"It's difficult because we are empaths," she said.
No, I don't mean I am an empath. I mean, she says she is, and the context is, we were talking about a person in her midst who I think is a psychopath. You know, the whole "they only show emotions when they get cues from others about how to act" thing? Me neither. I didn't study psychology outside of that one term during my college freshman year.
That makes the whole academic concept of empaths and psychopaths a little impenetrable for me, at least without the help of people who are more versed in the matter. They tell you what they know - what they studied, which is why they know - and you go, "yeah, that makes sense." And then you start thinking about where you really are in the spectrum, and you become aghast at the idea that you're probably a bad person.
But that's what happens when you're confronted with an ideal of sorts whose meaning is not exactly an easy one to explain. One, who goes out there and says they have loads of empathy for other people? What does that even mean? Not everyone knows someone who can give a thorough-ish explanation - this is why she can say she's an empath, probably; she studied it - and what few sources we get tend to be overly simplified and built to make people feel good, for the clicks, rather than confront what could be.
That brings me to a LinkedIn post I saw this morning. "Six ways to lead your team with empathy," it went. There's a lot about trying to understand where the other person is coming from, which means really paying attention to what they have to say, being really curious about who they are, and perhaps, putting yourself in their situation. I suppose that makes sense, because this doesn't come naturally for psychopaths, or so I was reminded of. Thus, the whole "they only show emotions when they get cues from others about how to act" thing. I'm pretty sure I am oversimplifying it at this point.
I remember a few weeks back, when I was looking for photos from my college archives (also known as my inadvertent stash of blackmail material) to use on the new writing project. One photo reminded me so much of someone that I haven't talked to for years than I decided to go on Facebook and chat with her. Fired up the window, and the first thing I saw was the last thing we chatted about, many years ago. She was talking me out of my suicidal thoughts.
You were never depressed when we first met, I suddenly remembered. You only got depressed when you met me.
No. I insisted I always felt like this, but it just wasn't this intense before.
No. You only got depressed when you met me.
I suppose empathy means setting aside your instincts of self-preservation in an attempt to truly understand the other person, and that's a difficult ask for anyone, at the very least because you will think, "but what about me and what I want?" I guess it's why the whole idea of empathy feels so unattainable: we've fashioned it as some sort of superhuman quality. But there I was, thinking of how my experiences were denied because it did not fit a certain narrative, and here I was, confronted with hard evidence that it did happen. Sure, I never shed blood, but I still thought of things.
I'm not saying whoever told me that is a psychopath. I can't. I still second-guess myself. But surely, I can say that person is selfish, right?
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