ok. so.
it's recently been brought to my attention (again) that (some) people think i may be a sociopath. now, i personally think that my worry and stress and confusion over being given this title, negates the possibility of me being a sociopath at all. because a real sociopath wouldn't worry about being a sociopath or not. and i do.

anyhow. i think a consistent problem in my life has been my lack of human emotion, and oftentimes coming off as "robotic" to people who're close to me. and it's not that i don't have feelings... i just don't have alot of them. but i HAVE them.

and i know that i feel alot more through empathy, or thinking critically about another person's situation/experience than i do through my own experiences.

for example, a good friend of mine recently learned he's going blind and is getting divorced from a person he really loves. now, i hear that an empathize with that, and sortof feel for him things like disappointment, abandonment, loneliness, sadness, frustration, self-worth questioning, purpose of life, etc. but if this exact same thing happened to me (more specifically a relationship ending, than to the blindness) my response would really be "oh well.."

wtf is that? that i can feel more for other people, and literally feel their emotions for them, but can't feel my own (and subsequently, have no desire to).

i just don't see why getting emotional makes any situation better or worse. for example, yesterday a wildfire swept through the mountains where my job is, a burned over 150 acres, everyone had to evacuate, etc.

i feel like i'm expected to cry over this, or get really angry and/or upset. but i dont feel that way. at all... i mean, fire is a natural event. it has to happen for the ecosystem to continue to exist, and without getting into a short essay on the pros of wildfires as a biological/ecological event, i know that in the end they're far more beneficial than any property damage they may cause (and honestly, maybe people shouldn't be surprised when wildfires happen.. when you build something in the middle of a state park, obviously, it's going to happen eventually).

point is, the person i first told about this whole fire situation said he felt really bad and depressed about it, and as a result wanted to quit his former activity and just lay down for a while. and while i appreciate that depth of empathy, is it totally bitchy and cruel for me to think that's just over dramatic and a rather un-necessary reaction?

and i said that, in response, and then it ended up in the "i feel, but you don't, ever, because you're a sociopath" realm. again.


ok, this is really long. i'm going to stop now.
but really, wtf?

yeah. i get that a lot. my therapist even called me a robot. i'm really monotoned too so it doesn't help. are your parents like that? i've always figured i'm very 'oh well..' about things because my dad never shows any emotional response to situations. he only acts logical and rational. or did someone ever mock you for getting emotional when you were younger, like a parent or sibling? 'cause then i can see how you might subconsciously learn to supress those feelings or just stop feeling them. you don't sound like a sociopath. just very... logical?

with the wildfire especially. when any natural disaster happens i think people get too emotional over it. sure, there's loss and it's obviously not enjoyable but hurricanes, fires, etc. come with living on earth. we know it's going to happen at some point-- it's not 'unfair' or 'unjust'.

EXACTLY.

my mother is hyper-emotional (bipolar) and i really hate that about her. it was/is impossible to argue with someone who can't see past emotion. she bases all her life on "i feel.." and "i think.." even if those are totally irrational thoughts/feelings. and my father is a master of hiding emotions, and never ever shares them. i've never once (in nearly 22 years) heard him say "i love you" to anyone, ever. the closest he's ever got is saying "well, that looks alright" a handful of times.

hmmmm.. this is a curious can of worms, now. and i think the only times i've ever really desperately felt an emotion (frustration or just knowing 'this isn't right', namely) and tried frantically to share/express it with people who could fix things... they didn't. and always told me to "calm down" and that it "wasnt that big of a deal". when it was a big deal.

maybe as a result, i just stopped.
BUT, i dont want it back, feeling like that. feeling that frustrated, that angry. i know i'm capable of it, but i've worked for years (in my adult life) to make sure i don't feel that extreme about anything, ever.

see, there's a buddhist proverb that explains it: " Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." but it's not just anger, i feel like holding on or trying to squeeze every last bit of feeling out of any emotion leaves you burned by it, and furthermore, i think it's a blemish on that emotion, to abuse it in that way. emotions exist for us to communicate (with ourselves, with others) and i think people who're very emotional are those who're too selfish to listen to what the feeling has to say/teach you. and as a result, they just keep "feeling" things, but really it's like.. the phrase "history is bound to repeat itself until you learn from it", and i think that's the same for emotions. certain emotions are going to keep coming up (in various forms, circumstances, levels of severity) until you learn what you need to from them, and move on.

yeah. well it sounds like emotions have been represented as a bad thing. your mother: dramatic and hypersensitive, and your father: unfeeling and robotic (which you've probably picked up since it's the better of the two, easier to deal with). my guess is that since you've had those polar opposites shown to you there's never been a healthy balance for you to mimick and pick up as your own way of deal with things. and then in those moments of desperation you're having all those suppressed memories all coming out at once, having things from ages ago pent up and manifest themselves elsewhere. i'm taking guesses here and it's obviously more complicated but it seems to be a good start?

i don't think you've stopped feeling though. it may seem like ti but that's probably how you deal with things, to just bypass all the messy emotions and move on to rationalizing it. and yeah, i agree that you definitely get 'burned' by holding onto things. it's much better to get out any negative or even positive energy when you feel it or else it starts to change new feelings and how you deal with proceeding situations.

have you read The Drama of the Gifted Child? (gifted in the sense of getting over childhood traumas). it basically says that from infancy to pre-adolescence our way of dealing with situations is molded, predominantly by our parents. it seems very straight forward but it goes through many examples of how something seemingly small in early childhood can determine a person's personality. the first chapter 'why we become therapists' (or something) spoke to me the most (since that's what i want to go into after highschool). it describes how one type of person will use intellectualization as a defense mechanism and will rational every situation instead of incorporating emotion. and when they do use emotion it's to help other people. (perfect recipe for a good therapist). it's really interesting. i recommend it.

