I’m done with.........

Interesting thread! Thank you Fuzzybear and others for sharing your opinions.

Thank you for this post OE, I somehow missed it earlier.

To answer your question, I looked around to see if I could find a ladder, my daughter keeps scissors in her tack trunk. I also went and asked and looked for the woman who takes care of all the horses. So, in effect, I did solve the problem. No one else was concerned or cared. I was usually the one that would actually "do something" about these kinds of issues. Including reporting animal or child neglect that others chose to ignore also.

Thank you, I’m enjoying learning more about you. We don’t often frequent the same forests on these forums.

“No one else was concerned or cared” ....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Open Eyes To answer your question, I looked around to see if I could find a ladder, my daughter keeps scissors in her tack trunk. I also went and asked and looked for the woman who takes care of all the horses. So, in effect, I did solve the problem. No one else was concerned or cared. I was usually the one that would actually "do something" about these kinds of issues. Including reporting animal or child neglect that others chose to ignore also.

So you expected others to be concerned & care when you were the one taking care if the problem?

I stop to help stranded motorists or people who need help but if there is already help there I don't bother getting involved. Doesn't mean I am not concerned or that I don't care but my stopping won't make any difference to the help they are already getting. Even when I am the first one at an accident. I do what I need to do & make sure the authorities have arrived. Too many times at accidents people just stop to see what happened, not to help & just get in the way & many don't stop because they know there is nothing they can actually do to help.

Sometimes our own emotional expectations can be our own worst enemy.

Only one person can climb a ladder & use a pair of scissors....the rest would just be standing around watching.

Idk Eskie... I think OE’s example is rather different to the example you’re describing...in many different ways

I’m curious where both of you are on the “empath” scale (if there even is one..)

(To anyone who happens to be reading...) Please no debates or posts saying empaths do not exist.

“Sometimes our own emotional expectations can be our own worst enemy”

... sometimes.. I agree.

Nope wasn't like that, pretty much everyone walked away, did not care and it was not seeing me doing anything no one was there when the problem was finally fixed. It was more that no one wanted to stop and help the bird, looked up and walked away, no concern at all. More like it was stupid to care sentiment.

Grrrrrrrrr ....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Open Eyes Nope wasn't like that, pretty much everyone walked away, did not care and it was not seeing me doing anything no one was there when the problem was finally fixed. It was more that no one wanted to stop and help the bird, looked up and walked away, no concern at all. More like it was stupid to care sentiment.

Just curious....what did you expect them to do? You were looking for a ladder & you had access to scissors.

I am a total logical problem solver. I see a problem....I figure out how to solve it & take care of what is necessary to do. It doesn't take being empathetic to care or take care of a problem that needs taken care of.

I stop in the middle of the road with my flashers on to move turtles across the road. I just do it without needing anyone else to stop & say ah, turtle in trouble. It doesn't bother me that other cars drive by without stopping & agreeing that the turtle needs help. My expectations are all about what I need to do to solve the problem not have others agree that it is a problem that needs solved. I really don't even care what others think when I KNOW that there is a problem I need to solve.

When I caught the home care person abusing my mom when she was dying of cancer, the home care person was connected to my mom's BF. I had security escort them out of the hospital after they found her. I knew what needed to be done & I only cared about my mom's safety at that point. Her friends said I was overreacting. Not hardly after everything I experienced over the previous 5 days & the fact the home care person gave my mom a hand full of morphine that morning. Some action we just have to take without anyone telling us it is ok or not or even agreeing with us.

Just like slamming the door in their face. You KNOW what action you need to take & you are the one to do it because you know what you need to do whether they like it or not or whether they agree with you or not. We don't need everyone to agree with us to know what we need to do.

I do agree that it doesn’t necessarily take being empathetic to take care of a problem. Just curious Eskie, have you ever found a therapist who isn’t empathetic of any help at all? They are supposed to help on the “journey” to explore the mind and to “take action” (or in some cases there isn’t much of a journey at all as they are full of **** .. or the “patient” is “resistant” etc) but I would think those far down on the empathy scale would be ..... unless they are extraordinarily good actors. And our unconscious mind would pick that up anyway even if we weren’t fully able to verbalise it I don’t know where I’m going with this but can’t be bothered to delete it. It’s way past my bed time. Goodnight
(You know that yawn is not usually an insult. I’ve been posting them for years. I find them cute )

I am so happy you didn't delete anything.
These are outstanding discussion points Fuzzy :hug; very interesting thread.

