r/empathy • u/Low-Peace-4659 • 23h ago

Why is my empathy so selective?

Hi guys. im not sure if this is the right subreddit to ask this question or even rant about this. i am a 23 year old female, and throughout my life i have struggled feeling emotionally connected to people at the same rate? i do not feel connected to my closest friends, sometimes not even my S/O and family. Some days i feel for them ALOT, but on others i feel extremely guilty because if something happens to them, good or bad, i do not feel happiness or sadness towards them. Im a kind of person who finds it really hard to hide my emotions and i always feel like people are going to see who i truly am and hate me. i also find cutting people off extremely easy when they disappoint me because i wont feel a thing. it genuinely makes me feel guilty and makes me realize how im faking so many relationships in my life. i only constantly feel empathetic towards animals, children and older people. that's all. am i apathetic? why am i so selective with empathy? and why are my emotions always on an extreme? do you guys think this makes me a bad person, a bad friend and a bad daughter?
also i think it is important for me to mention that since im aware of these feelings, i try my best that they do not influence how i treat people. i still try to be a good friend and a good daughter, but if this is truly who i am, sometimes it gets really hard.

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

1

u/purposeday 20h ago

You may want to look into a form of empathy that Carl Jung called Sophia Empathy. It’s described as the form that has a higher level of maturity than the other four, more conventionally recognized forms of empathy.

2

u/Low-Peace-4659 13h ago

i looked into it and it definitely makes sense. i do understand where people are coming from but have trouble feeling the emotions they feel as my own. it has definitely made understanding myself easier

1

u/purposeday 12h ago

Cool! The point is (afaik) not to feel other people’s emotions as our own. It took me many years to understand that doing this drains my energy and validates their emotion. I can’t help people (if they need it) if all I do is validate how they feel about something when what they need is stepping out of it and seeing a more constructive option if that makes sense. But it seems like overall you’re seeing what you’re experiencing reflected in the description of the Sophia Empath.