What is empathy really?
Everything I've read says our level of empathy is consistent over time. But people have confused me with their extreme differences of opinion about me.
All my friends repeatedly complain I have too much empathy for my own good (they view empathy as detrimental. ugh). But one therapist I knew for the duration of summer said I need to work on having more empathy. I'm not sure which one is correct? Do I listen to the people who have known me my entire life? Or do I listen to the expert in her field? Both opposing views have reasonable credentials. But they can't both be right because psychology says empathy remains consistent over time. Or they're both right and I'm just an anomaly? Are they just pathologizing women? Is it like how we're always either "too skinny" or "too fat"?
Maybe I just don't understand the definition of empathy, or they don't. Or maybe everything everyone says is just a projection, so there's no way of really knowing what "I" am. In that case I can't know what "they are" either because that would logically be nothing more than a projection of mine, and vice versa.
The empathy quotient test I took this year said I'm of mere average empathy. So why do others keep trying to bend and contort me into extremes, if my actual E.Q. doesn't reflect extremes?
I don't even know whether or not I'm being misperceived. I feel that I've been consistent. Maybe there are multiple kinds of empathy that E.Q. tests can't accurately assess. Maybe my friends are confusing intuition with empathy. Or misperceiving politeness as empathy. Maybe empathy isn't measurable at all. I don't know. I only know that the information people give me about myself is a contradiction.
It might be nice to know with certainty, so that I can know what I should work on. But since there's no consensus, maybe empathy isn't the issue with me. Maybe there is something else at play and others are getting snagged on empathy because it's a trendy buzzword, and people love their boxes.
It's just frustrating because, I shouldn't work on improving empathy if my empathy is already too detrimentally high as all my friends say. Likewise, I shouldn't work on being less empathic if it's something I need more of.
Who do I believe? Who can I trust to tell me which is real? Me. Sigh. Ok so what does "me" have to say about this? Um. I think my empathy is just average. I'm not exactly sure why others have such extreme contradictory opinions about it. Or about me. That's why people scare me a little bit.
Then again, I could be wrong about absolutely everything. I am most certainly as biased as any other breathing human.
There are a million different answers, but every person claims they're right and the other is wrong. Every time I've taken others advice it ends badly. So I guess I'll just keep being me and hopefully everyone can eventually just accept that I am me. Acceptance feels less complicated.
I do feel that I'm being pathologized for being female, since this question of whether I'm too empathic or not empathic enough only arises in relation to men. Nobody seems to care if I'm treating women with empathy or not. So that's fishy. Is empathy the new female hysteria?
7:08 a.m. - 2022-12-06