Just like taking care of a problem doesn't require empathy neither does being a good T. They just have to be capable of understanding the person's problem (not feeling their feelings) & knowing what is needed to help them.

The only 2 wonderful T's I have have ever had are the last 2 (others were mostly a waste of time & $). The help of these 2 gave had nothing to do with being empathetic. They weren't/ aren't empathetic but they are understanding, caring, & wise. My really best T ever is the one I have now. She taught skills along with how the mind actually works. Her whole focus was on getting us to PRACTICE the skills daily & to understand them until they were integrated into our lives. This was based on DBT but went far beyond just DBT.

I related well probably because she taught the information like outstanding professors I had in college where you didn't just learn material but provided an in depth understanding so that you knew that you knew what you knew.

She is very understanding, caring & sympathetic but I think the understanding ability is her highest quality. Understanding is not the same as empathetic. I am the kind of person that doesn't need empathy....I just need understanding so I can get guidance for what was/is missing in my understanding of life so I can learn & integrate it into my own life. She planted seeds & I cultivated them within myself with her guidance along the way in group & with my private T monthly.

I was not in touch with any of my feelings other than anger when I got in with my good T's. I didn't even have the words to express what I was really feeling so we worked in my private sessions on listing (from a 5 page list of feelings) everything I was feeling & EXACTLY WHY I was feeling that feeling. Once I was MINDFUL (fully aware) of all the feelings I was experiencing & exactly why I was feeling those feelings I finally had words to express myself I never had before in my life.

For me it was all a growing awareness of myself but because I have always been a logical thinking person this all had to be understood with my logical mind for it to make any sense to me.

That is where a good T is understanding of the NEEDS of their client & is able to approach them from where they are coming from. Our wise mind uses our logical & emotional mind to deal with problems. It is when we feel the balance between our logical & emotional mind that we know we have a "wise mind" solution & feel a peace with our decisions & we can do this on our own without needing someone outside ourselves to tell us it is ok. This is kinda like seeing the bird struggling & feeling bad for it & knowing it needs help from the struggling we have observed (emotional mind at work) then logical mind takes over & determines a ladder & scissors are needed to solve the birds problem. We don't need everyone around us to agree the bird has a problem...we KNOW it. We know what is needed for the solution & we seek out what we need to solve it. We need someone to show us where the ladder is & it is wise to have someone hold the ladder while we climb to help the bird....but it is not necessary to have everyone that sees the bird say wow it does need help & you don't even need others there to help unless you just physically can't do it yourself

My T is great at validating our why's we feel the way we feel but beyond that she taught us how to SELF validate as we don't always have others around us let alone others who are able to validate. Kinda like a turtle & it's shell, we carry our validation ability around with us.

I know that some people need empathy in their therapy where others don't. That is why it is important to find a T that fits our needs....but it is just as important that they provide good quality therapy also. Learning to be mindful requires BOTH the individuals use of the logical mind along with the emotional mind. It is not an either or kinda thing & it is important for a good T to draw both these thinking capabilities out of the person. There may be trauma issues that need to be dealt with first but in the long run these skills are necessary to function within our own selves. We need to end up an integrated package not just a logical or emotional one.

My mom used to yell at my sister about how she was a doormat. She was verbally abusive to encourage her daughter to be a stronger person. I’m glad you won’t let people walk all over you, Fuzzy. Along with OE, I am also glad to see you using your words more.

OE— Isn’t it ironic that the focus of the horse event was cognitive empathy, but they all turned a blind eye to the struggling bird? It’s like it was a test!

I’ve found you can’t make people care and have empathy if they don’t. If you have something they want, they may fake it.

But you can. Easily, even.

You can

Thank you Eskie. I agree, it’s an interesting thread.

Thanks for sharing your truth

PS Eskie, my mind is elsewhere right now, I’ll reply more later

How? Please tell me. I have had no luck with this.

Thank you TishaBuv

Ah yes. Verbal abuse to encourage the daughter to be a stronger person. Very familiar to me. And yet the “bully” was me.

And the analogy of throwing the young bird out of the nest was also used. -
yes that yawn is not complimentary to the cliched “wisdom” of the PUS

If we have something they want, some of them may fake it.

