I came to make this point when I read the example of the ex-smoker being against current smokers. Addiction is unlike the other examples where life just deals you a bad hand. It involves some degree of personal responsibility. So to be someone who goes down that road and then, when off, is critical of others still on that road is hypocrisy. It’s callous and self-serving, the same way bullying is. And yes it hurts, rather than helps, the prospects of the ones coming along behind you.
(and yes I’ve kicked a few addictions in my day including cigarettes)
ETA: And the same goes for many of life’s problems that can also be traced to some extent our own behavior.
My best friend is a very good and loving person, but she has what i would consider an average dose of heartlessness/impatience/judgment/vindictiveness towards those she thinks have, in one way or another, given up their claim on the sympathy and tolerance of others. So we often find ourselves arguing (in a very friendly way) about the “correct” response to a given situation. She usually agrees with me in an intellectual way that a particular person deserves some sympathy (such as the murderer, and she’s the degree of separation), she just can’t really feel it emotionally.
I’ve come to realize that the meaner, nastier, more heartless and cruel someone is, the more deserving of sympathy they are, because all that ugliness is actually turned in on themselves. Imagine being that person? What is that like? Yikes.
It also leads me to one of my very favorite quotes: “Resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die.” and I think that is true of most of our ugly feelings. They hurt us, not the person they are directed towards. Because they are about us, not the person they are directed towards. So if you find yourself being impatient, angry, uncaring, judgmental, whatever, towards someone else…check in with yourself, because it’s about you, and you are the only person whose suffering because of your feelings.
(Which, again, should not be taken as a claim of immunity against anger on my part. And I limit it to anger because that’s the primary feeling I have about other people’s behavior. But fortunately for me I find anger completely unsustainable, so it dissipates pretty fast.)
My Mother has sciatica. She’d hop around every now and then and complain about the pain. I felt for her but wasn’t overly sympathetic about it.
Then I got it. Now I knew what that pain felt like. It’s a type of pain that’s hard to explain. It’s deep and it moves around, sometimes it’s in the muscles sometimes in the ankle. It’s horrible and agony.
I’ve become much more sympathetic to her now that I understand what she was actually going through.
I’m pretty sympathetic to just about any kind of pain because I’m a complete pussy. I can’t stand the slightest discomfort anywhere in my body, it just leaves me useless. So real pain? Forget it, and I have nothing but respect and sympathy for people who have to manage it.
Too true. I believe much of the lack of understanding for suffering people is due to that pernicious belief about shame.
Unfortunately, there is very little common wisdom one can turn to for relief from that. Shame is as deeply built into Western culture as is cruelty. So is the idea that both - shame and cruelty - are somehow redemptive or cleansing or just.
I have sympathy for stuff when it happens to people. Except for occasional you need to talk times I also believe in stop crying about it and do what you can for yourself. I get really pissed with people that use torettes or similar as an excuse for their behavior they don’t try to control. There is trying to be a better person despite your problems and there is making no effort and using your problem as an excuse for everything bad about yourself.
I’m a little confused by one of your statements here… The definition of Tourette’s is that of a behavior that is incapable of being controlled, not that they don’t want to. You may want to educate yourself if you think Tourette’s is only saying dirty words or uncontrolled blinking - it’s a lot more complicated than that.
As a personal anecdote, I have a cousin with Tourette’s. She doesn’t blurt out dirty words, and her physical tics aren’t very noticeable if you’re not previously aware of them. However, she has a very, very difficult time keeping down a job because she will, seemingly randomly, ask extremely rude, personal, prying, and sensitive questions - the kind of thing people think and never say (How come you’re so fat? You have so many children, hasn’t anyone ever taught you about birth control? How’d you end up so ugly?). She’s thirty now, and she’s been working with therapists and been on medication since she was a small child, but it’s never going to go away. It’s not that she doesn’t want to not say these things - she’s generally extremely embarrassed about asking them - but she CAN’T not say it.
