Why I should feel empathy and remorse to my former bullies?

Post Reply New Topic

Does having a history of sadistic revenge against my former bullies a form of psychopathy or sociopathy? I have no empathy and remorse for people who made fun of me for having Autism Spectrum disorder and Specific Learning disorder.

Why should I feel empathy and remorse to people who made fun of me in the past and called me “Stupid”, “Loser” and “Idiot” for having Autism Spectrum Disorder and Specific Learning Disorder?

I do have empathy and remorse, but only to people who are polite to me.

I don’t have empathy and remorse for bullies, they lost my trust, I felt gaslighted and I feel damaged on the inside. I stopped learning all together, because I had a delusion from my former bullies, that I will never learn, but they are f*****g wrong and I am learning, but much slower than usual.


I am smart enough not to act on my thoughts of revenge, because I don’t want to be incarcerated for a long time, it would be a very stupid to make that risk.


I am sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I have Antisocial Personality Disorder. I feel bad!

I feel like I developed undiagnosed Unspecified Personality Disorder after all that. I have been holding my anger about it by far too long and have some symptoms of venerable narcissism and envy others that are better than me.

I know that I decided to forgive my bullies, but I felt like I developed Unspecified Personality Disorder, due to psychological abuse by my former bullies.

I'm glad you have been able to move on from the bullies, and to not want to exact revenge upon them.

Remorse? For what? What have you done to the bullies? It's the bullies who I feel must feel remorse for what they have done.

I feel bad for showing some symptoms of Antisocial Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder after all that.

Those symptoms I have causes me distress


My symptoms for a few weeks:

* Irritability (Also part of Bipolar Disorder)
* Grandiosity, sometimes delusion of grandeur (Also part of Bipolar Disorder)
* History of pathologically fantasizing about killing my former bullies (Did not act on those thoughts)
* Lack of empathy and remorse, but only to people who are mean to me, but my empathy and remorse is more intact.
* Not caring what happens to my former bullies
* History of refusal to learn, had a delusion that I will never learn, as I was bullied into thinking that I will never be able to learn
* Envy others better than me
* Pathological jealously to people who are better than me.
* Fantasizing about committing suicide, but only when I crash down after manic episode
* Talk too fast
* Laugh too much
* Impulsivity
* History of some risky and criminal behaviors.



Mixed episode: Rapid Cycling



My symptoms for some time:

* Very low energy
* Pathological feelings of guilt, sometimes delusions of guilt
* irritability
* envy others better than me
* Very upset
* Feeling like giving up to learn
* Sometimes not feeling like talking with my friends for some time

I could see it being possible to having some empathy toward bullies who, if you think about it objectively, may have issues in their own lives which cause them to act this way (e.g. a boy who goes home after school to beatings and verbal abuse from his father or his mother's boyfriend). That doesn't mean you can't resent the bully or frankly even despise them.

Why would you have remorse toward bullies from the past? I don't think you are using the word remorse correctly. If however you exact sadistic revenge, you are going to learn what remorse is, possibly good and hard.

I am not saying I can't develop empathy and remorse for them, but those symptoms that I had, it lasted for a very long time and feels like a personality disorder and it's chronic.

I also had "issues" at home as a child, yet I made the choice to not beat up on kids smaller and weaker than I.

Obviously, the bullies made other choices, and because of their choices, I feel no sense of empathy for them.

The only remorse I feel is due to not fighting back sooner.

This is basically what I feel, too.

I feel like, no matter what the bullies have gone through, that they should still get a well-deserved ass-kicking by one who is being bullied. I would applaud that.

But not years after the fact......

Exactly! That is how I feel but to a profound degree.

Really, I am a strong advocate for not letting your past determine your present and future.

I believe part of the reason for the recent increase in such things as school shootings is because people just can't "let go." Obviously, there are more, prominent reasons. But I still attach some importance to the fact that some people just can't "let go," and that they be encouraged to acquire a broadened perspective.

Empathy means feeling what someone else feels, or at least being willing to try. Remorse is something else - it talks about doing something you later regret.
Empathy can lead to remorse, especially if at the time of your action you did not empathize and later you do.

Why feel empathy and then remorse? One reason is this: the problem with not wanting to let the other person off the hook is that the hook went through you first. You cannot get the hook out of you until you let the other person off the hook. Forgiveness is often healing to the person who does the forgiving.

I was bullied and verbally abused as a kid. I was “different”.

There is a principal: your right to use your fist stops at the tip of my nose. I have a right to take actions to keep myself safe and set healthy boundaries.

I do not want to become the bully. I do not want to cause others pain. That isn't winning to me that is loosing.

There are healthy boundaries and unhealthy boundaries. Unhealthy boundaries lock me away from others. Or unhealthy boundaries can mean I go crashing through other people’s boundaries. A twenty foot brick wall keeps other people out but can also lock me in. A 4 foot tall split rail fence with some of the rails falling down can both do a poor job keeping others out and keeping me in. A little white picket fence with a nice gate I can open and close - that is more like a healthy boundary.

Those are some things I have learned that can help me be safe and secure and healthy without becoming the bully I do not want to become.

That makes sense. It's just that I need help and therapy to reach that goal, but I do have my own moral codes and learn not to cross my line related to my moral code.

I'm glad you have a "moral code."

Part of the problem, these days, is that some people lack a "moral code," and become isolated, so that there is nobody to teach them about "moral codes."

I'm glad you either have a natural "moral code," or that someone taught you well.

Although I have of showing symptoms of history of Conduct Disorder Unspecified and later developed some symptoms of Antisocial Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I have more intact empathy and remorse, and have moral code for myself.

I agree with that…that we idealize the past. In many ways, most people have it better these days than even, say, during the early 20th century.

But I also believe that increased isolation and reliance on the Internet has caused a sort of amoral nihilism to become more common in this day and age.