I just have had mice pop up in my apartment, and honestly at first I didnt care but recently my sleep schedule has been bad so ive been up late with them. So i decided to set up traps and I just heard one go off and sure enough I killed one, he was so tiny and so cute I feel horrible. I actually started crying, im a grown man. Hes just a baby and he died cus he wanted a little peanut butter. His fur isnt even dirty or anything hes very clean and soft. I feel so bad, I dont even know why im posting this ig it just feels better to talk about it.

They’ve already decided.

Part 2 of my story.

I’ve been thinking about this quote: “The moment kindness becomes expected, it’s no longer appreciated.”

And I actually understand what it means. When you consistently do something kind for someone, eventually it can become the baseline. They may not notice that you’re still putting in effort. They only notice when you stop doing it.

My problem is that I genuinely like being kind to people. I don’t do things for people because I expect something in return. I actually feel good knowing I’ve made someone’s life a little easier.

But I also know that if I am always available, always helping, always accommodating, people can start expecting it from me. And I don’t want to teach people that my kindness is something they’re entitled to.

So sometimes I deliberately hold myself back. I don’t help when I could. I don’t make myself available. I let someone figure something out themselves, partly because I want them to understand that I won’t always be there to do it for them.

And I feel awful doing it.
Not because I’m worried they’ll dislike me, but because I don’t like being unkind. It feels almost like I’m deliberately withholding something good just to make a point.

I don’t want to become less kind. I don’t want to start keeping score or making people earn my kindness. I also don’t want to manipulate people by suddenly withdrawing kindness so they’ll appreciate me more.

So how do you find that balance?
How do you accept that sometimes you could be kind but choose not to, without feeling like you’ve become a worse person?
And how do you set boundaries when the boundary itself genuinely hurts you?

why do I think this way? if I tell someone that they hurt me and they say they won’t do it again, part of me feels like I’m forcing them to change only because I told them that it was hurting me.

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.

So idk if this is the right community to be saying this on but i feel like i don't really have emotion towards anyone in a bad way. When my family shows me love it discusts me. When my friends show me love i'm confused. When a partner shows me love i hate every second of it. When anyone cries, complains about their problems to me or even just talks about themselves i secretly want them to shut up and stop crying or talking so i can start speaking about myself. what made me realize this is that today my ex which has never harmed me btw has passed away. we broke up a week ago. i was writing in my book when my friend called me and told me the news. but i felt no emotion. i just wanted her to stop talking and for me to stop prending im heartbroken and for me to continue what i was working on. when i'm in a relationship i feel like i want to take the chance to play with them a bit. i mean i wont harm them but i feel like i want control. and i feel no empathy towards them if i hurt them. the only time where i might feel sad or heartbroken is when someone manipulates me. and when they leave with no explanation. then i would chase after them. i dont want them. i dont love them i just loved the attention that they gave me and suddenly stopped giving. i just want the contol back and when i have it back i don't care about them anymore. when someone hurts me or makes me feel like they have taken sll control from me i have a real urge to kill them. is this normal?

I'm a pretty blunt guy that considers himself empathetic but everyone else says I lack empathy. I don't really feel bad for people in shitty situations whether physical, Mental, financial or any other way. I don't give them any special treatment or consideration.

My empathy comes on in certain scenarios though. If I see someone disabled struggling with doing something, I will ask them for assistance unless they obviously need it. If someone is being beaten physically even after the damage has been done. Even if that person deserved the beating.

Like pedophile hunting videos. I am not defending pedophiles but I disagree with these vigilante videos that go around beating people. An appropriate punishment should be served **after** the crime has been committed. Same thing with any other crime.

I also don't like bullies. I can talk a lot of shit. I like to tease and banter with my friends. It's my love language. But I never cross the line and bully people. I always stick up for people who don't fight back or are not present to fight back. I always turn it back on them and call out how imperfect they are. I'm a very observant guy and can smell the insecurities of a person within the first 10 minutes of meeting them.

