Empathy is valuable. It is the fulcrum upon which our conscience and cognition balance themselves. Having the ability to listen to and understand others in a way that acknowledges their values, beliefs, and autonomy is essential for us to live in harmony with each other.
Empathy is a foundation stone upon which religions and philosophies ground themselves, for the aspects of compassion, tolerance, kindness, respect, open-mindedness, and sympathy all stem from the source of empathy.
Empathy can inspire confidence as it can influence healing. It can develop therapeutic essence as it can build more caring and compassionate personal, social, and professional relationships.
In a world rife with cruelty, vanity, decadence, impiety, iniquity, vainglory, and self-centredness, possessing, permeating, and promulgating empathy can be a wonderful thing.
However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing being bad for you.
We live in an age of over entitlement and over sensitivity. It is integral that as a collective species we hone in on tapping into the veins of greater humane and social-consciousness. As we are attuned to our immediate surroundings, we become cognisant of more intricate inherent attributes.
It’s just that some people forget where to draw the line.
A false dichotomy
“If you drink too much water, you can drown.”
– Denzel Washington
Empathy can be a powerful tool that’s used as a weapon. As a fundamental building block of achieving moral sustenance, emotional stability, and existential solidarity – empathy can help better understand the plight of someone else, by seeing it in a different perspective. This can give you a considerable empathic connection with another person.
The problem is that in today’s world, empaths are breeding faster than a farm full of broilers. And with technology and the optimisation of newer advancements to be instantly connected with more people around the globe much quicker than ever before, the volume of people feigning empathy are immense.
Naturally when put to use with unadulterated intentions and a place of irrefutable conscience, empathy can be a powerful mechanism in our lives.
But ever considered what happens when empathy is used for the exact opposite? To manipulate, exploit, and extrapolate others’ feelings?
A skilled empath can be very dangerous because he or she possesses the ability to understand other emotions and thereafter bend it to their own will and intent.
Empathy for dark empaths or sadistic empaths is a deadly means to an end.
The flipside of empathy
“I know your life is empty
And you hate to face this world alone
So you’re searching for an angel
Someone who can make you whole…
I cannot save you; I can’t even save myself!”
– Stabbing Westward (1998)
Yes,sure, while it is a wonderful thing to showcase a sense of empathy, especially in a professional context, social settings and in your personal life, there is a major flipside.
“Empathetic Reactivity” is when too much empathy is bad. Scientifically speaking, uncontrolled and ineffable empathy can lead to concentration of the stress hormone cortisol, resulting in a situation where it becomes increasingly difficult to release emotions. Therefore, taking on other people’s feelings and your own burden is dangerous because the over empath ends up living the other’s experience, making herself/himself deeply susceptible to depression, anxiety, and hopelessness. Combine that with a naturally gullible persona and these individuals keep gravitating to the same problems over and over in their lives, trying to be there for others but they themselves end up in a nasty pickle.
For one thing, people who are overly empathic tend to be easily misled. Many are the cases where recklessly benign people are taken for a jolly ride, their benevolence exploited, and they end up being used for their time, money, or effort by those who spot weakness in others. For some sociopaths, an empath is a dream come true. You see so many scenarios where overly empathic people are used all across the spectrum by employers and colleagues at work, by certain family members getting away with everything but murder and eternally masquerading a charade and having the empathic family member covering up for them, or in personal relationships where someone who is overly empathic is abused and used.
Pathological altruism
Empathy in the wrong hands can be a dangerous thing. A manipulative person will embrace and use empathy to gain popularity, make their presence felt, find relevance and regard with others, and fit into different social circles, only to end up toying with other people’s emotions.
They do this by utilising a series of different methods, of course. They use the famous “guilt trip”. “Empathy Guilt” is a fairly common denominator among this twisted group of individuals. They will win you over with empathic traits and then lure you into their world, where instead of actually being present in your life for your well-being and promoting welfare, they will grow pessimistic and cynical, constantly dragging you down with their negativity. In most cases they will trigger you with guilt, making you feel bad about yourself for what they are frequently going through. This often becomes a systematic leveraging mechanism for them to exploit others.
The ego seekers are another group of modern empaths. These are individuals who pride themselves in becoming the go-to sources for being experts in solving other people’s problems. You will find this brand of empaths often sharing with some third party how much they have done for others and complaining about a lack of gratitude or appreciation, often followed by a punchline of how they are undeterred and will ensue to be there for someone else – no matter the cost.
The “I am More Empathic Than Thou” lot. This is a result of a “saviour complex” where they are quick to go to anyone’s rescue, but will later chastise the allegedly “helped” or “saved” person by having high expectations of gratitude and constant praise. Some do have their feet planted in some religion or philosophy, and use this to showcase higher morale ground among others. Some believe sincerely they are going about God’s work, yet their deep insecurities combined with their megalomania can stifle those they deem beneath them.
The Culture Vulture Empaths. The trendy ones. These are a deadly lot who swarm like flies around carrion, basically attaching themselves to any cause that can gain them attention. Many of these people can pretend to be empathic in order to fit into groups that encourage modern ostracism of calling out and cancelling others as a means of depicting disapproval or offence at someone or something. Others will rally behind ethnic or social causes without having any real understanding of feelings that others are afflicted with and going through. Take the bulk of people in Sri Lanka itself that started to randomly change their social media profile pics to the Black Lives Matter display pics. The irony that some of the people brandishing their concern for the plight of Blacks, from racial discrimination to police brutality and societal injustice was questionable, considering they had histories of ignoring the plight and prejudices endured by the minorities in our own nation.
The Calculating Empaths. Ah, the blackholes of the dark empath universe. These are the master schemers and grand magi of manipulation who weave their way into corporate spheres, social fabrics, and personal lives and become a holistic part of the common narrative. They will wreak havoc from inside out – much like sociopaths would. They will spend years if they have to, in order to become a staple part of our lives, only to disrupt things with subtle nuances and grandiose enterprise, simply because they can and choose to entertain themselves and see it as a challenge.
Balance
You need to learn to put yourself first in situations in life, where your well-being, needs, and problems are as much a priority as your desire to help someone else. Only if you have the peace of mind, a solid foothold, and a modicum of stability in life will you be in a position to go out of your way to offer help to someone else, or else you will only end up messing up the situation further, where you will personally be a mess, and fail to effectively help the person in need.
Setting boundaries with others is also pivotal. You must accept that there are situations in which you can offer advice, support, and help within your means – as there are situations in which you cannot offer solace to someone else, therefore it’s best to stay away.
Learn to process your own feelings first. This is a real problem for empaths. You will attempt to attune yourself to someone else’s struggles and suffering without fully comprehending your own emotional needs, which is very dangerous for yourself and the person you are trying to help.
You can only help someone as far as they want to be helped. Don’t get ensnared by people who refuse to change and let go of bad habits, negative attitudes, and self-destructive mindsets. No matter however much you try to help them, you cannot simply because they have created habits of misery, which they cannot shake off.
Finally, don’t forget folks, before you seek to save the world and acquire sainthood, first and foremost, look after your own mental health, well-being, and self.
I shall finally leave you with a gem of a quote by Mario Puzo from The Last Don “We hope to someday be saints, but not martyrs.”
Suresh de Silva is the frontman and lyricist of Stigmata, a creative consultant and brand strategist by profession, a self-published author and poet, thespian, animal rescuer, podcaster, and fitness enthusiast.
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.