I'm losing empathy for people, especially those in distress.

[TheBLA]

It looks like this will finally be a thread I'll make that will make everyone here hate me.

I already pissed off someone today via a private message talking about this. I told that person that I feel my depression is on a different level than everyone else, that its just worse than everyone else's, how my circumstances are unique and that the advice they gave to me in which they were genuinely trying to help would just not work for me. That ended up really upsetting that person and I got met with a nasty PM in response. I was not trying to be hostile at all, but it sounds like I probably did inadvertently or the other person also may have acted hostile in response because of their mood at the time.

I feel that because my depression is worse than anyone elses', that they can all be cured eventually and have a happy ending and I cannot. I think that only I must commit suicide and everyone else can be cured eventually. I realize this makes me sound very arrogant and stuck-up and I don't mean to be. I know that everyone's suffering is their own, no matter what level of it. For instance, I feel that other people's depression here may be caused by common things such as abuse, rape, neglect, abandonment, loss of loved ones, etc. Now, these are very tramautic things, and I feel for them, but I feel at least many have gone through these things relatively and can comfort and heal each other with their own shared knowledge and experiences. But what do you do when your depression and suicidal thoughts are caused by something that very few people in comparison have gone through, so you have this "rare" case where conventional advice and help probably won't work for you?

I know that lets say a teenager may want to kill themselves over a relationship break-up and an older adult will say "Oh boo-hoo, grow up and get over it, my circumstances are far worse than yours. Try going through a bitter divorce after many years of marriage and then come talk to me", or something to that effect. Yet, this is exactly how I feel in response to many others who are depressed and suicidal. Like someone will be depressed and suicidal but at least they still have friends and/or a significant other to support them and I do not, so I feel even worse off than them but I can't feel empathy because they are still in a better place than me. They have some positive things still left in their life to help balance out against the pain. I feel on the absolute bottom of the totem pole.

I recently read about this one girl who I am extremely envious of. She travels around the world to exotic locations, has many friends, had a BF, very smart and brave and adventerous. She just seems so full of life and zeal, every day she lives her life to the absolute fullest. But then I read a snippet of her blog and she wrote of her inner anguish and pain over losing a friend to suicide, how she wound up cutting herself, etc. But I couldn't feel much empathy for her because at least she had all those positive things that I feel would help to "cushion" out her pain and yet I have none of that. I couldn't understand her pain at all. Inside I felt "Oh boo hoo, whaa, whaa". I was trivializing her pain and I feel bad for that because its happened to me several times. Pain is pain, no matter what the level.

In the end, we can only truly feel our thoughts and feelings the best. So we think our depression is the worst because we can only truly feel our pain and can only feel the pain of others partially.

I feel so dirty and guilty at writing this, but I just wanted to let this out. Please forgive me, I don't mean to upset anyone.
Depression has already taken away so much from my life like any hopes, dreams, ambitions, etc.
I don't want it to turn me into a bitter monster as well.
Depression was supposed to make me feel more empathy for those also suffering the same, to open my eyes to their plight, but it seems now its having the opposite effect. I think my depression is advancing further and it wants me to cut off ties from everyone either through just avoiding them or making them hate me, so that when I commit suicide, nobody will miss me when I'm gone.

[amk666]

Sorry, but I don't hate you, not at all.

& I don't blame for feeling the way you do.

I'm also glad you shared that, 'cause a lot of us measure our circumstances against those of others & find one or the other wanting, but such sentiments are usually suppressed.

I believe that suicide & depression in 9 times out of 10 cases have very little to do with the things happening in our lives. Like a fellow who listens to "Suicide Solution" then kills himself, despair preceded the song, not the other way around. & so it is when we're in the trough we focus on what's wrong with our lives, not what's right.

When I read up about people who have killed themselves--in many instances planned suicides without impulsiveness or apparent notification of loved ones prior--they're people who appear to have really good lives. Take one example, Marissa Imrie. Look her up. This member of her high school's cross country team decided she was a "fat, boring, disgusting girl," so took a cab to San Francisco & threw herself off the bridge.

& stories such as her are all too common.

Fact is that no matter how bad your life may be, there's always someone who has it worse, someone who isn't suicidal, either.

I'm acutely conscious of having undeservedly good things in my life right now. But I really don't want to continue with it. Why? All I can say really that enough's enough.

Still when your life really is in the shitter you're going to feel that way, how can you not? So props to you for being honest & expressing yourself. If people react badly to what you've written then I suggest that perhaps they haven't taken the time to think it through completely.

