Empathy

[Associate of Daniel]

A common understanding  about most people who have personality disorders is that they lack empathy.

I've never felt that observation to be complete.  To "lack", in my mind, is to be deficient. And a deficiency can be rectified.

To say that a person who has a personality disorder "lacks" empathy, implies that there is empathy available to them in the first place.  But that doesn't add up in my head.

I recently thought of an analogy that has helped me to settle the difficulty a little.

A brick wall.

If the brick wall "lacks" a brick, there is a vacant brick shaped space into which a brick may be placed. There is an empathy shaped space into which empathy may be placed.

If there are no missing bricks, there is nowhere for another brick - empathy - to be placed.



Anyway.  Just a thought.

AOD

[escapingman]

I understand what you are saying but I disagree.

If the brick wall doesn't want the missing brick and instead enjoys the hole in the wall, the brick cannot be put in. I believe some kind of empathy can be regained for someone missing it, but only if they want it (which they don't).

[NarcKiddo]

I struggle with this whole concept, because my uNPD mother appears to have the capacity for empathy.

She can recognise and respond to other people's emotions in an appropriate way, so long as those emotions are not directed at her in any way, or may cause her to have to do something she does not want to do. For instance, when I was a child I started crying when reading a book because a character died. My father asked why I was crying and teased me when I explained. My mother leapt to my defence, told him off for being mean to me, and comforted me. The fact that memory sticks in my mind is, in part, because that sort of thing was a rare occurrence. And more often she will recognise and respond to emotions by finding a way to make it all about her.

Many people confide in her because she is able to produce an apparently sympathetic ear and encourages them to talk to her. She then delights in mocking and disparaging them to the family and some selected friends - but she is able to display enough apparently genuine empathy to get people to disclose some very personal stuff.

She is a very intelligent and observant person, and a good actress, so it could be that she has learned how to behave in a way that will get whatever result she wants. As I have got older her displays of empathy towards me have been more noticeably responses to how she thinks I must be feeling in a given situation, rather than how I am actually feeling. But I don't know if that is because I have got better at hiding my true feelings from her (and everyone, really) so that all she, or anyone else, has to go on are the very limited bits of emotion I can't hide or am prepared to display.

[losingmyself]

My vision, using that analogy, is that my H can take something that LOOKS like a brick and cover the hole temporarily. I believe he can recognize what a brick is supposed to look like, but has no resources to acquire said brick.
I don't know if it's in there, but I have never truly seen a real brick from him. They're all made of crepe paper. Just for looks.

[blunk]

 

That is exactly what I was thinking.

[losingmyself]

AOD, but that's not what your analogy is, is it?
You're saying that the wall has no missing bricks, and there's no room for another empathy brick.
Just figured that out. Now I have to think on it 

[Cat of the Canals]

This is probably me being overly literal, but the clinical definition included in most (if not all) PDs is "impaired empathy." I actually like the word impaired here, because I have witnessed PDs experiencing empathy (or something like it, anyway). But it's not a fully rounded thing.

NPD/BPD mom seems to feel empathy if the situation is far enough from her sphere that she herself will not be caused any pain/discomfort/inconvenience. But if someone too close experiences something bad, she reacts entirely different. Usually with denial. Because it is no longer happening to one of us. It's happening to HER. And she needs this problem to go away, thankyouverymuch.

Then again, maybe she's just a good actress, and her urge to perform is only triggered by "outsiders."

[Prototypian]

Mine is a bit different.   It's like empathy has been replaced by order and rules.   Her empathy is about compassion if someone is struggling with a problem not covered by existing rules (getting sick, bureaucratic situation, getting older etc.) She has full empathy and will even go out of her way to help.  She is a local politician and when a constituent has a problem with something that isn't readily solvable with rules she fixes it with compassion.   

But there is no empathy or even feeling for things that don't follow rules.   If court says the death penalty is the proper legal outcome she has no compassion for the circumstances of the accused.

I think the OCPD brain is short circuited to require a swift call-out and appropriate judgement for anything that goes against a rule reality imagined and that doesn't really scale.   If you put a salad fork in the slot for a dinner fork it's just as bad an offense for any reason as driving drunk and there is no forgiveness and no pause to the swift justice.   

This also applies to choices made that really aren't wrong but we're made without appropriate thought of the consequences.   It is far better to not select health insurance by the due date than to choose one plan that could be the wrong one.   That kind of decision made by me is almost unforgivable.   But it's not empathy that drives it, it's rules

I think the OCPD brain is totally wired in a way that actually doesn't manipulate, it simply can't process anything other than right vs wrong and there can't be anything else in life.  The other people in her world don't matter not because she has no empathy but because their only focus should be to follow rules and limit risk.

[losingmyself]

The only 'real' empathy I have seen from him is for struggling animals. And often times, it is such an uncomfortable feeling for him, that he has to turn away, or change the channel on the TV

[bee well]

Yes, Cat of the Canals, it's impaired and selective empathy.

