Quote:
Originally Posted by Open Eyes
What this individual just showed you was her lack of ability to genuinely empathize with your needs. This is her lack, not yours and it’s always disappointing when someone we want to like fails to have this “quality” to them.
Gaslighting? Yes, there are people that have a fake way of looking like they have a true ability to genuinely empathize but they don’t. It’s always a disappointment when we discover this and it does tend to come when we could use a much more genuine response of assuring instead of critical put downs and close mindedness.
It’s always disappointing when we think someone has more then they actually have. She is lacking in self awareness which means having the ability to recognize how her response to you was showing disrespect.
I am with you in that there is nothing wrong with giving Andy more recovery time and ease him back into a program as he regains his physical ability back.
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The reason I say gaslighting is because it goes like this:
Me: this thing bothers me
Friend: Does that thing more.
Me: Why would you do that thing more that I said bothers me. That hurts my feelings.
Friend: It's your fault because you have feelings in the first place.
Me: Um, no.
It's gaslighting because instead of acknowledging that I said something bothers me, the other person makes it out to be my fault because it bothers me in the first place. We aren't talking about a comment she made NOT knowing it would bother me. She FULLY knew it would hurt me and continued on saying those things anyhow.
Turning the blame back on the "victim" because they happen to exist (as in this case, I mean because I'm a human being with feelings apparently that's why I'm hurt). We are all human beings with feelings. If you want to be in a relationship with another human being, you have to care about how they feel. That's the shift between acquaintance and friend.
If you're an acquaintance, I may not have as much care about what words I choose and what I say to you because I may care less about how you feel. (Personally I do care how I make anyone feel, but certainly we care more about how we make our friends feel.) If a friend, someone I say I care about and want them to be happy and healthy, tells me I said something that hurt their feelings, and appropriate response is not to tell them they are wrong - either in their feelings or in having feelings at all. The appropriate response is to actually care that this was the impact I had. I don't want my friends to feel bad by the things I say or do. This doesn't mean tiptoeing around, but it means having respect for how the other person feels and considering their feelings when you say or do things that concern them.
I grew up being taught by a family that never cared about how anyone else felt. There was no empathy or sympathy whatsoever. It took me time to really understand what empathy is. And in focusing on developing my own empathy, what I have really learned is that most people don't really have much empathy at all, even for the people they are close to.