I do hope things improve for you ... couldn't hurt, right;-)?

andy

[normaljoe]

I think hate is a strong word, some people may be offended by this but I do not think anyone hates you. I do not hate you. I understand that whatever you are going through is going to be a lot more pressing than everyone elses situation. its normal to want to help yourself, especially given the issue. but if i could offer some words of mild wisdom. remember that different situations affect people differently and on many different levels. so the severity is all relative. other than that go by the good ole saying, if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all. ie if you cant empathize just dont reply to them and wait until you improve your situation before you start trying to empathize with other people. i wish you the best of luck with what you are going through.

[ThatOneDude]

I won't pretend to know how you feel because, well, I'm not you. I did however go through something similar to your situation, and I realized something: even if you don't have other things now just means you have to go get them. You want adventure? Go on a trip! Doesn't have to be somewhere fancy, you can just go hiking or cycling. When I was depressed, I threw all my energy into proving math theorems. This might not work for you, but there are always other solutions. I hope you find yours.

[TheBLA]

I think its quite hard and difficult when your depression and suicidal thoughts are mostly due to having been heavily isolated for such a long period of time from everyone else, for almost all your entire life. Its just like having lived in a cave for a long time and just coming outside to see the outside world. I think it was formed due to having moved around a lot as a child, always losing friends and being the new kid in school and being the frequent target of bullying. That was always incredibly painful, like a knife in the heart. I think that really screwed me up and I wanted to isolate myself in my home from a young age.

I also have very over-protective parents, "helicopter" parents who have meant nothing but well for me. But I think they've also inadvertently hurt me by always being there and coddling me and never really letting me fail and learn my lessons. They have guided my life because they were afraid I would really screw up if I went at it alone. But now even as an adult, I've become so used to it and spoiled and weak compared to others my age. I cannot do many things by myself that I should be able to at my age.

I am vastly different from everyone else as a result and I can never have a normal life. There's just a point where when you've gone down the wrong road in life for so long that you can never repair the damage. Couple this damage with long-term depression where I have been complacent and not improving my life (learning new things, improving my education and/or career, etc) while everyone else around me is improving, and I am stuck in a very deep rut where suicide seems like the only option left. I hate to see those I know getting degrees beyond bachelor's, getting better jobs, getting girlfriends and wives, having children, etc. which I never can. But its not their fault but I am still so jealous of them.

I already never did normal things like do dating, socialize in high school and college, etc. Now in the future, I will never be able to get a girlfriend or a wife, have kids, etc. What sane women would want to be with an isolationist freak like me who has lived in this remote bubble away from the world? What about any friends for that matter? What children would have to have such a freak father such as me that can hardly guide them and teach them anything because I know so little in the first place? I owe it to them never to concieve them. It would be better not to be a father than a poor one.

What do you do when you are different from everyone else in the world, even others who are "abnormal"? I am even a "freak" amongst "freaks". I don't think most people here have depression and suicidal thoughts because of my circumstances, which are rare. They have it from much more common reasons like rape, abuse, breakups, loss of a loved one, other shock and trauma, etc. I know those are absolutely horrible things to go through and I'd be hesitant to wish them even on my worst enemies. But I feel because they are more common than my problem, they have a much larger support network of likewise people and treatments tailored around them. I think most methods of healing depression and suicidal thoughts won't work with me.

I want to just slap that stupid girl I read about on her blog who has many friends, travels alone to exotic destinations, lives life to the fullest but is sad and depressed and cuts herself because of the suicide of her friend. I am very angry at her. I would love to be in her shoes instead. I don't think she could ever survive in my shoes. Its not like I am proud to have a trophy of the most depressed and miserable and pathetic person alive. I'm not trying to set such a record. She has all that great stuff and she cuts and I am lacking all of that and I still haven't. Maybe I should feel a little better that I am "stronger" than her. Its like if a millionare keeps comparing himself to billionaires and goes to a destitute village in Africa and whines about being "poor". Do you think he'll get any sympathy? Absolutely not. I feel that same way. I'm sorry, I just feel incredibly angry and bitter right now. I just needed to vent out this garbage, but maybe not to the public where other depressed people will hate me for saying such words. I don't even think I'm crying out to want pity from anyone. Its not like it'll help my situation anyways. I am also sorry if I am assuming certain things and if they are really incorrect. Please forgive me for everything.

[Calleo]

Well I just saw this thread now. I'm just gonna quote what I said in response to a mod who notified me that Rahul had reported me for the PM. (No hard feelings, honestly, I'm not here to stir drama.)

