Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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This week a couple of people wanted to know what was special about DS PTSD, and I told them it was that here we have empathy, not sympathy. For me the difference means a lot. Empathy tells me somebody includes themselves and me in talking about the suffering in the human condition. I'm kind of allergic to sympathy.
Maybe it's my pride, but it's also experiences I've had. The people who felt sorry for me with sympathy and pity usually turned on me down the line because I didn't "get over it." The people who extended empathy wouldn't dare because "there but for the grace of God" they could be in my shoes--or had been already.
The two people really got upset with me. One of them, an older lady, actually got angry to the point of tears at my judging good people like her who only wanted to help and give me their sympathy. The other one, a young man, was enraged and actually said he preferred sympathy to hearing somebody claim to have empathy and then tell him some story about what happened to them.
I was so taken aback I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. I've been thinking it over all week, though, and I'm still pretty sure I spoke truly about how I felt for myself about empathy vs. sympathy. I just might have been better off keeping my experience to myself. It's just that empathy has been pretty much the only thing that's ever helped me, so I'm really sold on empathy and not sympathy, just speaking for myself. I get healing empathy here.
Anybody else care about the difference between empathy & sympathy?
Maybe it's my pride, but it's also experiences I've had. The people who felt sorry for me with sympathy and pity usually turned on me down the line because I didn't "get over it." The people who extended empathy wouldn't dare because "there but for the grace of God" they could be in my shoes--or had been already.
The two people really got upset with me. One of them, an older lady, actually got angry to the point of tears at my judging good people like her who only wanted to help and give me their sympathy. The other one, a young man, was enraged and actually said he preferred sympathy to hearing somebody claim to have empathy and then tell him some story about what happened to them.
I was so taken aback I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. I've been thinking it over all week, though, and I'm still pretty sure I spoke truly about how I felt for myself about empathy vs. sympathy. I just might have been better off keeping my experience to myself. It's just that empathy has been pretty much the only thing that's ever helped me, so I'm really sold on empathy and not sympathy, just speaking for myself. I get healing empathy here.
Anybody else care about the difference between empathy & sympathy?
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
I'm with cheesecake their has to be something else going on with the other's to. React that strongly to what sounded like just friendly conversation.
So for him it may not be what others here have learned.
Hugs Muji for listening to him rant a little.
J.
The difference between empathy and sympathy is as important to me as the difference between a bottle of juice and a bottle of cleanser. Both have honored places in my homestead, but I am in trouble when I try to clean my floor with juice while I am drinking the cleanser.
For me, empathy is the juice. It is a sharing which works its way into the essence of my being. Too much will give me heartburn, or worse.
Sympathy is the cleanser. It says, "I am done here. Time to put the nourishment to good use. Wipe table when finished."
Empathy = Gold ($1,066/ounce)
Sympathy = Silver ($14.14/ounce)
... if you catch my drift ;-)
Sympathy is precious but can tarnish.
Empathy is also precious, but does not tarnish.
Sympathy is an intellectual grasp of the issue, with some small emotional component of warm fuzziness. It is sad you hurt.
Empathy is an emotional grasp of the issue, on an intuitive-seeming level. It kmows exactly how it is to hurt and will cry with you.
I make no sense on this issue. THis is why I don't reply for so long and probably shouldn't have!
...regarding the young man...he wants to be seen as a unique person, it's a developmental stage a lot of teens/20's people are in?
Heros of their own narrative...so his pain is uniquely his, and not anybody else's.
Like everyone, he is unique.
The way to approach that in someone is to...well, ask him or her how they are getting along with battling their dragons?no advice though. Not unless you can somehow slide it into conversations such that they think it's THEIR OWN IDEA.
I'm not slick enough to pull that off, myself.
I know a lot of times I don't want advice, I just need that reflector, that other ear to listen to me whine...and that allows me to sort and to create my own solutions....
Advice often feels condescending, even though I know the person means well! Artifact of my verbally abusive parents.
I think it is why we use the TW here, because there is so many can resonate with the pain.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201505/empathy-vs-sympathy