Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Empathy?
Anne Heche crashed her car into a house on August 5, 2022, destroying it and critically wounding herself in the process. Before that, she had a minor crash at an apartment garage and another crash (without any injuries), striking a Jaguar. When she crashed her car for the third time, she broke through a house’s wall, embedding her Mini Clubman thirty feet into it and trapping Heche inside her vehicle. Then, the vehicle caught fire, which set the house on fire as well.
It took sixty-five minutes for fifty-nine firefighters to fully extinguish the fire and extract Anne Heche from her vehicle into an ambulance. While being transported to the ambulance, Heche would sit upright on her stretcher and struggle with the paramedics. Heche suffered severe burns and smoke inhalation and would later die from said injuries six days later.
I know these details because my mother told me all about the day after Anne Heche died while we were sitting on our patio. She was choked up about all of this and wondered how somebody could suffer a death as painful as Heche’s. She was also upset at the people commenting negatively about the celebrity’s crash. I, of course, listened with a straight face because I had never heard of Anne Heche prior to the car crash, and I probably wouldn’t have cared either way.
Don’t get me wrong — it sucks that someone had to die the way Anne Heche did, but it wasn’t like my mother and I were close to her. She was a celebrity; we were dirt poor peasants. Why would I care about Anne Heche’s death?
I bring this all up because that conversation with my mother made me wonder if there’s such a thing as too much empathy. Anne Heche’s death isn’t the first time my mother got choked up about something that had nothing to do with her. She always seems to get choked up when she watches the news. Anything from bad storms to school shootings turns on my mother’s water works. I, on the other hand, don’t really care much because what can I do about it? This doesn’t involve me in any way, so why should I care?
Maybe I’m autistic and I just have low empathy, but I could never understand why my mother would get so upset every time she watches the news. Doesn’t she know that too much negativity is bad for her? Why would she watch the news if the news is nothing but negativity? As a matter of fact, why would anyone watch that much negativity? To keep up with current events? Isn’t there a better and healthier way to do that?
And to make matters worse, the news is all over social media. So, no matter how hard you try to avoid the news, you’re going to hear about it nonetheless. And when there’s a news article shared on social media, there’s usually a comment section with opinions from so many people. And boy, are there some strong opinions in those comment sections! If you don’t have an opinion on any (political) issue, or if you have the wrong opinion, prepare to be bashed to Hell and back at best and censored and banned at worst.
Most social media websites have an obvious left-leaning political bias (at least, on the surface). Anyone who posts something that goes against the left-leaning politics is under a severe risk of being censored or banned unless they use code words. How is this going to get people to care about what’s going on in the world? If anything, that’s just going to make people care less at best and get people to support the opposite of what you’re supporting at worst! Shouldn’t we be promoting debate and conversations instead of mockery and flame wars? This is exactly what happened to me.
You can call me a sociopath all you want, but it’s hard for me to care about what’s going on in the world when most of the media is patronizing and/or censoring the other perspective. You can’t rely on only one perspective in order to get the news. Like the saying goes — “There’s two sides to a story.” And personally, I think there’s more than two sides to a story at the very least. I’ll admit — it’s hard to listen to the other side, but sometimes, it’s better to swallow your pride and admit when you’re wrong.
Then again…with so much going on, it’s hard to care about everything. Maybe it’s just better to focus on one certain thing. When you feel much too much empathy for many things, your body will overflow in stress, anger, and anxiety. You can also experience depression and hopelessness, wondering whether the human race is even worth salvaging. Feeling responsible for other people’s emotions and actions can lead to burnout and can ironically break the bond of trust people had in you.
Burnout and the lost of trust leads to even more stress and anxiety, which is ultimately unhealthy for your body. Stress and anxiety can cause your brain to release stress hormones on a daily basis, which can cause headaches, dizziness, and depression. Not only that, but you can also experience chest pain, nausea, constipation, muscle tensions, shallow breathing, and a weakening immune system.
My mother has experienced some of these symptoms when she’s feeling empathetic after watching the news, and believe it or not, so I have in the past. I used to follow the news all the time, and not only did it waste my time, it also made me unhealthier and made me feel worse about not just the world but myself. I experienced many of the above health effects whenever I followed the news, and I followed the news often.
Then, Covid started, and the news became too much for me, so I stopped following. Then, I went to therapy. You wouldn’t believe how beneficial these two actions have been for me. Sure, I may not know as much on what’s going on in the world as I used to, but I’m so much happier because of it! I guess ignorance and apathy really are bliss.
So, you can call me an uncaring sociopath all you want, but, whenever I listen to my mother talking about the news, I think there’s such a thing as too much empathy. I mean, why would anyone want to experience multiple negative health effects and lose trust in those they care about? Why would you want to shun and censor someone who has an opposing view from theirs? Why do we have to comment about every issue possible, especially when it comes to politics? Do we have to care about everything? I don’t think we should. Maybe we should tone it down with the empathy and just focus on ourselves more often. That’s just me, though.