I honestly understand that it's probably never justified to start swearing at someone/anyone on this forum, but what he said just felt so exceptionally wrong, plus because of my own personal issues I felt exceptionally peeved that day. I haven't sent him anything else after that.

Just between you and me: I've seen this guy's posts about his trips to India and how both his parents willingly support him, and this guy has the audacity to tell me that he is SO MUCH more hopeless than me, while I hardly know if I can afford anything to eat next week. Like, if I can literally live at all.
I didn't and don't want to turn this into an argument because I know that any sort of "I have it worse than you so you should be happier/aren't allowed to complain" conversations are unhelpful and completely out of place on this forum, but this is why his message affected me emotionally enough to respond like that.

We all here know that any sort of "depression contests" are plain wrong, and that we can't and aren't supposed to feel happier or better about ourselves because someone else somewhere has it worse. We all know it doesn't work like that. Our own worries are the closest to us and no one else can dictate how badly or not we should be affected.

At the same time, I think we can agree that to some extent it's normal to feel jealousy combined with unpleasant surprise when someone who has what we don't have dares express how terrible their life is.
At that point we should just watch what we say. It's not the other person's fault that they have what you lack, and it won't make them less suicidal.

In the end, we can only truly feel our thoughts and feelings the best. So we think our depression is the worst because we can only truly feel our pain and can only feel the pain of others partially.

You're wrong here. Of course we feel our own pain the worst but we can rationally think and understand that we're not any more special or different than other people.

Like I told you earlier, I had clinical/chemical depression so I know what it feels like -- so I know that if someone here says that they have depression then I'm not going to judge by their life problems whether they have it better or worse than me. Let's say this person has friends and family, average looks and a stable job and has had no seriously traumatic experiences, but says he's suicidal because he's depressed. There's plenty of people like that on here. I feel for them. I don't expect them to justify being suicidal, I don't expect them to have gone through trauma, I wouldn't say that I would trade places with them. And it kills me to know that there's nothing I can do to help them because that's just what depression is. It can have no determinable real-life cause at all and it's still just as real and serious and painful.

And it's usually always a combination of things. If anyone is suicidal then it's usually not just one chief specific reason. It's usually something like, "this thing about my life sucks so much that I can't deal with it and I don't know if trying is worth the effort since everything else pretty much sucks too".

Rahul, you're definitely not the only one who's suicidal because of a complex web of reasons -- too complex to try to dissect and solve. It's like that for a lot of people. And/but being at the center of that web it's really difficult to see yourself from outside of that, to see yourself the way you see other people ("their problems are all solvable").
I advised you to "pull your head out of your ass", I guess the more polite way of saying that would be: try to be at least a little more objective and rational. Just for a moment. You don't have to care about other people 24/7, but just for a moment, when you write these posts here, remember that other people have sh1t to deal with as well and that sh1t is/can be just as real and complex as yours. You don't even have to empathize, just understand with your rational mind.

And if you really, really can't understand that at all then, yes, that makes you a self-important jerk. Your tone may be nicer than mine but the meaning behind your words isn't much nicer at all. So, sorry I'm not sorry.


I'm not going to blame anyone who can't feel empathy for other people, especially if you're depressed. It's alright. We can't all have the capacity to care that much at all times. It's totally understandable.

And if you're suicidal then at some point you can start sabotaging yourself -- consciously or subconsciously making your life worse so you'd have more motivation kill yourself so you could finally get it over with. I know this, I do that. But it helps to be aware of your own self-sabotaging behavior and keep it in check whenever you can.


To speak of the specific issues now: I tried to ask you what exactly it is that makes you so much of a "loser" as you say, but you avoided my questions and replied in general that you're a hikikomori -- as if that by itself is a satisfactory answer. It's like you just see that WEB of reasons to be suicidal but don't even want to consider dissecting it. (Which is understandable, actually, but I'm just saying.) I used to be like that and still often am. I ask myself, why go through this effort and pain to try to fix this specific issue if the rest of my life is still gonna suck anyway?

I'm totally aware that we're significantly different people, but I still think/thought that we have more in common than you could imagine. Starting with being socially inept and feeling that we're extremely unprepared for Real Life comparing to other people our age, that we've been secluded for years and can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to have a normal life, what that would even mean for us.


PS. Just the fact that the word "hikikomori" exists means that you're not alone with your oh-so-unique issue. It's true that we don't exactly have a web of support but it's also true that so many other people have the same experience.

[Wispiwill]

I think you're right when you say that your depression is making you cut off ties from everyone. I think (and I could be wrong here) that you feel that you're basically unlikeable and if people don't like you then it proves it and if they DO like you then it just shows that they haven't understood or seen just how completely horrible you are, at your basic core. Does that sound about right?

