Source: at://did:plc:v2j2g5pdghrwazhbw6gvxtdp/app.bsky.feed.post/3lqau7rb3qk2w
During my first hospitalization at Boulder Behavioral Science Center there was an older gentleman there originally from Germany.
A ? on empathy
2025-05-28 18:42:36.003 / 3lqau7rb3qk2w
Turns out that the older gentleman from Germany had severe short-term memory loss, much like the woman in this clip. Every day, at times every couple hours, he would tell me the same story about how his son was a brilliant engineer that worked for a large company.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.004 / 3lqau7smobk2w
He was always reminded because I was going to the University's engineering school for Computer Science (and there were other students there as well).
2025-05-28 18:42:36.005 / 3lqau7smobl2w
One day it was very rainy, dangerously rainy, and his son was struggling to drive to his engineering job that made his father so proud. He got into a terrible accident, and died. The old man was sad that his son has pushed himself into danger to make him proud. He regretted it.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.006 / 3lqau7smpat2w
At the time I was burdened with a lot of real-life sad stories I'd obsess over, and this was just one more to the pile. It annoyed me, and one time he started telling it I said, "I know, he died."
2025-05-28 18:42:36.007 / 3lqau7smpau2w
The old man was *horrified,* and very scared. How did I know that? What was this place? Was he being detained by 'the secret police'?
2025-05-28 18:42:36.008 / 3lqau7smpav2w
His wife was in another hospital, so he was always wondering where she was. He would tell the attendants that he didn't understand why he wasn't being released …
2025-05-28 18:42:36.009 / 3lqau7smqa52w
since he did everything they said and behaved appropriately, and that he wasn't going to be their 'political prisoner.' Guy thought he was in a concentration camp.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.010 / 3lqau7smqa62w
I felt so awful for being impatient, despite him forgetting it every happened about 10 minutes later. *I* knew it had happened. That day a learned a little more about empathy.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.011 / 3lqau7smqa72w
It breaks my heart to see people claim that I lack empathy when I tried my best to afford them empathy and understanding. They do this because I tend not to do it in an overly performative sentimental fashion, but instead, focus on reality and the predicament they're in.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.012 / 3lqau7smqaa2w
I recognize when someone is seriously traumatized or mentally or emotionally struggling, and I make room for that. They might do or say things that are very hurtful. I have to my mother in the past. I get it. I forgive their trespasses to an extent, particularly when I was part of the reason for it.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.013 / 3lqau7smqab2w
But, eventually, if it continues to persist it starts to wear thin. It becomes less about having empathy, and more about allowing excuses and being walked on. And that's when I have to enforce my boundaries for myself (I do not make demands of them) and reaffirm the reality that …
2025-05-28 18:42:36.014 / 3lqau7smr7j2w
I am also a person, I also exist, I also matter, I'm also to be considered, and ultimately, I can say no, leave, and even not forgive.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.015 / 3lqau7smr7k2w
I am the type of person that can have my heart full of love, pain, and ache for something or someone, and *still* stay true to what justice demands of the situation: to treat people for who they are and what they're doing, not who they, or I, want them to be.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.016 / 3lqau7smr7l2w
I learned to separate my emotional responses from what I know must be done to remain fair and have integrity. This was part of *my forced therapy* and I decided to take the lesson.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.017 / 3lqau7smr7m2w
I have incredibly powerful emotions about lots of things, memories, people, issues, conversations… everything. I don't show it a lot… for a reason. I have Borderline Personality Disorder. This is a symptom of that disorder.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.018 / 3lqau7smr7n2w
However, because I'm not running around emoting all the time, or letting them be the only informant of all my moral and political decisions, I get pegged by many others (including other patients) as 'not really having a problem.' And somehow, that ends up being a problem anyway.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.019 / 3lqau7smr7o2w
Holding people accountable isn't lacking empathy. Not holding people accountable so they don't feel bad is devoid of empathy, because that's more about making sure you don't feel guilty than actually appreciating what's best for the other person.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.020 / 3lqau7sms6w2w
Finally being fed up and being sarcastic about a sticking point the other person tried to unjustly hold against you, an imagined slight or maneuver they needed to be a victim of, is not lacking empathy.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.021 / 3lqau7sms6x2w
