Dear scaredandconfused, You may be interested in more meanings for the word sympathy. I'm not thinking of sympathy as pity although, as you say, that could be one way to view sympathy. I don't view it that way, and when I feel sympathy for someone, I feel their pain, which I suppose could also be called empathy. But I'm old fashioned maybe -- the word empathy does not "resonate" with me the way sympathy does, and the word sympathy is understood by many people, whereas empathy is not so much understood in common language. Sympathy has many other very good meanings. There is a trend to discount and even stop using the word sympathy,which I think is unfortunate. I will not substitute empathy for sympathy, which is a fine word. If you are interested in reading one of the full definitions of sympathy, try Merriam Webster at this link. This one doesn't even mention pity, by the way.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sympathy
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Originally Posted by scaredandconfused
Sympathy is a synonym for pity, which I definitely don't want. I imagine cancer patients don't want pity either. Perhaps the word you were looking for was empathy - which is the ability to put oneself in another's shoes, to understand the struggles of another.
I agree with the above posters that those with cancer are seen as blameless (aside from lung cancer, as mentioned above), while those with mental illness are often seen as the creator of their own problems. I disagree with this, of course, but it's hard for outsiders to truly understand what we go through. From the outside, it may look like self-pity unfortunately.
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