I don't know if this qualifies, but this is an example of what I see as an "empathy issue."

My life is chaos. That probably runs in the family, though my sisters and I handle things differently and have different threshholds.

My sister A was supposed to be getting married but she had been handling this whole thing poorly. I waited til almost the last possible minute to book my airline tix and get a dress. I can wear whatever I want but it had to stay in the theme of 1950s pin up/Rockabilly.

15 days before her wedding I get a phone call from her at work asking me if I can get my money from my airline tickets back. I'm like, "It's probably going to cost me a couple hundred dollars. Why?"

She goes on to tell me how she blew her engine and was probably going to lose her job b/c she can't get to work. She doesn't have the money for the repairs and now she has to put the wedding off etc.

In this minute I am P!SSED! I've been knocking myself out trying to find a dress for the wedding, I've spent quite a bit of money and here we are EXACTLY where I figured we were going to end up anyway! I'm thinking about the fact that she took a trip to Disney this year and how IRRESPONSIBLE it was that 2 weeks before her wedding she's got $580. Anger present, empathy nay.

I could only see how HER situation was affecting ME. We had a convo later on where I told her why I blew up (all the reasons I cited above). I think she just let it go, though she wasn't really over it. We happened to have a convo last night where I told her where I've been these last few weeks and then the two of us were crying on the phone. She was admitting that she had no idea how I was struggling. Telling me that she wishes that I could see me the way that she sees me because they are WORLDS apart.

I don't know if it qualifies, but I do know that what I consider my lack of empathy usually goes hand in hand with when I feel like I'm in survivor mode.