but in that thread, i don't hold on to the things that happened to me in my childhood. at all, anymore. i think i apply that same proverb to all situations.

i think if your hands are full of anger (as in the proverb) or anything, they're not able to hold anything else. if i'm busy holding all the bullshit from my childhood, disappointment over a wildfire, worthlessness over a cheating boyfriend, etc, etc. i'm not able to take on anything else.

i think life should be about being empty handed. and not in a negative way, i think most people equate being "empty handed" as being desperate, or missing something. but i see empty handed in more of a spiritual/selfless context, in more of a, hands held up... i need to find a photo to illustrate this. here:



(i'm not in love with that photo, as an illustration of what i'm trying to say, but it'll do)

i think having your hands/arms free (this is an ongoing metaphor, of course, not literal) of anything is the ultimate positive, the ultimate luxury. maybe that also means being free of emotion? no. it's more like being free because you know you're whole, and emotion no-longer controls you. only you control you.

sortof? i dont know.

i had no idea this book even existed. i'm going to go buy it, today.
(and it's especially eerie, as i was a "gifted" child growing up -- and i don't mean that in some shitty upper-east-side or LA mommy, who says it about all her children, way. i was tested, i was told i should skip 2 grades, and then re-evaluate, i was testing at a college reading and writing level in 4th grade. and my mother would NOT let me skip grades or get private tutoring because she thought i'd miss "too many social milestones" (ie: proms, football games, etc). i think it's the single most destructive thing that's ever happened in my life. i oftentimes think about what i could have been/done had they not been so selfish with me)

Some would say that your emotions ARE you.
Maybe controlled emotions will create other instincts that will be confused with emotions. Being free of emotion is being dead. There is a certain logic in the human mind, but there´s always emotion, that logic isn´t superior or unbiased because we are biased, we´re a product of our enviroment, history and emotions (the emotions attached to those). Even the emotion of being cold or what some would call no emotion is an emotion is itself, repressed maybe like you seem to state yourself in the last post: it´s not that you´re not capable of having emotions is that you are trying to control them. And that is fear, which is an emotion, that is controlling you. All emotions must exist, as balanced as possible. And I don´t mean to be mean.

see, i think that's just the sortof crap an over-emotional person would say when they're feeling attacked. infact, i rather disregard you're whole statment, because i think the bigger part of my whole ethos here, is that i'm right/more enlightened than "emotional" people. and that my way of interpreting emotion is better than another person's. and not better as in, there's some magical ranking chart of psychological strategies. but that MY system works best for ME. and therefore it is the best, because i'm not anyone else but me.

i dont think being free of emotion is right.

i'm saying i think being free is being in control over your emotions, instead of having your emotions control you.

i can offer no perspective here at all. but im glad to have found someone that appreciates (or at least doesn't get outraged) about forest fires. in southern california they NEED to happen for the ecosystem to flourish. i guess i am always baffled when people are surprised. just like in florida. surprised by hurricanes? where have these people been all this time?

anyway, that is all. i feel too much so i cannot relate to this thread.

__________________
"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation," she told the crowd.

what I´m saying is very logical - to the extent that human being can be logical. You are a product of your emotions and experiences. We all are.
Now, you´re not more enlightened than anyone, and if this whole thing really worked the best for you this thread wouldn´t be here. You´re clearly bothered about something when you implied you were even afraid you could be a sociopath. You might be afraid that you´re becoming like your father. But like I said, I was trying to help and any self deluded sense of superiority will be ignored by me.

It is a common thing - that when we´ve been thru so much we finally have a certain ability to not care, we think we´ve achieved something. When in fact we´re just prisioners of the fear of being taken over and feeling powerless before intense emotions.

My whole point is, if ideally you want to control your emotions and not have them controlling you, that means being able to let them come to surface, instead of letting fear repress them. But in general I believe that most ideas of self control are illusions. Control only exists to a certain extent. But now, if you´re bothered about something and you act like an idiot with anyone who has a different perspective to show, it´s not surprising that people wonder if you´re a sociopath.

for some reason, you are just as frustrating as the person who brought this up initially.

and i'm seriously not listening to you. everything you said is already a given. you're just stating the obvious.

sort of the same boat here. when i was younger i used to rely on people to fix me everytime i freaked out or got upset. after a while they just didnt care anymore because it was the same thing over and over. they couldnt understand that having your mother leave you as a child, and having grandparents who tell you things like "life is too short to deal with people like you" is not something you just get over. but they acted as if i was making a mountain out of a molehill when i was genuinely experiencing all these emotions. so i just stopped showing any emotion over anything to people i know. now when im upste i hide in my room and cry, but i never ask anyone to make me feel better because they just act like its too much to ask. i still have these emotions all of the time but no one will ever see or know it. :-/

so you mean being able to experience things without having emotional interference? uhm.. to see things how they really are and not be blinded by how you--not want to but naturally [maybe?]-- feel?

on a conscious level it sounds like there isn't any underlying bitterness towards your childhood but it did shape who you are so there is still that connection to it, obviously. i agree that holding onto anger does allow you 'hold on to' anything else but it sounds like you're not holding on to much of anything? i don't know if i'm completely understanding since.. well.. it's kr, but i guess ideally it was be best to let things linger for a reasonable amount of time in your open arms (to use your metaphor) and then 'release' them. you said this is working for you though, not being an emotional person (i can completely relate to that) so i'm not sure i'm really understanding what the problem is?

there's not a problem, for me.
but when you're in a relationship, your personal life strategies do affect another person. and, my lack of emotion is sometimes a problem for other people, and by default, for me. because i care about the other people, and dont want them to be stressed out/confused/feel shut out because of me.

doesn´t mean you don´t have them

oh, oka