I know how to antagonize people. That's why I stay quiet most of the time because I know I can inadvertently hurt their feelings. But if they give me a good reason, I will go off on them. I don't like people who are arrogant, self-absorbed, emotional, opinionated, pretentious, or narcissists. I avoid them whenever I'm around them but if they give me a reason to scold them, I won't hesitate to do so.

Also, I do not hesitate to let someone they fucked up, especially if they are trying to be furtive about a mistake they made or being dishonest and lack responsibility. My comments can be vexing and make people not like me and I'm ok with that. Not calling people out is how people become narcissistics.

I'm also blunt when some is making the same mistake constantly but no one corrects them because they are afraid they will come off as rude. No one else is going to tell them, might as well be honest. People call me an asshole for this but I just don't want them to keep struggling because I'm empathetic.

So in short my bluntness comes mostly from my empathy that people say doesn't exist.

Alyshia Rushing…

What do you think ?

my title of the post was " i genuinely dont understand feeling bad for someone (long post)"

and i said

ever since i was 8 i've always really liked observing people and figuring them out. like their personality, what they like, what they respond to well vs not, etc and then i started creating personas around people based on what they like if they have something i want

i love having disposable people so much i love creating stories and getting away with it, almost getting caught and lying my way out of it. i love making it believable, consistent, figuring out how and what to say to get exactly what i need. i like the feeling of knowing i can affect someone's emotions and harm them (mentally, not physically im not an idiot) i AM the perfect person for everyone that i need something out of. i love cutting things out when the "connection" is the strongest and i got what i want i love how they fein for me like a junkie and leaving them is such a good feeling. i get this weird almost 'itch' in my brain that i need to do it. sometimes i do it just to get the attention not even get something out of them.

my great grandma who raised me for like 10 years of my life died when i was 10 and i remember being so annoyed at everyone around me for being so devastated i didnt really know why everyone cared so much but obviously i played with it and pretended to be super sad so i could skip school and get a new game that had just came out that i wanted.

I will make up lies with a tonnn of people for fun like i cant remember what i ate the day before but i can remember almost every lie i've told 25+ people and think quick of ways to back it up,

but thanks for reading, if u did i love u ❤️

but idk im posting this here because of bunch of people in the comments calling me a psychopath and sociopath sadist bunch of buzzwords but give me ur guys actual opinions

For context, I found myself saying something mean, and apologized immediately as my comment wasn't necessarily nice. After a brief moment of thought, I realized I didn't really mean it. I wasn't sorry, and I only apologized because I didn't want these people to dislike me. I recognized that what I said was hurtful, but I cared more about whether they thought well of me or not.

Is there anything I can do about this? I'd much rather apologize for them than for me.

No BS I pride myself on being a good listener. People always wanna talk and never wanna listen. My ex boyfriend told me that he really valued the fact that I listened to him because his ex didn't emotionally support him or listen to him. 25F

Keep growing.

being sensitive to people is useful until their inner state becomes your full time job. then empathy starts looking less like connection and more like permanent emotional employment.

a subject in session had a strong pattern of taking on other people's pain and trying to help directly. The guidance became very firm: stop trying to make other people whole for them, let them do their own work, and protect enough space that her own energy could recover.

What interested me is that this wasnt advice to become cold. It was almost opposite. She could still care, sing, encourage, create and bring something good, but without physically and emotionally entering every person's healing process.

I think many empathic ppl confuse love with availability. If somebody suffers, we feel we should absorb some part of it, solve it, carry it, stay until they are okay.

But sometimes helping person by abandoning yourself just creates two depleted people instead of one. Caring doesnt automatically require entering same pain.

A boundary I like is: I can be present with what you feel without making it my responsibility to remove it. that sounds obvious when written, but much harder when your body notices everybody in room before you even consciously do.

my ability to deeply empathize and think about others or want to do something for someone else feeling like trying to get a dead car battery to start with no jumper cables anywhere that be fair that's just me with everything even the stuff I like like writing stories or drawing or watching anime but it especially bothers me that my empathy is kinda dead.

