[NF] NF's What makes you loose empathy?

[RoadPaveMent]

Yes to nearly all of the above (in the opening post). For me it's more of a sudden thing; I'll get angry with someone and completely not care about their feelings anymore. I'll still empathize, but not sympathize. And I don't feel bad about it because it's what they deserve. I'm a very accommodating person and if someone pushes me that far it's their problem.

I think that's a good way to put it. I can get upset over anyone's pain but that doesn't mean I care.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Clinical depression can do the trick. Basically, if my own mental processes are too overloaded with my own problems then there isn't room to feel other people's experience.

I've looked back on some posts I made when clinically depressed and occasionally cringe at the lack of empathy or Fe, or however you want to define it. I was accidentally insulting and rude, but not because I was angry at the other person, I just couldn't calculate their perspective into my own. Good experience overall, because the longer I live, the more I learn to cut other people some slack.

 

[Lexicon]

There have been instances where I wish I could turn off my empathy, but that lightswitch simply doesn't exist in my mental framework. It's there no matter what, but if the situation has become toxic, in some way, I will be less apt to directly express that empathy, or much else, in that regard, so I don't end up inadvertently feeding a mutually unhealthy dynamic. This has only been under extreme circumstances, though.

 

[Cellmold]

Failure.

 

[Anew Leaf]

The typo in the title makes me lose empathy.

(I wish I was kidding.)

 

[Honor]

I'm not NF, but for me realizing I've been lied to/manipulated, or that someone is trying to, causes complete emotional detachment.

Yup. I'm not NF either, but this is about where I draw the line.

 

[flameskull95]

When people reject reasonable actions for the sake of tradition and 'how things have always been', it really makes me cold to other people's beliefs. It makes me feel like there is no real 'give and take' in society. So I guess it makes me lose empathy for other people and I put on my Te-bull horns. Though I guess that's in response to other people losing empathy, cause they're denying reason for tradition.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I'm not NF, but for me realizing I've been lied to/manipulated, or that someone is trying to, causes complete emotional detachment.

Actually this has a similar effect on me, especially if the emotional manipulation attempts to play with vulnerability. It's one of the few things that can enrage me, especially if I see it happening to people I care about. I usually withdraw for fear that I will tear them to shreds, but then gain the sweet distance of pure apathy.

My own nuclear family was pretty inept with manipulation, but they were pretty vulnerable, so we met plenty of horrid people with tactics. Sometimes I can cut people slack, like I have a friend who was raped within an inch of her life and now has cancer. She is strongly religious and feels anger is wrong. Well, as a result she can be fairly passive aggressive, but i support that behavior because it is her healthiest option. I also grew up with a single mother and older sister, so I saw most all the emotional tactics attempted to control responses- ESPECIALLY the pity and guilt approach, oh and the dismissal and attacks on self-esteem. When I see that shit I want to vomit on the person, sucker punch them, and then requisition a spine and/or a set of balls for them. Their choice.

/rant

Hey, this is my new year's resolution. Yay

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I've looked back on some posts I made when clinically depressed and occasionally cringe at the lack of empathy or Fe, or however you want to define it. I was accidentally insulting and rude, but not because I was angry at the other person, I just couldn't calculate their perspective into my own. Good experience overall, because the longer I live, the more I learn to cut other people some slack.

Yes, when I’m feeling horrible I lose perspective- and I’ve found a couple posts myself that have really embarrassed me. And it was an eye opening experience for me as well. A peculiar and handy thing about foruming is the objective record of interaction- it can be revisited and viewed as if from a third perspective (if enough time has passed), and I’ve noticed things that I wouldn’t otherwise realize about the way I interact; if I do it in the forum, it’s likely I do it outside the forum as well, so it’s good to see.

Those are isolated incidences though, that have more to do with being in a horrible space myself than anything the other person did. For the most part, it’s like others have mentioned- it just shuts itself off when I start feeling taken for granted or lied to/manipulated somehow.

