musings: SAs and empathy

I got nothin….

Yes, I think empathy can be learned, and we teach it to our kids (directly and indirectly) when they are young. But some people (like sociopaths) don’t care about other’s feelings or have contempt for their feelings, and other people never received empathy, never learned it when young- or didn’t learn it well, and so never or under-developed that part of themselves. It’s a lot harder to learn when you’re older- sort of like learning a second language, I think. Just my opinion, not really sure it’s factual.

Artemis that is a very interesting question. My husband does feel empathy. He is a very kind, compassionate and understanding man. Unfortunately he also subscribed to to theory ‘what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her’. His downfall.
It is interesting also that his friend (I believe another SA) is very much like your husband. Very matter of fact about others loss and grief. His own daughter in law ran off to Singapore with her son’s child (his grandchild) and he shows no sadness or sympathy for his son. All I have heard are some ramblings about different cultures.

“I don’t know if he is capable of doing something for the pure joy or pleasure of making someone else happy/feel good, as opposed to because he thinks he is “supposed to”, or negotiating some kind of reward.”

My SA — I don’t think he is capable of that either, Artemis. He will do something if there is a reward in it for him. On the very rare occasion he buys me a gift, all I hear about is how great it made him feel to buy it. The motivation behind it isn’t about me feeling good, it’s all about him.

I guess in my opinion, if they learn empathy as adults which involves a lot of work, they can be taught what to do to put themselves in another’s shoes, but it will never really come natural.

People with Narcissitic personality disorder and Sociopaths have no empathy and never will.

And some are just regular, run of the mill, common assholes. No diagnoses needed 🙂

Bev – good points about empathy being subjective. I wouldn’t say that my h. has zero empathy but like Artemis, it seems like he “goes through the motions” or does things b/c that is what he’s learned he’s supposed to do.

Another question would be “do these guys have emotional intelligence?” One of the things that I was most attracted to about my h. when I met him was his intelligence. I would just love to listen to him talk and I thought he was just was so articulate & intelligent. But, over the years, I found that I grew in my intelligence & confidence – being a Mom certainly facilitated that – and I found that his intellect was less & less noticeable. Maybe that is b/c he uses all of his smarts to figure out ways to fuck whores, who knows? But as my therapist said recently, I grew in my emotional intelligence and he stayed the same. (I would argue that he actually probably even slid-back).

I am old Victoria. I learned long ago that there are some people that do not deserve my empathy. It is a self protection thing. I had to learn it…I completely tune people out when the signals get too overwhelming and I end up feeling their pain.

This is also a great article to read on people who are character disordered….

http://chumplady.com/2012/06/an-interview-with-dr-george-simon-on-character-disturbance/

To me the indicator that tells me that they don’t feel empathy is when they are caught and they say “I didn’t think I was hurting anyone,” or similar. It sounds like they are stupid or delusional, but I think that maybe they are telling the truth.

I know there is at least one brain study that shows that the brain structure associated with empathy is smaller in them.

My SA could switch his stunted form of empathy on or off when it suited him. He couldn’t bear to watch those adopt a third world children commercials, but if I teared up and said I missed my deceased mom he just glared at me coldly. You see he secretly blamed me for all the problems in his life no matter how ridiculous or far fetched, that’s how he justified his screwing around. Yet sometimes, he would bring me cheap grocery store flowers for no reason maybe because he felt “guilty” for visiting some massage parlour slut. Who knows how his messed up mind worked. I’m pretty sure he also subscribed to the “what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her” mindset also. Because of that incident where I caught him torturing the mouse, and his penchant for extremely violent movies, I am pretty sure his empathy meter is fairly low.

Mine is high, almost too high. I tend to care too much, feel too much, get too involved, when I need to care for myself more. My sociopathic daughter knew just how to take advantage of me time and time again and I have finally had the strength to disengage from her and enforce my boundaries, she didn’t seem to get it at first but slowly she is now.

A few weeks ago, I was doing my fitness walking at the mall and and I passed this young man who was sitting on a bench with his head in his hands sobbing and as I walked along I though I just can’t keep going, so I went back and said “are you okay, he seemed surprised, so I sat down and we talked for a whiled and it wasn’t easy to get it out of him he seemed a little embarrassed so I didn’t press to much, but it seemed he worked for his family and they were pretty domineering and oppressive and he was fed up but didn’t know how to stand up for himself and was miserable. He wanted to get out from under them and maybe make a new life for himself. I told him a little about my life and how I broke free from my horrible situation and said you basically have to say enough, make a plan and just believe in yourself and make it happen. I hope I gave him something to think about. I just hate seeing someone suffer, that is just how I am. Too damn empathetic.

Last summer, when my damn sa left, and I was sitting in my car and I was in a parking lot in my car, sobbing my guts out and wondering what the hell I was going to do, I wished someone had come up to me and said a few kind words to me, that’s why I felt I had to do that for this young man.