It's realizing that the trauma is over and now you need to get back to enforcing your boundaries and affirming reality.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.022 / 3lqau7sms6y2w
I knew that if I approached it any other way, it would just be 'too many words,' and accused of 'sophistry' and 'rehashing' and whatever else could be invented. So I was sarcastic in as few words as possible.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.023 / 3lqau7sms6z2w
I now believe that this was the goal. This was what was being sought, not a successful resolution, but something that could finally be held against me as horrible, cruel, and lacking empathy.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.024 / 3lqau7sms722w
Even then, my frustration couldn't be heard or valid, it had to be a nefarious attack on a vulnerable person that revealed the true nature of my anti-social disorder.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.025 / 3lqau7sms732w
[empty post text]
2025-05-28 18:42:36.026 / 3lqau7sms742w
Empathy isn't all rainbows and smiles. Often times, the people who demand the most empathy are the opposite of that. Empathy is not hugging people and professing your unconditional love while they stab you in the back. It's not even morality, as empathy is constantly abused to bring about injustice.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.027 / 3lqau7tpx742w
Empathy the principle, to me, is about striving for what's best for everyone involved that's under your control by truly understanding and appreciating who they are and what is involved.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.028 / 3lqau7tpx752w
You can't do that if you're not listening. It's impossible if you aren't hearing the words people say, observing their actions, considering their motives, or being aware of their interests. I do all of those things naturally, but I'm also human and have limits.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.029 / 3lqau7tpx762w
It becomes very difficult for someone like me when someone says they want all of that, but they really don't. They want the opposite of that; they want all of those things to be what they *want* them to be rather than what they are.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.030 / 3lqau7tpx772w
I only deal with what is, and that's a problem for a lot of people.
2025-05-28 18:42:36.031 / 3lqau7tpx7a2w
Having a lot of of powerful long-lasting emotions is a symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder. Not showing all those emotions is *not* part of the disorder. That is a learned behavior from my childhood, part nature (to me), and part coping strategy because doing that invites more disorder.
2025-05-28 18:48:04.440 / 3lqaujki6zi2w
To some, I am to strip away all of that safeguarding. I am to drop all guards, all barriers, all privacy to an extent, and wear my emotions on my sleeve so that I can be truly vulnerable and thus properly "authentic."
2025-05-28 19:52:48.447 / 3lqay5ckoma2w
This isn't true. It quickly turns into something else. It so easily becomes, based on that premise, a matter of what someone is able to know. If I feel something, but don't tell them or emote it, then I'm "lying by omission," despite the fact that *I don't owe them my emotions or their expression.*
2025-05-28 19:52:48.448 / 3lqay5cr4ny2w
I don't care who you are. I don't owe *my husband* my emotional expression, no matter what it is.
2025-05-28 19:52:48.449 / 3lqay5cr4nz2w
If I were to recognize and act on that obligation, it would cheapen the entire thing. I would be forced to express every little thought, reaction, or emotion that flits through my brain (and there's *a lot*), which no one does, and not able to *choose* the valuable ones I *choose* to share.
2025-05-28 19:52:48.450 / 3lqay5cr4o22w
That type of language is abusive. It's a set up for failure, especially for someone like me who ends up thinking or feeling bits of everything, including terrible things, due to my deep acceptance of my 'shadow.'
2025-05-28 19:52:48.451 / 3lqay5cr5nc2w
No one *needs* to share their deepest darkest thoughts, particularly when they see them as having no value.
2025-05-28 19:52:48.452 / 3lqay5cr5nd2w
And likewise, no one is obligated to share their love, pain, heartbreak, or affections. Brave New World was a warning, not a manual on how to be 'quite pneumatic' to everyone else.
2025-05-28 19:52:48.453 / 3lqay5cr5ne2w
And if I *don't* do that, something is wrong with me. I must be lying to myself and completely out of touch with my overwhelming emotions. Maybe I don't even feel them; but then, how are they overwhelming?
2025-05-28 19:53:43.246 / 3lqay6wszb42w
*And,* since I am lying to myself, then it's impossible for me to express any desire, emotion, reaction, or thought honestly. It's all tainted by that inner lie that someone else can see and 'call bullshit' on, but I, inside my head, knowing everything about myself, cannot.
2025-05-28 19:53:43.247 / 3lqay6wwqfm2w
Hmm… sounds like an abusive power imbalance that, really, is entirely made up. The other person can say whatever they want, it's not some magical power they possess.
Magic isn't real.
Magick is.
2025-05-28 19:53:43.248 / 3lqay6wwqfn2w
ATProto root record: 3lqau7rb3qk2w