With my MIL I see she has lots of empathy for people she knows  who she sees as suffering because of their kids' lack of attention. And for victims of violence or mishaps in the news (she loves talking about suffering of all sorts).  When it comes to family she talks about things in a way that denigrates who she is talking about, and victimizes and/or paints herself as a martyr. "Poor so and so is in such bad shape I don't know what to do, I've tried everything to help and they still won't change. I'm afraid they will die in pitiful conditions. I'm so tired, I'm worrying myself sleepless." Things like that.

The main uNarc in my family with who I am now in NC has lots of empathy for humans, as long as they provide them with supply (agreeing at all costs), and are also an unconditionally empathetic sounding board.  Whomever disagrees or expresses a unique opinion could be at death's door and the uN wouldn't be phased in the least, would actually go so far as to ridicule the person. (As long as the person isn't in a position of power, or has something the uN wants.)

I've seen other uPds express "empathy" in similar ways.

[Empie2204]

I believe we can all circle around the brick wall comparison but we can interpret it in different ways.
My interpretation is that with PDs empathy is missing from the basic human structure and is being compensated by substitutes.
Just like some other posters observed, the brick holes are filled with other types of material.
PDs who want to survive, see that empathy is a valuable trait, so they pick up the knowledge and imitate it.
Some more, some less successful but never genuinely.

[Associate of Daniel]

Thank-you, everyone for your contributions to this thread.

There is much food for thought in your replies.

AOD

[pianissimo]

I've never felt that observation to be complete.  To "lack", in my mind, is to be deficient. And a deficiency can be rectified.

From what I have learned about the topic so far, this is the case for them. They can improve their empathetic skills if they are treated. The other thing is, lack of empathy is not something specific to personality disorders. People lack empathy when they are stressed or triggered. Abuse victims' empathy is likely to be impaired too, for certain people or in certain situations. As I understand, people with PDs lack empathy in a similar manner. I guess it's more severe for them because they aren't emotionally developed in many respects. They lack empathy like children do.

Also,  I think the definition of empathy in our context is more related to differentiation. It's the ability to allow somebody experience a particular feeling that might look incomprehensible to us. An example that occurs to me is from a story Laura from Living Well with Schizophrenia on YouTube told. It was about what happened during one of her psychosis. She told that, what helped her the most was, her then boyfriend, despite seeing there was nothing to be scared of, recognized she was genuinely scared, and addressed her fear, which helped her accept his help. So, to me, this is empathy, because not just from the boyfriend's perspective, from anyone's point of view, there is nothing to be scared of. There is no way he can understand why she is scared. Nevertheless, he makes room for her fear. To my understanding, this is what empathy is about in our context.  I think this is also the kind of empathy people with PDs lack. If they can't understand why you feel in a certain way, they assume your feelings can be dismissed or are not valid, like you should or could look past them. I suppose this is because they do that for themselves a lot of the time.

I also watch a channel called Anna Psychology, and she says sympathy is not the same as empathy. I think people with PDs are able to show sympathy, and plenty of it.

Anyways, these are my thoughts on this topic.

[Cat of the Canals]

I also watch a channel called Anna Psychology, and she says sympathy is not the same as empathy. I think people with PDs are able to show sympathy, and plenty of it.

Hmmm... that's a good reminder, and one I often forget. It might very well be that my mother is very good at expressing sympathy which can LOOK like empathy but isn't necessarily the same. And I like the idea that empathizing is "making room" for the emotion/feeling someone else is feeling. That is exactly what my PDmom is incapable of. There is only room for how she feels. In fact, she will go so far as to tell you that you DON'T feel a certain way or you SHOULDN'T feel a certain way.

[sunshine702]

I have had an issue with this too.  To the point that often I will forget that I am not dealing with a normal person.  Recently she sent a pretty birthday card with a personal nice message.  She seems really normal from time to time. 

I read it the night before her phone call.  Then  A torrent of Narc stuff.  Bringing up the frustrating house situation that she knows is a sore spot.  It's a sick horse race to her.  I just figured that out.   Compete with GC who is also doing a new house.  She doesn't care that we have encountered some setbacks it is a  score board.  I am losing she likes that.

Then the triangulation. Disclose that that brother has had legal trouble and how she hates his girlfriend.  Uhug.

The day I realized she was not alright in the head was when I told her I was feeling suicidal over a broken relationship and a crazy stress rash.  She kept sending me clothes .  She wouldn't talk to me about it
  Pretty dresses from her store would fix things not a good cry with her mom.  Not a you are safe with me. 
   But yeah from time to time they act completely normal.  That you are the crazy one. 

[losingmyself]

That is an excellent point. That sympathy and empathy are not the same. Empathy is feeling what someone feels, or at least being able to understand what they're feeling in any situation. Sympathy is feeling bad for them because you can see that they're sad, upset, whatever.
So, to amend my earlier post, H feels sympathy, not empathy, occasionally. As long as it can't come back to him being at fault. I think he can see, through standard situations, that a person, or mostly, an animal, is hurting, he can't FEEL or even try to imagine what they're feeling. Just, look, a sad dog. It's a sad thing for it. There's nothing internal for him. Nothing happens in his heart.