I said, "do you want a hug?" and she started laughing. I didn't really know what to say to her other than "yes, your b/f is a dick", "yes, I understand why you're upset". Truth is, I didn't really care but at the same time I had enough common sense to try and comfort her in a way I could.

Other example, you're watching the news on the tv and there is a disaster such as 11.9 or earthquake or a big flood or a hurricane somewhere in the world, and you see all this mess, all this chaos, the tv showin all these struggling faces and people crying, and all this mess, suddenly everyone talks about it, and you think "who the f**k cares? It's happening far away, who cares? We live in xy, far away from there." And you feel like you're missing something that anyone gets...you just don't get it

When your grandpa dies, your whole family is upset, and you just think of what will your next meal be? And you feel omg, that funeral is so annoying, what am I going to do after that? What will I wear tomorrow? Bla bla bla...empty

I'm wondering if my bored indifference at the TV drove my frustration with the media and made me suspicious of it. The amount of disaster on TV is mind boggling. If feels as if TV is nothing but large disasters interspersed with smaller ones like car wrecks and kidnappings. Then there is sport and celebration streaked and peppered around. It does nothing for me.

But yeah, funerals. "The organ ALWAYS sounds terrible at these things." And I'd be all full of snarky thoughts and utterly unremorseful observations. But I would say that I cared, in the sense that if the other people that it mattered to were deprived of it, I would feel hurt for them. I don't know if I would have felt hurt, say, 10 years ago. I just know that, even though a funeral does nothing for me, I'm not utterly indifferent to other people's experiences.

TwistedTree wrote:But yeah, funerals. "The organ ALWAYS sounds terrible at these things." And I'd be all full of snarky thoughts and utterly unremorseful observations. But I would say that I cared, in the sense that if the other people that it mattered to were deprived of it, I would feel hurt for them. I don't know if I would have felt hurt, say, 10 years ago. I just know that, even though a funeral does nothing for me, I'm not utterly indifferent to other people's experiences.

Well put.

And you're right, maturity has a lot to do with this. It takes time to understand what situations may cause hurt in others. And hurt is something that we all experience.

TiredOfRepression21 wrote:

TwistedTree wrote:But yeah, funerals. "The organ ALWAYS sounds terrible at these things." And I'd be all full of snarky thoughts and utterly unremorseful observations. But I would say that I cared, in the sense that if the other people that it mattered to were deprived of it, I would feel hurt for them. I don't know if I would have felt hurt, say, 10 years ago. I just know that, even though a funeral does nothing for me, I'm not utterly indifferent to other people's experiences.

Well put.

And you're right, maturity has a lot to do with this. It takes time to understand what situations may cause hurt in others. And hurt is something that we all experience.

Can't a lack of empathy still exist when you're mature and understand which situations hurt others? Simply because I mention that [disaster] is a terrible occurrence, doesn't mean i genuinely feel for the people involved in it. I can assess the situation and determine who needs the most care and assistance, but ultimately I don't feel inclined to care and assist. In the end, If I don't think it's appropriate - I won't do it. How fine is the line between what is empathetic, and what is "reasonable"...

Why would you assess the situation, and do nothing with the information? At least show everyone in the room that you are a sentimental and caring guy by comforting her

What I am saying is, with maturity, you learn how a lack of empathy may not always be a bad thing. A lot of people respect the cool rationale of an apathetic person. When someone is crying, the last thing they want is someone to cry with them, further perpetuating their emotions.

TiredOfRepression21 wrote:Why would you assess the situation, and do nothing with the information? At least show everyone in the room that you are a sentimental and caring guy by comforting her

Haha - although it's not easy being trapped in a sentimental persona. Some people keep coming back for more.

TiredOfRepression21 wrote:A lot of people respect the cool rationale of an apathetic person

That's my rationale - why encourage sadness when you have the ability to problem-solve it.

coralkip wrote:Haha - although it's not easy being trapped in a sentimental persona. Some people keep coming back for more.

Give it some work. If you pull it off, you'll be heavily rewarded with a sentimental mate.