Struggles with emotional people

[TouhouFan28]

I've always noticed that I have this weird disconnect of empathy. When someone is distressed I feel obligation. I pride myself on how effective I am at comforting yet I don't necessarily care. I remember telling my friend (who's in an emotional state) "It pains me to see you so emotional when who did this to you is unaffected." It didn't pain me, not at all. I said that because I knew she'd value what I said. I've always had this habit of stating my emotion like, "It excites me to see you like this." My face mimics that of an excited person yet it's fake.

I remember getting into a lot of arguments because I would always handle emotional problems with logic and analytics. I'd get upset and frustrated how they couldn't see how fallacious their thinking was and how flawed their common sense was. It just makes things so difficult because I'm not aware. To me, I'm being helpful--to others I'm being pretentious. And it's hard to get out of that perception because to me it all just makes sense.

 

[monkeyclogs]

You sound like my partner except he doesn't pretend to have reactions that he doesn't feel. At times I struggle with over empathy and general emotional dysregulation. most people in my life get swept into whatever spiral i find myself in (up or down). He doesn't and that is immensely helpful and grounding. I can talk to him about things without worrying about the impact it will have on him as he'll separate out the logic from the emotions, work out what's needed and say or do that. It's not that he doesn't understand or care it's just a very useful skill for deescalating things.

basically, I'm saying this isn't a defecit it's just a different way of interacting.

 

[Masked Man]

I've always noticed that I have this weird disconnect of empathy. When someone is distressed I feel obligation. I pride myself on how effective I am at comforting yet I don't necessarily care. I remember telling my friend (who's in an emotional state) "It pains me to see you so emotional when who did this to you is unaffected." It didn't pain me, not at all. I said that because I knew she'd value what I said. I've always had this habit of stating my emotion like, "It excites me to see you like this." My face mimics that of an excited person yet it's fake.

I remember getting into a lot of arguments because I would always handle emotional problems with logic and analytics. I'd get upset and frustrated how they couldn't see how fallacious their thinking was and how flawed their common sense was. It just makes things so difficult because I'm not aware. To me, I'm being helpful--to others I'm being pretentious. And it's hard to get out of that perception because to me it all just makes sense.

When people are upset, unless they specifically ask you for advice, it's a good idea to withhold and stop trying to be "helpful."

People need the space to be able to vent and for the listener to mostly just shut up and sit with them. Your first response (in your first paragraph) is the correct one.