paolo wrote:
This is one more problem and serious, at least as I experience it. When you had your diagnosis late in life, you realize that you have always lacked real empathy. When somebody was sick, wounded or dying you felt displeasure but not real grief. You reacted in conventional ways, expressing some feelings which really didn’t were your real feelings. This happens all the time with condolences, and third parties don’t make any attempt to verify the real weight of your words or reactions. Often they also fake their grief. But now that you have decided that you can’t feign feelings anymore, that you are adult (in my case old, though only in terms of years lived), it’s hard to confess that you are indifferent to what happens to your purported friends. In a sense it’s worse to have to shake off the mask of compassion, than the loss of acquaintances in itself. And hard to say it. And hard to verify your lifelong coldness.
I for one completely relate. I've been called cold several times. I will cry at movies or for animals, etc but I dont often show emotion for real people much at all, even family. I will cry sometimes if my mother cries because I know she's upset. I sometimes wonder if people are "faking" or just want attention, even when the issue is someone's death. My thought process is often "people die" or "it happens" I don't mean to be unfeeling I just don't know how else to be. I do get emotional though sometimes, but usually when I'm by myself and because I'm feeling bad about the consequences of my behavior(or lack there of) in life
16 Sep 2008, 6:51 pm