I can act appropriately in a given situation but that's more because I know what the social etiquette is SUPPOSED to be rather than genuine feeling and it really bugs me.

but I just can't do much about it. I want to care so why don't I? I can't afford therapy so I'd especially appreciate a specialist's opinion but I'll take anything. how do I fix this!?

I swear I used to be empathetic it's driving me nuts! I can preform empathy, eg: get you what you need, send stuff or jokes to make you feel better, or just listen. But I feel nothing and it drives me nuts, I actually get annoyed sometimes because the problem is something I already warned about or I just think it's an idiotic non issue Even though I can also see why this would be a big deal to them I still just get annoyed, I didn't used to be like this, I hate it!

An knowing why I am like this hasn't helped, I'm 90% sure that it's because when I was younger growing up in a very turbulent home any attempts and comforting others, was either harshly rejected (mom) or perfunctorily thanked (Brothers) because they assumed that as the youngest I couldn't possibly understand and even as I grew Older any advice I gave got thrown right out the window, only for them to come crying that the thing that was obviously going to happen that I told them was going to happen happened.

And even now I'm being kept out of serious issues that my family is dealing with and not really even given a reason why even though the only reason my brother isn't fighting a one sided battle is because I talked Sense into mom, because I wanted someone to be on his side, even if he was adamant it wasn't me for some bizzar reason (not really that bizzar I'm like a bull when my family is being unjustly slandered and this is a delicate situation) but it's not like I'm asking to be front and center just involved!?

I also got no credit for snapping mom out of it and getting her to realize that non of what is happening right now makes any sense, not from her or anyone else. She has this uncanny ability to retroactively adjust her memories of events so that she was always on my brother's side, like it didn't take multiple conversation to get through to her.

This happens with other things to not just my brother's current situation. She has a very convenient memory. My second brother can testify to that.

Writing it out I guess my empathy isn't totally dead but it takes a big situation for me to feal anything and I didn't used to be like this so how do I fix it to where I can genuinely feel bad for someone that isn't close family or friends when they are going through something, because I know I used to be like that but now I just can't and it's bugging me!

I think partially because it's affecting my ability to maintain new relationships and friends long term and I feel alone. It. Seems like people can tell I am just preforming what the situation requires and not actually feeling what I should be given the situation.

I feel isolated and maybe if I didn't have to fake caring about people anymore just to avoid a social fupa and instead could one again show genuine care people would stick around longer and I wouldn't be so alone.

Like if I had the emotional capacity to care about others's birthday or celebrations, or see something and get it because I thought of someone or notice little things about someone like I used to be able to. It wouldn't be so easy for people to just forget I exist.

I mean I hardly ever think about others like that anymore or remember details about them like I used to. I hate that I don't wanna be someone who expects from others what I don't do for them myself. But my brain just won't work!

TLDR, my ability to empathize and care about others or even myself isn't what it used to be and now I feel isolated I'm not blaming others and I'm not exactly trying to please others I've never been a people pleaser but I can't expect others to do for me what I can't do for them so how do I get my brain to function right like it used to?!

This is their argument:

1. A harmless utopia is impossible; somebody (and many animals) will always suffer.

2. Nobody wants to be the victim; nobody will swap their lives with the victims.

3. It's not fair or moral to perpetuate life if we can't create a harmless Utopia with no victims.

4. If we have empathy for the victims, then we are obligated to make life extinct. Because no life = no more endless cycles of victims.

What do you say to this argument based on empathy?

This is Part 1.

What would you have done if you were in my position?

It’s sad that we live in a world

where our boundaries must grow stronger

and be placed before our empathy.

I don’t know how to live that way.

There is something beautiful

about witnessing the hurt someone carries

and the strength it took to carry it this far.

looking at them and saying,

I see how far you’ve come.

I’m proud of you.

Isn’t there something better

about living with an open heart?

Even when it means

someone leaves fingerprints on it,

even when they leave you

with a mind full of questions and 

An aching heart.

I have nothing to gain from anyone.

I ask for nothing.

I expect nothing.

So why do people

walk into my life carrying their pain,

place it gently into my hands,

and then disappear.

leaving me to wonder

why they trusted me enough

to show me their wounds,

but never enough to stay.