[TheBLA]

I honestly understand that it's probably never justified to start swearing at someone/anyone on this forum, but what he said just felt so exceptionally wrong, plus because of my own personal issues I felt exceptionally peeved that day. I haven't sent him anything else after that.

Just between you and me: I've seen this guy's posts about his trips to India and how both his parents willingly support him, and this guy has the audacity to tell me that he is SO MUCH more hopeless than me, while I hardly know if I can afford anything to eat next week. Like, if I can literally live at all.
I didn't and don't want to turn this into an argument because I know that any sort of "I have it worse than you so you should be happier/aren't allowed to complain" conversations are unhelpful and completely out of place on this forum, but this is why his message affected me emotionally enough to respond like that.

I am sorry to hear about you having trouble with even a basic need such as getting food. I had absolutely no idea about this. I wish you the best of luck on that. Actually, my parents are slowly but surely getting more sick and tired of my lingering depression and suicidal thoughts. They are sick of me almost always moping and having a frown on my face, making very little to no progress in my life (eg. marriage, advancing my job, career, education, etc.) Slowly I am wearing their patience thin since at least 2005 when I first joined this forum, and am just waiting for them to finally kick me out of the house, where I will be completely and absolutely alone in the world. No friends, no other family nearby who would take me in (most of my extended family lives thousands of miles away and if they even would take me in anyways). My parents and little brother are pretty much all I have left in the world. I'll be absolutely lost without them.

I actually feel some admiration for those who struggle for basic needs to survive, but are stronger and harder people as a result, like my dad. He was born and raised in a dirt-poor village where his father died when he was 12 and his mom didn't have an education beyond 5th grade. But he worked himself into going into a college in India with the prestige of Brown or Harvard and able to come abroad. He has a story to make a movie about.

I have been extremely pampered and coddled and am the furthest thing from an independent person imaginable. Its nothing to admire and be jealous of, its truly a very terrible thing. Its especially embarrassing at my advanced age at how few things I can actually do by myself. Some may feel jealousy towards me for what I have now, but its only because I am still in a safety net of my parents. Once that is soon gone, then I will have absolutely NOTHING. I will have been too weak to survive out all alone in this harsh, cruel world and will quickly perish. I am just living on borrowed time.

So, even this one "benefit" in my life of having a loving and supportive family that some will be jealous of me for will soon be gone once they abandon me or pass away, on top of not having friends, a significant other, good job, education, etc that many others even other depressed/suicidal have and that I feel jealousy towards. I don't know what a person on the absolute bottom of a totem pole would do. At least they can make others feel better about their life in comparison. I am especially on the very bottom in comparison to all those I know in real-life and who know me. This is especially why I want to isolate myself from them, and never get close to anyone, so they won't find out about all the things I lack and will never get and cannot laugh and feel pity for me. I cringe at the thought of meeting with family friends, family relatives, etc. and finding how they are naturally advancing at life (getting a GF/Wife, having kids, great job, graduating with a Masters degree, etc.) and I have been stuck in neutral position since forever. My isolationist status begets further isolation.

I understand your anger and frustration at me for complaining about higher level needs, when you have trouble with even to get food whereas I do not. I felt the same frustration when you said you had gotten a boyfriend, fulfilled your sexual and romantic needs, etc. and I never have and likely never will. But I didn't know you struggled with someone such as obtaining food. Lets just have a truce eh?

PS. Just the fact that the word "hikikomori" exists means that you're not alone with your oh-so-unique issue. It's true that we don't exactly have a web of support but it's also true that so many other people have the same experience.

I guess what I meant to say is that I myself haven't really met others with the same issue. Again, due to the nature of the illness itself, I want to seclude myself from others, even from others that suffer like me and can help and relate to me the most. Good luck for isolationists to ever meet up in an isolationist support group.

To speak of the specific issues now: I tried to ask you what exactly it is that makes you so much of a "loser" as you say, but you avoided my questions and replied in general that you're a hikikomori -- as if that by itself is a satisfactory answer.

I was not trying to be secretive, evasive on purpose. I was not avoiding you intentionally, please do not feel that way. Since last month, I have been feeling more depressed than usual. Also, when we first started talking last week, after your first supportive PM on advice for me to "get girls", we were talking while I was at work. So I was also preoccupied with my work on top of feeling extremely crappy. So I am sorry I just gave you a short answer to go by with the cause of my depression and suicidal thoughts. You are more than welcome to keep PMing me and inquire and talk further and I'll be happy to oblige, once I feel a bit better and more receptive to open up, and also at home and not busy.

