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Feeling the pain of others

Desmond79

Last night, at a Christmas Zoom Quiz for the Belfast group I attend, there was a woman on our team who's Son - from London - can't come home, as one of his mates has Covid. She was heartbroken, but I felt her pain ten times more. And I can't handle upset well.

Does anyone else feel the need to carry someone else's cross?

Parents

  • I feel the pain of the world: refugees in terrible conditions around the world; animals tortured /neglected/abused, mistreated children. The injustice of it all weighs me down sometimes.

    Ten years ago, when I first attempted to get diagnosed, I was dismissed as not autistic by a very young psychologist because I 'had empathy'. Oh, the irony...

  • in reply to daleswomble

    I got that same response from a psychiatrist about 4 years back. Last time I bothered with him or his proposed meds for GAD! Like Aidie says, lots of evidence indicates empathy can take different forms. My immediate response to him on that one was that empathy was something I had learnt over the years. I said it quite emphatically, and he was somewhat taken aback by my ability to even think about contesting his declaration. (I was forearmed with a self-generated idea. I'd only had to review a few situations in different stages of my life, and thought about how i had felt at the time to come to that realisation.) But actually I now believe empathy has always been there for me; just perhaps a bit different from some others.

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  • in reply to daleswomble

    I got that same response from a psychiatrist about 4 years back. Last time I bothered with him or his proposed meds for GAD! Like Aidie says, lots of evidence indicates empathy can take different forms. My immediate response to him on that one was that empathy was something I had learnt over the years. I said it quite emphatically, and he was somewhat taken aback by my ability to even think about contesting his declaration. (I was forearmed with a self-generated idea. I'd only had to review a few situations in different stages of my life, and thought about how i had felt at the time to come to that realisation.) But actually I now believe empathy has always been there for me; just perhaps a bit different from some others.

Children