Now, she makes a lot of distance up to us who understand her disorder by apologizing, saying “don’t answer that,” and generally doing her best most of the time to be a nice person. I’m not saying there’s not people out there who don’t use their disabilities as an excuse to act like an ass, but I wanted to recommend a little education about a poorly-understood disorder.
I’d have to say it makes me less sympathetic. I had fairly extensive vitiligo through elementary and middle school, and most of my pigmentation (skin color) returned through treatment. It’s still apparent on my hands, so most semi-observant people notice it daily. It’s also on my shins, so whenever I work out, it’s unavoidable.
Occasionally I’ll meet people who have very minimal vitiligo - and who are white - so it’s even less apparent. They’ll talk endlessly about how devastating it is, how it affects them emotionally, how they talked about it on college applications, and how it’s truly defined them as unique, blah blah blah. It really pisses me off because 1) they’re white, it’s less noticeable and 2) why the hell don’t you just move on? Yes, you look different, yes it’s unfortunate, but you know what? I came out with a thicker hide as a result, and found greater happiness than I ever could have had I never known what vitiligo was.
My brothers are both incredibly handsome, and if not for my vitiligo, I likely would have been very pretty all throughout elementary and middle school. Instead, I got the ugly duckling into a swan effect in mid-high school. I truly think this allowed me to develop a personality because I wasn’t wrapped up in my looks as other good looking kids are. I even consider it a blessing - it’s weeded out potential partners whose shallow personalities would otherwise have taken months or years to unveil themselves. It genuinely disappoints me that people haven’t become stronger or happier from their vitiligo. They seem to wallow and use it as a scapegoat for their problems.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that the vast, vast majority of behaviors people engage in that are objectionable can be traced back to some degree of impulse-control impairment. Outside of sociopaths, people want to be liked, they want their behavior to be positive, productive, and healthy. So when we look around and see that nearly everyone engages in some kind of behavior that they’d probably rather not, what gives? It’s a matter of how able each of us is to moderate ourselves, and like most things, that ability (not just the fact of doing it or not, the ability to do it ) exists or is lacking to varying degrees in all of us, and with some of us the severity of our inability is great enough to constitute labeling as a genuine “disorder”.
As far as my own (ADD) goes, every single aspect of it is something that virtually everyone on earth suffers from to some degree sometimes (procrastination, short term memory failure, impulse control), but with me and others labeled with ADD, it’s severe enough to impair successful functioning, that’s all. It’s not some cluster of completely unheard of behaviors and deficits, and that’s the same with just about everything. (Possible exception being schizophrenia).
So, in keeping with the general theme of the OP, it’s hypocritical and unfair to deny people our sympathy because we have either overcome or never suffered from exactly what they suffer from.
It sorta comes down to the words attributed to Jesus Christ himself: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…
And if he’d lived today, he likely would have followed up with: good luck with that.
One thing I don’t think has been mentioned yet: people enjoy feeling superior, too. This drives a LOT of the worst sorts of intolerance: racism, nationalism, religious intolerance. And it is at the heart of our lack of sympathy for people still suffering from our former blight: HA! I’m BETTER THAN YOU! Because I managed to fix it in 2004, and YOU are still at it in 2010! I WIN!
Of course, it’s completely irrational and nonsensical… 2004/Age 30/ Last month was the cutoff for giving up drugs/losing weight/stopping smoking/working harder/being better? HUH?
And of course the need and desire to believe we are superior to others is prompted by the fear or belief that we really aren’t. So the only way to find some sense of worth is by locating the people who (we believe) are even more worthless than we are and pointing them out.
And finally, it’s just true that we tend to react more intensely and negatively to things that remind us of things we don’t like in ourselves, even if we’ve eradicated them. “I see the junkie I used to be when I look at you, and it makes me sick, so YOU make me sick, because you’re the me I can’t stand.”
First I said one illness and was referring to just all illnesses.
