feels guilty to be happy

you know, hpds often tell that their dream is to... save ppl around in the world
and we have this savior complex for men too...
which often.. causes problem in relationship thingy

so i want to talk about my problem,
hpds experience exaggerated feelings, and it's like... TOO MUCH exaggerated empathy IDK

i sometimes get very depressed because I feel TOO SORRY for people in the world

starting from people who are suffering from starvation and poverty

and also i feel so sorry when i see ppl who look super exhausted after work,

Also when I see people who are disabled, cuz they'd have incredibly low chance of uh ... romance

i actually feel sorry for a LOT of people for every kind of reason(i wish if i didn't, but it feels guilty to try to feel LESS empathy because society never teaches you to have less empathy)

i feel like it's selfish that i should feel guilt to be happy, to have a happy and successful life
when... there are people who are extremely, umm... in need of help
so i feel like i should be unhappy like them

it depresses me actually most of the times since a few years ago
can you persuade me logically,
the reason which i shouldn't be... depressed cuz i feel sorry+guilt for trying to be happy?
persuing my own happiness, career, health etc, when there are ppl who are REALLY in need of help?

oh, help.

(oh also when i meet a stray cat, i feel sorry when i am not carrying anything which i can give it to eat and i mean i feel guilty a llloooott)

Maybe you need someone strong to help explain to you that a self-destructive pattern would not benefit you or anyone around you.

"You want, if possible - and there is no more insane "if possible" - to abolish suffering. And we? It really seems that we would rather have it higher and worse than ever. Well-being as you understand it - that is no goal, that seems to us an end, a state that soon makes man ridiculous and contemptible - that makes his destruction desirable. The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far?"
(Beyond Good and Evil, p 225 )

"To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not - that one endures."
(The Will to Power, p 481)

If you are feeling guilty, you are not happy. Right?
And, just like FD said, sometimes the best way to save someone is to not save him at all.

Its never good to just give people the goodies in a room. But you can show them the door to the room and tell them about the goodies. Then they have to go and open the door themselves. If they open the door with fire inside, you can't stop them, it is their choice.

yyy -

It's an unfortunate thing that some of us learned, that it's not okay to be happy ourselves. That lie we learned twists our reality, sets us up to put others feelings first, and then a pattern of being hurt when (something they didn't ask for ) is not reciprocated or disappoints us in some minor way, and then... lashing out over a situation we created ourselves. It's part of the cluster B disorder, wanting to be hurt, over and over, because on some level cluster B types feel safest when they are lonely (nobody can hurt us anymore).

Hopefully you can break that cycle in time.

Hi yYyYy

One thing I have noted is that HPD's and other Cluster B's split empathy (sympathy for others), and happiness (healthy narcissism) into extremes...

One day grandiose empathy..."I'm ready to sacrifice myself to save the world!"
Another day..."Forget it; the world and everybody in it, it's all about me!" Extreme self-centeredness, unhealthy levels of narcissism.
Which mimicks the mental and emotional states of adolescence or post adolescence (BTW which is ok, if that's one's age).

As they enter adult life and increasing maturity is required what seems to become elusive is a balance between
(1) healthy empathy "I will help others because I they human beings like me; they suffer and I feel that pain, because I have experienced similar pain myself."
(2) and healthy narcissism: "Now I have done my part, I can only do so much for others; I also need to take care of my own needs."

Of course, by simple logic, empathy and narcissism are at their heart contradictory mental processes, but real life is full of contradictions - what glues it all together is emotional and spiritual health. And faith...accepting that you are human and you can't see the entire picture all at once, nor does anyone have the right to demand that you do (i.e., usually a demand based on their own insecurity...that they are only human, as well).

It's ok to be a human being, a creature that is part a demanding, self-centered animal (id), part altruistic self-sacrificing angel (super-ego), but in a larger and healthier measure the pragmatic negotiator between that id and super-ego

(the ego, as in "I think and negotiate, therefore I am." )

by coincidence, you yourself are not able to feel happiness. could you be projecting some of your own feelings onto others whom you feel so much pity for? you are imagining that they are so pitiful but how do they really feel? are all of the disabled people actually without romance and in agony over it? are the exhausted people living miserable lives? does no one else in the world ever have food in their pocket that they give the stray cat?

i would suspect that some of these people are actually a lot more satisfied and happy than you are because they have developed coping methods or simply have a lot of positive things happening in their lives which minimize their troubles. they themselves might wonder sometimes how a person with hpd is able to cope. I guess my point is that what might be a tragedy for you might not necessarily be for someone else.

society never teaches you to have less empathy but it does teach you to take care of yourself first so that you have the strength to take care of others. Even when the oxygen goes in an airplane parents are instructed to get their own oxygen mask working before they tend to their child's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA7gnSyuIik
you know you want it y
don't overthink it