Sympathy for objects but not humans

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I have to keep correcting myself because I refer to things like "making eye contact with the bus" (to flag it down) and talk about buses and cars as if there was no driver.

Whether or not it's right falls under the category of reasoning and perspective, so that's kind of beside the point. This personification of objects, so to speak, is something that seems to happen to me subconsciously, and thus it creates a continuous struggle to sort out what's "right" and what isn't.

Last edited by stickboy26 on 01 May 2007, 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I just mean, a cat or a dog is closer to a human than to a table. Feeling empathy for a rabbit makes sense, they are alive and experience pain etc. A car doesn't.

Yep. That's why I'm not going to feel like it's strange that I feel empathy for animals. I'd feel worse about myself if I didn't!

Me too. I should probably work on having more empathy for humans as well though.

I care too much about everything.

That would be me.

When I was younger, I felt great empathy for my stuffed animals, but not my dolls. Used to slap my dolls and cut their hair off. Also, I used to feel so sorry for old, beat-up cars, and would actually get a lump in my throat if we passed by a particularly banged up one. Some here have mentioned saying "excuse me" when bumping into objects -- I still do that.

And I still hate my filthy whore of a vacuum cleaner.

I used to treat stuffed animals and blankets as if they were alive. I would feel guilty if I didn't pay enough attention to them. When I was younger and I saw a western movie, I would be more concerned for the horses getting shot at then the people being shot at.
But animals aren't objects or humans, so I don't know if any of this counts.

I was the exact same way! Of course, being a guy, I wasn't expected to be the biggest fan of dolls, but I think I actively disliked them. They always look belligerant and spoiled.

No, but i always have wondered, how a object can be an object and not feel or see anything.

Be part of the super Object the Borg my brother and sisters. Your hopeless on your own.

thats being violent when people are about. ive bashed things when there has been other people i know in the house but try to keep the noise down and think up a reply in case i get asked what the noise is. i dont want anyone to see or know, they will think im an idiot because it is a stupid thing to do. you all should watch the faulty towers episode where basil is thrashing his car with a branch

Not to mention CREEPY.

I thought this thread was sympathy for objects, not humans....??

I see a lot of abuse going on here to these poor objects...tend to try not to throw or smash things much anymore, although I did mangle my very expensive telephone system once until it was totally unusable...if it had have been a human, I'd be in jail until my sixties I reckon.

Before I was diagnosed, a work colleague teased me that he thought I had tourette's because I would explode into a barrage of filth without warning if computer, phone, whatever didn't appease my needs.

I don't talk to objects, or carry on conversations with them, but I do get a strong bond with them. My computer monitor fried not too long ago, and I was sad to see it go, I really got used to it and liked it a lot, I actually cried when it had to be removed... and I absolutely detested this monitor when I first got it and would glare at it as I did things, as if I was constantly looking for something wrong with it. I guess in a way, I do talk to paper, when I write a journal or something, I'm actually writing it to the friggin notebook, lol. Though I'm not saying anything out loud, it always starts very similar to "dear notebook (sometimes not even an intro), I know you've heard this a million times, but I need a lot of help figuring this out..." and I do tend to swear at my thermostat quite a bit as my house is NEVER comfortable, it's always too hot, too cold, too stuffy, too humid, etc. If the house is too hot and I turn on the a/c (only one degree lower than it claims it already is in the house just to get air moving before I decide to move it lower), it always seems to get instantly cold the second the air starts moving, and I always blame the thermostat.

When it comes to my children, I've ALWAYS felt out of it, as if I'm just not emotionally connected. I mean, if my son gets a papercut and freaks out, I ask if it's bleeding or if we need to amputate (just joking of course, to try to get him to laugh instead of scream). I know it's not normal-people look at me like I'm insane all the time for saying it, but it's just how I deal with it. They have to bring whatever is wrong to me and point to it, then a kiss solves it all. But screaming and crying just makes me want to tune out completely if I can, or I'll up and leave the room altogether, or tell them to move to another room. I really dunno how to deal with it. I used to try a brush off approach to it, but it never worked-that old "walk it off" thing is just impossible, lol. If I let it go long enough, it will stop, they find something else and forget all about it... well, the 2 year old does, my son if he doesn't approach me with it will come asking for a kiss on it a week after it happens Luckily, to them, it's normal-this is mommy and this is how she is. My son is perplexed by it, but my daughter is just happy go lucky and doesn't care. My son also notices he does the same thing, if someone is crying or anything, it's just too much, he'll try to comfort at first, but if he doesn't understand why it's going on, he'll just leave the room or go play and come back when it chills. He says he's a lot like me because of it.

He talks to objects a lot more than people though-he'll tell his toys sorry if he drops them and such quicker than he'd ever dream of telling a person.

Used to... not so bad now, but I used to if anything got broken.
My mother has always accused me of caring more about whatever my current obsession is than about her or my family.