I’ve had vocal ticks with the sounds and all the movements since 1st grade. Throw in O.C. to where I would collapse trying to do something a certain way for over an hour. I’ve worked on controlling it as much as I could through meditation every night for years. Forcing myself blank out the surroundings helps. It doesn’t stop the problems, just their escalation. I tell people to let me know if they couldn’t take it any longer and I’d leave. Saying you have a problem doesn’t mean others have to just grin and bare it. Last month I was having extreme problems with saying inappropriate stuff in public continuously again. Stuff like stupid fucking bitch. Cunt. Whore. Cock sucking bitch whore. I stayed out of public places as much as possible. I’ve met people that have these problems, but think saying they have this is an excuse that gives them a pardon for any behavior they do and they can be inconsiderate assholes. I apologize to people around me. Yes holding a job is hard and certain types harder than others.
I forget that no matter that I’ve made my problems clear on this board at times that people will not know them. I apologize for going off on you. My don’t bitch constantly about this illness policy means most people won’t know, so what I’m saying without detailed information isn’t taken like I intend. Then I get lectured on my problem and it triggers the response you got sometimes. Once again sorry for the above. Please note I’m not blaming it on the illness. I should know I can’t make comments about this without a ton of background every time, which isn’t worth it.
In Oliver Sacks’ book The Man Who Mistook His Wife As a Hat (which is a compendium of neurological oddities), Sacks paints a vivid and loving portrait of a man with Tourette’s who essentially found that the best part of his quirky, funny personality came from his disorder. When he started taking medication to control his behaviors he ceased to be the interesting, vibrant person he used to be, and so opted to discontinue the meds. It made his life harder in some ways, but he maintained his sense of self, his love for life, and he felt whole. His situation was unique or else it wouldn’t have made it into the book, but I thought it was a very moving account worth reading.
Nailed it.
This reminds me of something I read in a Zen Buddhism book once – that when we judge others, we’re actually judging ourselves. We tend to try to control our own behavior through self-sanction (’‘I should never think that/do that or I would be bad’’, and every time we judge another person we’re only reflecting how we treat ourselves. One key to getting out of this cycle is to break the punitive relationship we have with ourselves – to let go of the shoulds and mustn’ts and just accept that we are all just human beings in desperate need of compassion.
When I catch myself being jerky to other people or feeling less empathy for their situation, it’s a BIG red flag that I’m being nasty to myself, too. Often when I pull back I find so many layers of pain and longing for acceptance underneath that veneer of nastiness. I’ve learned to be more attentive to my pain and grant myself that acceptance I need, and then I can move forward with more compassion for others.
ETA: And actually, now that I think of it, that’s a good reason for me to let go of my disdain for people who fail to show empathy for others. Because by my own logic, they are being just as harsh on themselves, and really what they need is compassion too.
This works well for me in all areas of my life. Too bad I had to become an alki to find this pearl of wisdom.
Acceptance Prayer
Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation ~ some fact of my life ~ unacceptable to me and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.
Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober, unless I accept life completely on life’s terms. I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes
A friend of mine survived the sort of terrible childhood you only see on Lifetime moves (alcoholic mother who would disappear for weeks on end, leaving the 3 year old home alone to fend for herself, running from abusive group and foster homes, child rape, no schooling to speak of, lied her way into renting her first apartment at 13, etc.). She once said to me, “You know, a person’s worst pain ever is their worst pain ever. It doesn’t matter if my pain was “greater” or more “worthy” - it’s still the worst pain they’ve ever felt.”
That really made me pause and think. And become a lot more sympathetic to people suffering from “smaller” pains than hers or mine.
When I really start to get unsympathetic is, as someone else mentioned, when it seems like the person acknowledges the problem, articulates solutions, and then refuses to put those solutions into action. It’s just so frustrating to be asked for the same advice over and over again, be told it’s good advice and then later be asked for the same bloody advice again. Just…do it!
But really, I know that’s not fair, and there are generally other things at play holding them back from actually solving their problems. To expect people to move on my time table is arrogance and egoism beyond belief.
My mother is the queen of repetitive self-destructive behavior–one unhealthy relationship and emotional breakdown after another. The depths of her denial and resistance to change are immense. She asks for advice, we give her advice, and she promptly ignores it. Over and over and over again. And yes, it drives me nuts and is frustrating. But for the first time ever, she is trying, and continues to try, and she had made incremental change to the best of her ability.
