People tend to judge how much they are supporting others higher than the support they receive from others. I try not to but I might be failing.
People who know me often tell me I think differently to other people. Usually, this is framed as somehow being “innovative” or “creative”. The truth is I do believe I think differently to other people. I even have an old note that I wrote to myself about 15 years ago entitled “Way’s In Which I’m Different”.
I don’t really value “innovation” and “creativity” the way other people seem to think I do. I guess this is another way I’m different. But I suspect people are just trying to be kind. So I enjoy their kind words.
One of the ways I actually believe I’m different is that I have a hard time claiming to know how somebody else feels. I genuinely don’t like to pre-suppose I know how somebody feels. This means if I try to be supportive or helpful I typically don’t assume that I’ve succeeded unless they tell me.
Interestingly, sometimes I’m told I’m not “empathetic”. This is rarely said in a nasty way – my wife says it the most often, so I know it’s not something that makes me unbearable, or unloveable.
But I believe this idea that I might lack “empathy” is related to my unwillingness to presume to know what somebody is feeling.
It’s possible that when I communicate I’m so committed to not presuming that I know what goes on inside another person’s mind, or to presume I know how they feel, that I’m coming across as not empathetic. When I try to take the next step it often feels fake – not because I’m faking emotions, but because I know I can’t feel what they feel. But I do care, and I do try to help.
Like an introvert who finds communication with others draining, genuinely caring for others takes energy, and time, and must never be faked.
There is a trend I’ve noticed where people refer to themselves as “empaths”. I believe they think this means they have a special intuition about how others are feeling and take these emotions on themselves. I can’t relate to that concept. One interpretation of me not being able to understand a so-called “empath” might be that I myself lack empathy. But I have other theories.
I believe those that call themselves “empaths” are doing one of two things. Either, they are so self-centred that they cannot think about the feelings of others without making it all about themselves. Alternatively, they are so lacking and out-of-touch with their own genuine feelings that they have to reach out and adopt the feelings of others in order to feel emotionally connected to the world.
It feels too personal to write about this, and again I feel it’s presumptuous to claim any knowledge of how others feel – even how empaths feel. But because I am thinking about it now does that make me finally more empathetic, or does it mean I’m an empath? Or just pathetic.