I haven’t either ...... please do tell her

I also think it is VERY IMPORTANT to define our terms in the way psychology defines them (sympathy, empathy, compassion, etc). That way we are all on the same page in our discussions.
Empathy Vs Sympathy | Psychology Today

Fuzzybear, it was not my intention to have your thread suddenly get taken over by a debate about a bird. I was really trying to focus more on the fact that there will be things you value, things you care about that others will not value or care about and can even think you are stupid to care too. People can and often do think it's ok to invade your boundaries and try to tell you how what you feel is important or valueable should not have the value you place on whatever it is.

There are people that can only see value or importance in things THEY feel are important and worthy of respect, or "no it's this" when it's not. My daughter loves horses and riding and competing. I supported that, but what I did not like about that world was how there was too much focus on winning and it was addictive and some parents put so much pressure on the trainer and their own child needing their child to be this star rider and win otherwise the money they spent which it IS expensive is wasted. I noticed that everything was about competing and winning and the horses often would get sore and experience injuries, should be put on rest but often were just drugged up because the showing became more important. I have seen horses not be kept fit where they were on a schedule to maintain their muscles and physical fitness expected to JUST go out and perform and do anyway. I have seen children develop attitudes where if other children were not winners they were losers and don't deserve respect.

I have seen people make plans, work very hard and build a house, yet they were treated like they did not deserve respect because their house wasn't big enough or did not fit into what other's considered was nice or valueable. There are lots of children that grow up in homes who are invisible to the parent or parents because that parent is ALL ABOUT THEMSELVES. Or a child is abused and treated badly because the parent isn't happy and the child ends up getting messages that it's their fault or how they are the reason the parent is unhappy. There are lots of people that due to how they grew up have no idea WHAT a normal healthy relationship is supposed to be like too. There are people who have no idea WHAT it feels like to experience someone who CARES. If no one cared, which sadly does happen way more than it should, anyone can begin to believe they don't deserve to be cared about and respected.

And there are lots of people who never learned how to respect another person and what they care about and what is important to them. The attitude I got that day with that bird was that I was stupid to care. I did not seem to get that across when I talked about it. "Oh, that's stupid OE, it's just a bird what should you CARE? that's not important". And YES, there were individuals who said that to me. YET, it's these same individuals who envied my daughter who's horse knew her car and ran to the gate and got all excited about seeing her arrive. "How come MY horse doesn't do that with me like her's does for her?". All her horses were like that with her. Even a horse knows the difference between a caring presence and a presence that just grabs them to use them.

Empathy can come from knowing how challenging something can be and instead of only caring about some kind of perfection or what YOU consider having value is being able to see a challenge in another human being or even animal for that matter and be able to respect what that person did to overcome whatever challenges they faced. Fuzzy, you have gained a lot of ground, you found your voice and that took a lot of effort on your part. Unfortunately, there will be those people that don't have the capacity to respect that about you and will instead look to FAULT you according to what THEY feel is important or of value. You had a very difficult childhood, you had to figure out how to survive it and part of that included staying quiet. So for you, finding your voice is significant. However, you will still encounter people who will be critical of you because you failed to say something or respond in a way they decide isn't good enough. It can be a challenge, I know that oh so well myself. There are lots of people who don't even KNOW they are invading your boundaries when they do that either. Sometimes I can get triggered because of how my father constantly interputed me and corrected everything I uttered. After all, I was not talking the way HE needed me to and even when I tried my hardest to say something right HE STILL INTERUPTED ME and told me to use different words. It took me YEARS to recover from the damage he did when my little brain was just trying to figure out how to navigate language. So, I empathize how much it's taken for you to find YOUR voice too. I respect the time and work it took for you too. Unfortunately Fuzzy, lots of people wont care, things will always need to be valued in how they see things and need things to be. And some can be very rude about it too, and that can be triggering enough to want to run back to your cave. I know how that feels myself. Yet, I continue to try to step out of my cave and engage despite the different intrusions I encounter. Since I developed ptsd though, it's a lot more work for me to do so than it used to be.

Thank you OE

Create a story. I don't mean "lie," but take a real situation and craft it into an engaging narrative with characters and meaning. A non-fiction story, if you will.

If the average writer can get someone to cry over a completely made-up character, then you can convince someone to care about ... anything. It doesn't really matter.