The thing is, we all do it. We might not do it on that grand of a scale, but everyone has their little ‘‘blind spots,’’ the parts about themselves they aren’t willing or ready to change. I can point to a number of mistakes I keep making – my tendency to procrastinate being chief among them.
When people engage in behavior we view as self-destructive, chances are that behavior serves some useful function for them, it was an adaptive survival move at one point that has since worn out its usefulness. It doesn’t really make it less frustrating, but it helps me to hang on to some compassion for that person. My Mom helps me with this, because she’s hurt a lot of people, including me, but I have always had so much compassion for her because I have always felt I understood her. I understand that at the core of every cruel or irrational thing she does is pain, and she’s trapped and doesn’t know how to get out. I think I am really grateful to have known her so intimately, if only because she has taught me a lot about how to practice compassion with people who are… difficult.
I’m sorry, I tend to get a little defensive of Tourette’s in particular because of my cousin - I’ve seen her deal with a lot of lack of understanding in the world. I should have re-read your first post a few more times to get a better understanding of where you were coming from.
I do agree with the point you were trying to make - some people DO use their disabilities as an excuse to act like jerks. More of what I see is people who feel entitled to… something because of their disability (Sympathy? Priority treatment? I’m never sure.), and that sense of entitlement always grates on me wrong. It especially grates on me when it’s not that debilitating of a disability, like diet-controlled diabetes. I’ve got a co-worker who whines constantly about how she can’t eat whatever she wants, blah, blah, blah. If you listened to her, you’d think any minute now she’s going to drop into a coma and die. I’ve dealt with one family member who is hypoglycemic and with one who started as diet-controlled and moved into insulin controlled diabetic. Developing a good low-GI diet is easy, and easy to stick to as long as you cook at home, and it drives me crazy to listen to her whine about how hard it is to control her diabetes when she still goes out for Italian a couple times a week.
My uncle is schizoaffective with paranoid delusions – about a hair’s breath away from homelessness because of his inability (or refusal?) to function. He does not believe he is mentally ill, but any time he might get something he is quick to play the ‘‘I’m mentally ill’’ card. He has lied to social workers about receiving financial support, telling them he has no family and no-one to take care of him. My family gripes a lot about his frequent deception and sense of entitlement, feeling very strongly that he could work if he chose to work. They say that this is not part of his illness, he’s just lazy and entitled.
I can’t fathom what it’s like to live the hell my uncle has endured. I’ve always been aware he was crazy, but I never really ‘‘got’’ how different his reality was from mine until one day I stopped by his apartment. The walls were dingy and yellow with smoke, their were coffee cans full of cigarette butts everywhere, dirty laundry and garbage piled up. And taped to his bathroom wall were a series of messages he had written to the tormenters that he routinely hallucinated – just pages and pages begging them to leave him alone, telling them he didn’t want to die and he’d never done anything wrong. Every word was just bleeding with desperation.
It left an… impression.
I didn’t know my uncle before he lost his mind, so I cant say whether he is just lazy and entitled by nature. All I can say is I have a hard time judging him. People tend to view ‘‘manipulation’’ and ‘‘entitlement’’ and god forbid, ‘‘attention whoring’’ as a bad thing, but when you view it as a basic survival mechanism, it makes sense. Manipulation is a reaction to powerlessness. Entitlement grows out of a sense of helplessness. Attention is something that every human being needs. These are all behaviors that come from pain, loss, and desperation.
It never ceases to sadden me how deep down the conviction goes in our society that compassion is weakness - how tenaciously, even defensively, people hold to it, and yet how comparatively easy and pleasant it would be for us to learn to let go of it.
Are we really that religious (can’t think of a better term) in our fear of what might happen? Or do we really care so much that other people be denied what we ourselves had to get along without?
What - quoting Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in a context he surely would never have approved of - is our major malfunction???
Beware of Doug, I’ve been meaning to say this to you-- I suppose now is as good a time as any. I think you are one of the most thoughtful and interesting posters on this board. If you ever write a book, let me know. I’ll buy a dozen copies.