I am really thankful for your first PM last week. You went out of your way to help me and give me advice and I am extremely sorry now that I was the furthest thing from appreciative for it and completely, unintentionally started a fight with you. I guess I replied negatively because I was already in a bad mood, just like you replied very angrily because you were also already in a bad mood and my PM had set you off. Your PM reply had made me feel much worse on top of everything else, and I am sorry that I reported you to the staff.

I wish I could turn back time and have replied much differently to your PM than I did. Thank you very much again and I look forward to further communications if you wish.

[Calleo]

I am/will be (hopefully) busy these days, improving certain job skills, so I don't have much time for this.

It's easy for you to write these elaborate posts on how and why you're so hopeless, but I think that if life gave you a swift kick in the butt then you would be capable of at least a little more than that. I would be just like you, I'm pretty sure of that, if my father hadn't died while I was still in high school, my family has been financially unstable since then and there's no one close to me that I could count on. I really really really have to become independent -- there is no other option (besides suicide of course). You still more or less have the feeling that you have the option to drag this on a little longer, because you're not in immediate danger.
(I'm not saying this to make you feel bad/guilty, it's just true.)

I understand your anger and frustration at me for complaining about higher level needs, when you have trouble with even to get food whereas I do not. I felt the same frustration when you said you had gotten a boyfriend, fulfilled your sexual and romantic needs, etc. and I never have and likely never will. But I didn't know you struggled with someone such as obtaining food. Lets just have a truce eh?

We weren't having a contest.

"fulfilled" -- not exactly. (But I wrote about this stuff in a PM because I don't want it up in public threads. So please don't bring up things here that I told you in private.)
Shortly: after the guy broke up with me, I felt more terrible than ever. I'd never felt so miserable in my entire life. And that says a lot, given that I've been suicidal since I was 14. Basically, in addition to everything else, I also had to deal with a broken heart and a broken ego. I'm a smart girl but I didn't/don't know how to deal with that, I've never gone through that before. For the first time in my life I felt lonely, like I needed someone. Again, this sh1t coupled with everything else that had already made me suicidal, it's indescribable. I seriously thought things like, "if he doesn't contact me by Thursday, I will surely kill myself". I don't know if you know what it feels like, to care about someone so much when that someone won't even let you near them.

(I digress, sorry, had to rant. There's more to it but I don't want to get into details. I'm always paranoid someone will find me here.)
Basically: before this, I didn't even know what I was missing. Now I know. And some days I wish that I didn't. "Fulfilled" hardly describes this. I need more than I needed before. And I know that I must've just gotten lucky and that I'll never in my life again find anyone who I could care about like that and who would treat me as nicely as he did. It's never gonna happen again. I don't know what I could possibly want to live for anymore, it'll never be better than this.


Anyway, don't worry at all about what or how you said to me, I really have bigger concerns than this. I can deal with it if people don't find my advice useful, I hardly even expected it to be useful at all, I just thought I'd message you anyway, to give you something to think about and let you know that someone had read and considered some of your posts (I guess it's nice to get some attention and messages here even if they're not always practically useful).

[TheBLA]

Good luck with everything and I am still open to talking and PMing, etc. If you don't wish to, I understand. See you if/when I see you. I know you may at least slightly feel I am spoiled rotten and just complaining and spouting off lengthy paragraphs for the time being. But as I mentioned, when I am eventually left by my family and out in the streets alone, I will be in very dire straights as you are already facing. I am a bird who has far overstayed in her mother's nest and hasn't learned even the basics of flying. When I am inevitably pushed out of that nest, I will be going directly vertical into the hard ground below. The time is soon coming that life will be giving me a swift kick in the butt, if it hasn't already happened. If push comes to shove, maybe my survival instincts will kick into gear and I will persevere and survive or just give up and kill myself.

I can only partially understand the heartbreak you have gone through, as I have gone through heartbreak only so far with several relationships on the internet. I can't imagine the far more intense pain if any of these were actually in real-life and we had gone further than just text, voice and video chatting. Good luck again.

Now, I really did find your initial PMs and the advice they contained to be useful and I have thought about what you said. I am glad that you read and considered my posts, and very few people have gone out of their way not only to reply to my posts on the forum, but to send me private messages and attempting to assist me further. So, I thank you for that and would like to atone for my actions and possibly repay you. I feel very guilty in the way that I replied and set off an unintentional fight with you.
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Does anyone else have any thoughts?