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Relating to others vs characters on tv

Paddy

Hello everyone, please forgive me if this is not a relevant place for this subject, but I wanted to ask if anyone else finds it easier to relate to characters on tv shows/in movies than they do speaking to family and friends?

I had a very interesting experience watching Call The Midwife last Sunday. One of the characters on the programme was viciously beaten by a man, and it brought genuine tears to my eyes, and yet, I find when my mother cries for some reason, or I see someone in real life in distress I tend to feel very little, or anything at all. Thanks to anyone who shares their experiences with me.

Parents

  • I can certainly identify with this.  As I kid, I can remember being mocked for being stoic and aloof most of the time, yet inconsolable when a TV character was harmed or died. (I still get reminded about mourning for 'Tarka the Otter' over thirty years later!).

    Keeping things "bottled up" for fear of reacting inappropriately is certainly a big part of it, I think, as Maia suggests.

    There's also another form of this that I get, which I think is closely related to being Alexithymic.  I have a great deal of trouble identifiying my own emotions - I know I'm feeling "something", but cannot name the emotion or work out how to react to it. It will often slowly "sink in" over a few hours or days, but even then, only if it's an emotion that I'm very familiar with already.

    I find when watching a movie or reading a book, that I will suddenly become overwhelmed with emotion when the character is experiencing something that I've been feeling too, but hadn't yet worked out what it was.  It's a kind of "Eureka" moment when it dawns on me what the emotion is, and then the reaction kicks in, often to a very extreme degree.

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  • I can certainly identify with this.  As I kid, I can remember being mocked for being stoic and aloof most of the time, yet inconsolable when a TV character was harmed or died. (I still get reminded about mourning for 'Tarka the Otter' over thirty years later!).

    Keeping things "bottled up" for fear of reacting inappropriately is certainly a big part of it, I think, as Maia suggests.

    There's also another form of this that I get, which I think is closely related to being Alexithymic.  I have a great deal of trouble identifiying my own emotions - I know I'm feeling "something", but cannot name the emotion or work out how to react to it. It will often slowly "sink in" over a few hours or days, but even then, only if it's an emotion that I'm very familiar with already.

    I find when watching a movie or reading a book, that I will suddenly become overwhelmed with emotion when the character is experiencing something that I've been feeling too, but hadn't yet worked out what it was.  It's a kind of "Eureka" moment when it dawns on me what the emotion is, and then the reaction kicks in, often to a very extreme degree.

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