Something I’m working on is having firmer boundaries- getting to a point where I can spot it earlier and be assertive about my boundaries without ever really having the empathy shut off. It takes a certain amount of contempt to build up for empathy to shut off, and I don’t like the residual contempt I’m left with. It takes way to long to sort through that and get it out of my system (it’s the thing that leads me to snap at people who don’t deserve it, too). I’d prefer never having that accumulate in the first place.

 

[1487610420]

Actually this has a similar effect on me, especially if the emotional manipulation attempts to play with vulnerability. It's one of the few things that can enrage me, especially if I see it happening to people I care about. I usually withdraw for fear that I will tear them to shreds, but then gain the sweet distance of pure apathy.

My own nuclear family was pretty inept with manipulation, but they were pretty vulnerable, so we met plenty of horrid people with tactics. Sometimes I can cut people slack, like I have a friend who was raped within an inch of her life and now has cancer. She is strongly religious and feels anger is wrong. Well, as a result she can be fairly passive aggressive, but i support that behavior because it is her healthiest option. I also grew up with a single mother and older sister, so I saw most all the emotional tactics attempted to control responses- ESPECIALLY the pity and guilt approach, oh and the dismissal and attacks on self-esteem. When I see that shit I want to vomit on the person, sucker punch them, and then requisition a spine and/or a set of balls for them. Their choice.

/rant

Hey, this is my new year's resolution. Yay

This, pretty much, specially at the bold. Like, even if I may have had the will to be supportive, when I start seeing them resorting to those tactics, I just start loosing whichever respect I had for them. I mean, if I really care, I'll cut them some slack and try to point it out, but if they consciously make that choice, then that's their prerogative, and at that point I cannot in plain conscience justify to actually continue caring and giving this person my time/energy, because it's like they are dismissing my efforts opting for the easiest way out, when I was actually willing to sticking around and walk with them through it, and it's disrespectful/insulting and hurtful, showing they never cared but for themselves.

 

[mintleaf]

My empathy decreases when:

1. The person is being insincere (either when a person is 'performing' or when they're being blatantly dishonest
2. The person constantly complains
3. The person takes advantage of someone
4. The person makes a logically inconsistent argument
5. The person doesn't show an appropriate amount of tact and respect while arguing his/her point - unproductive abrasivity is just self-indulgent and dumb
6. The person is unable to admit to being wrong / generally unable to be self-critical

I'm not totally sure what you mean by losing empathy...if I'm actually dealing with such a person, I don't get visibly upset (usually), I just temporarily hate them. If I'm not dealing with them, I rant to someone else until I get over it.

My dad is an INFJ, and my list above probably describes him pretty accurately too. But he's more likely to let his anger show around co-workers and other people he's less familiar with, while I only show it around those close to me. And yeah, he's definitely a door-slammer. I'm explosive.

 

[dieValkyrie]

Any time a person displays cruelty and/or makes a completely unwarranted attack against a person, I completely shut down any empathy I might feel or being trying to feel with them.

Often the shutdown will occur and I'll be really upset or disgusted with that person, but if I have enough time away from them I can usually talk myself back into seeing them as not a completely worthless person and begin empathizing (or maybe sympathizing is better word) with them. "Oh, they act this way because these bad things happened to them that made them so negative"

If I can justify their behavior with a bad childhood or something, I can pity them and even care about them, but I've learned through the years that I get taken advantage of very easily due to this sympathetic and caring nature. Now I usually give people who do something terrible a second and maybe even a third chance, but if they consistently are malicious in their behavior and seem disingenuous with their apologies I quickly cut them out of my life.

There are also a few crimes that go against my values so much that I can't see a person who commits them as anything less than a monster.

 

[sprinkles]

I don't lose it. I just pretend to.

I tend to be easily placated if somebody knows my weaknesses, but most times they just continue to be a butt so my shutout bluff usually does work.

 

[iNtrovert]

The typo in the title makes me lose empathy.

(I wish I was kidding.)

