Why does everyone attack my emotions?

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If someone expresses how they feel, they get sympathy and understanding. But if I do the same, I get a fight on my hands. Why do others attack my emotions?

I'm not really good at sympathy, better at practical type help, and it's hard to know what kind of help to offer in your situation.
All I can say is that I'm sorry you're feeling like you do, but I can't really help and so I feel kind of useless.
I don't think I have attacked you.

Who does that? The people in your area? Don't listen to them - from what you've written about them they don't seem like the sort of people worthy of judging all others by.
I second Raleigh - I'm better at ideas and trying to help practically- I often cannot understand emotions and can only go by what I have learned about normal emotions cognitively.

I know how you feel.
I can sympathize with you.
I can empathize with you.
The same thing happens when I try to gain sympathy by posting on the Internet ...
either my emotions get attacked,
or I get ignored.

In my case, I think it's lack of social skills.
Other people when they post about their problems
come across as more charming than I am.
That's my best guess, anyways.

Or maybe it's because I try to put on a brave front
even when I have problems,
so people don't feel sorry for me because they think I don't need their moral support.

There could be other reasons.
Without knowing more about you,
I can only continue guessing as to the cause.

Anyways, if there's a situation you're dealing with in your life,
I hope it improves soon!

Do you think it could be possible that some of them don't actually mean to "attack" you and are actually trying to help, but you experience it as an attack? This happens to me a lot; when someone tells me about their problems, I usually try to find and suggest solutions to them, but some people seem to find that as offending and that I'm not taking their problems seriously. Sometimes it seems like all they want from me is that I listen to them complaining and say things like "I'm sorry to hear that", "that was so unfair", "you're not in the wrong here" etc. instead of wanting advice. The problem is that nobody tells me beforehand if they just want to let out steam or actually want some advice from me.

What you're describing is stereotypically the male response rather than the female response:

I'm not "attacking your emotions."

I'm just saying that one needs perspective in life. One should seek to solve the dilemmas of life. One needs to adapt to whatever situation they are in. I feel this is the only way to live, honestly. Otherwise, you screw yourself.

I find that, sometimes, "one thing leads to another"--like 1 + 1 equals 4, when it should only equal 2. I understand that emotions aren't rational like that.

But you put yourself in binds, I find. One thing leads to another with you. And then you become despaired.

The reason why I "know" this is because I do this myself.

I don't have the answer. I just came to say that such a thing happens to me as well. It's always been like that. That's so serious that nowadays I don't even try to rant on the matter because people were used to dismiss me as "a neurotic with persecutory delusions" (their words, not mine).

I don't get much sympathy, either----trust me!

Well, looks like that's one more thing that afflicts us all. This is kind of interesting.

Know what else? Whenever I'm walking down the street I can see people that literally cross to the other side and yes, I know for sure it's about me because they do that as they look at me suspiciously. For a while, I thought it could be me overthinking and being oversensitive but now I am positive.

What do I do about that these days: I can do nothing about it so I just keep walking my path and let everyone avoid me, if that's what they want.

People are weird.....that's all I can say.

People avoid me when I howl like a Wolfman in the street and subway LOL

I'm kind of wishy washi when it comes to being sympathetic with others. When it's about friends, I am courteous of their situations and try to help them in some way or form. For those who I care about have told me how nice I am to them and that they love me for it.

But, the responses I have towards people dealing with emotional stress like a gift and a curse. Although my sympathy for those close to me has given me the trust from a person as well as develop a solid friendship, other people who I don't have any background knowledge of won't really get that soft side to me. I try to show respect when respect is due, but because of my misanthropic thoughts and beliefs tend to leave me dry of words. This is because most have never been nice to me before or have pretended to be nice to me and just end up turning their backs.

I mentioned in another post about how I commonly do this when I'm out in public. I switch sides on a sidewalk when I'm about to become into close contact with another body more because of my social anxiety and my general dislike of people due to my negative experience in contemporary society. This happens despite whether or not the person themselves is actually bad, I just want to avoid any sort of interaction at all cause to avoid that possibility. I believe everyone has different reasons as why they avoid certain people. It may not be because they don't find you appealing.

I believe that applies to pretty much anyone else in this forum. Myself, I'm very generous and sympathetic to the few closest ones. I don't even greet people I don't care about. Added to that, when people who aren't close come with their usual "good mornings" I tend not to reply. It's written in their faces that they don't mean it.



I don't need them to find me appealing but it's certainly very uncomfortable to realise that they find me uninviting. The usual joke people tell about me is that one day I will come striding from the office's front door with a machine gun and kill everyone around. That doesn't sound nice and I struggle to see how that sounds funny.

I know what happens next whenever I tell that story: people come to me saying "if you treat them nicely, they will be good to you as well". If that were true, they would treat me nicely for starters. I did nothing but to treat other people nicely for a long time and this is what I got so, I don't care about others anymore.

I grew tired of being bullied, rejected, despised, mistreated, misunderstood, mocked etc for no apparent reason. The unfairest bit of all is this: they don't mind saying something hurtful about me and I have to pretend that I like the joke and return their gesture with politeness? So they can say anything and get away with it, but ... I cannot? No way, I'm not playing their game by their rules. I'll despise, mistreat and ignore whoever I see fit. It's not their game anymore.

As far as I can remember I never lacked empathy. I always felt like it's the other way around: it's other people who don't care. So why should I?

I don't care if they die dry in hell. Thinking again... anyone pass me the machine gun, please. I reckon that's a good idea, now.

Emotions cant be wrong (nor right either).
Logic can be wrong, and be attacked. You can attack logic (or the lack thereof) but you cant attack an emotion. But folks do it anyway.

But the reason folks attack another person (you, for example) for expressing an emotion is because they feel that you are unfairly attacking them.

Usually that.

Or it can be that you are feeling an emotion (ie complaining about something), and they simply don't sympathize and think there is something wrong with you for not being able to handle the thing in question.

Funny you mention this because I have running debate with a coworker about something like this. This person gets emotional about a thing that seems like nothing to me. And it threatens my whole respect for this person. But I am probably digressing right now about my own stuff.

Unfortunately some people can't distinguish between an attack on their logic from an attack on their emotions. They believe that their way of thinking about their situation must be right and therefore justifies how they feel. Emotions can be wrong, especially when people don't realize or ignore their share of the blame for their situation. However, that does not give anyone the right to attack their emotions directly. They must be made to realize that their justification of and attempt to rationalize their situation is false. There are quite a few people on this site that likely won't be able to tell when they have done something wrong and will continue to be ignorant of this until someone tells them. However, there are some people who really have been the victims of something that resulted through no fault of their own. I try to either determine or make this distinction before attempting to offer any advice. Those that truly seem to be victims deserve a more comforting approach, and anyone else will be received with a more harsh and strict tone. I do not condone anyone that tries to justify deplorable actions simply because their situation is so miserable. I also disagree with anyone that thinks it is okay to do whatever they want as long as it gets them closer to achieving their dreams.

Seconded. I'd just tweak your sentence as follows: most people can't distinguish a debate from a personal attack. That's the majority. Anything contrary to their well established behaviour and way of thinking is interpreted as a potential threat to all their beliefs. Should that happen, they'll feel like voiding everything about the counterpart. They will mistreat you, distort your words, mock and physically attack you.

Alternatively, they will engage in one of those inquisition sessions in which they feel entitled to all the answers from you. Their purpose is to find anything that they can use immediately against you. They're not interested in a civilised talk.