Empathy

I don't always have good advice either and I also have a difficult time comforting people... I don't feel confident that I won't say/do the wrong thing, because I'm used to that happening.

It's helpful for me to think of what advice I would give myself if I was the other person... It very well could be something different that the person is looking for, but then we can just listen and try to figure out what would be best for them.

Empathy. I learned that. The hard way. I used to be a schoolyard bully,but,beatings taught me empathy. I had a streak in 2013. I learned it again and once more in 2014. I... Know to shut my mouth and just listen but. I just,get high,get low. Its like a seesaw,my psyche. When I'm high I'm offensive. I don't mean it. When I'm low like now,I,love myself. I watch dance TV to relax, learn new moves. Dance,its like training. The pain reinstalls empathy.

I think you just summed up how I feel about other people.

If somebody shows me compassion and accepts me for who I am, I tend to have a larger capacity to feel empathy for them.

If somebody treats me poorly or doesn't lend a hand to help me when I need it when they are fully able to, I consider them my enemy and would feel nothing if something bad happened to them.

You know, I don't hold it against people not to help me so much. If there's not enough in it for them, they're not going to help. I probably wouldn't help someone if there wasn't something in it for me either. Fortunately for most, there's something in it for me: sometimes it's money, but usually I just want friends and people who at least think I'm good to work with if they don't like me.

Although, I couldn't make friends to save my life, so there you go.

Never thought I'd have the capacity for love either. Maybe I don't. I sometimes feel that maybe my relationship could be boiled down simply to me trading sexual favors for emotional support. I can't imagine a guy giving a crap about me unless they were getting something in return. Even then, why would anybody give a crap about me?

I guess I come across as cold or unempathetic sometimes because I have a tendency to use people maybe? It might just be as innocent as I'm nice and pleasant to be around so maybe I could make a friend. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

I hope that one day you can see it differently. I'm praying for you.

So you understand the plight of anyone who has autistic tendencies such as a preference for little or no touching. That's empathy...knowing how another feels because you have "been there."

To me, we can observe someone in distress and feel sympathetic or compassionate--BUT that feeling has to be somewhat disconnected or dispassionate because we are only imagining the discomfort/pain. When you have BEEN THERE, you recall exactly what it feels like. The benefit is that you may remember what helped to pull you from those depths and be able to share something that eases another's pain. To me, that is what this forum represents. I don't want sympathy; I am here to listen to others who have forged these paths--felt what I have felt, and emerged--those with EMPATHY.

I can recall as a child when an adult told me they were nervous. They looked distressed. I asked what they were nervous about. "Just nervous." I had no reference point. For me, nervous was when I had to stand in front of the class to give a report. Ask me NOW--after my panic attacks. I have a world of empathy for others, and it only happens with EXPERIENCING the very thing someone else has IMHO.

THIS is what it means when you hear that the horrible things you experience in life give you a perspective for compassion. I imagine if you KNEW someone in your circle of acquaintances was suffering the indignities of being treated with as little regard as you have been that you would FIND that empathy and reach out to them! THAT's really all our suffering is good for in the whole scheme of things.