I apologize. I'm admittedly horrible at spelling. I suspect I am also mildly dyslexic so spelling is something I have always had to work at. I was tested as a child and was within 1 or 2 points of being diagnosed with it. It's also very frustrating for me. I always test well for comprehension and when I speak I love to use colorful words that I cannot spell. It makes me feel pretty stupid but it's just one of those things you know. It's really a touchy thing for me but I'm not illiterate it's just never come easy for me. I also tend to be a bit careless when posting on here otherwise it would take me years to write anything but from now on i'll at least try to get the title right.

 

[iNtrovert]

I don't lose it. I just pretend to.

I tend to be easily placated if somebody knows my weaknesses, but most times they just continue to be a butt so my shutout bluff usually does work.

That's a hard thing to deal with. I relate to this slightly only I can stop caring in some cases but there will be this little nugget in me that ever so often will make me care. It is promptly shutdown again when I am reminded of the offense that made me apathetic in the first place. Sometime I get upset at them all over again for the a part of me that still does care when I know I shouldn't. I kind of feel like i'm being manipulated by their memory which( in my warped mind) is still their fault.

What i'm wondering is does the intensity of empathy at least decrease over time? I know it would all but kill me if I pretended not to care and really did. I'd break down have a heart to heart with that person and end up forgiving them. The only way I could deal is if over time the intensity changed to a level of empathy I could cope with. I'm guessing it also depends on the extent to which you cared for them in the first place as well.

 

[MurkLurk]

This really resonated with me because I do the exact same thing, I feel like I'm at the point where I feel like only a few people are worth my time/empathy. As I get older I'm getting more emotionally closed off I guess. I feel like when I was younger this wouldn't really happen- I would give people a lot of chances.
I think it's because I was going through a lot of personal problems with depression and once I finally got rid of most of it I just lost my patience with people.
There's someone I knew struggling with it and I tried to help her despite some issues I already had with her, then I found out some horrible things she did in the past (which made me lose all respect for her) while in the present she was cutting herself and trying to "kill herself" with antidepressants. I don't mean to sound harsh but I knew from personal experience she wasn't going to get better for a long time, I wasn't going to be any help, it was difficult to talk to her/be around her, she certainly and she did not want to get better. I hold a deep grudge against her for some things and feel a huge wall against her. There's a side to me that hope she gets better but I honestly do not want anything to do with her.
My ex said I could be very judgmental as well- I know I still am luckily my current boyfriend doesn't mind.
Even though I didn't hit on a lot of things on your post thank you for posting it, it really conveyed a lot of feelings/thoughts I've been having lately and haven't been able to put into words

Apologies if this is all over the place and hard to read- I'm very out of it right now and about to fall asleep

 

[MurkLurk]

Pretty much exactly the same for me. I would add: When someone is unwilling to help themselves.

I feel like when I feel like I'm being taken advantage of, someone's wronged someone close to me, or they are unwilling to help themselves are the biggest factors for me

 

[Vilku]

this might sound silly, but boredom. other than that, i think my empathy is really on always even if im trying to ignore it, or like in most cases, lack inspiration to.

or i mean, i am ALWAYS extremely receptive of others, but boredom makes me unable to care to react to it which might be seen as narcissistic. but this is mostly untrue at one on ones, i always become reactive then, but its unfortunate people dont understand my failure to be receptive when the one on one contact isnt created is seen as narcissism.

 

[Guy V. Malaxia]

I'm not sure this response is in the spirit of the original post, but I can no longer watch horror/gore movies because it numbs me to pain, suffering, etc. for hours, sometimes days.

When I was in high school some friends and I got together to watch all the then-released Saw movies. The first few hours were brutal, but by the end I couldn't feel anything. I'd watch an assortment of limbs being hacked off of weeping and wailing victims. No response. It took several days after before I was back to my normal self, and since then I've sworn off the horror genre all together.

I really appreciate my sensitivity to things like that, and now that I'm older and a bit wiser I do my best to not participate in anything that may jeopardize my empathy.

 

[Stanton Moore]

I can only lose it temporarily. If the person apologizes and is genuinely contrite, I will forgive them. Because I can, and consider it a duty to act in the most open and ethical manner.