On empathetic distress
Some reflections on a term I had been unfamiliar with. Until it decided to become very familiar with me.
I woke up one morning early last week with a terrible pain just below my jawline. I assumed it was tooth pain, maybe even an abscess, it was that acute.
So I took some Advil and called the dentist. There was nothing wrong with my tooth. He said it looked as though I had a swollen lymph node, so I was probably just fighting some kind of virus. We chalked it up to nothing.
That was in the morning. By noon of that day, I could barely keep my eyes open. I couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t complete tasks, couldn’t write coherently without great effort. All I wanted was to go to sleep. I felt as though I had gone days without rest, when I hadn’t.
So, I went to bed early that night, and woke with the same pain in the same spot, and the same all-encompassing exhaustion set in. Right around noon again.
I called the doctor, who wanted me to get blood work and come in for an examination. When the lab work was back I went in for the exam. All the numbers were fine. She said one lymph node appeared a little swollen. (Newsflash). I was probably fighting something viral (no kidding). It would resolve itself in due course. Nothing to worry about.
It was the next day, when the pain returned and the exhaustion set in, that I began to think what it was that could be wrong. What was happening to me, why was I shutting down. Nothing viral had ever done that to me before. Not THAT kind of exhaustion.
And then it hit me. This had happened to me once before. Decades earlier. And as it was happening, I recalled feeling the same confusion as to why my brain seemed to be telling my body to stop. Like some unseen force had covered me with a weighted blanket and deprived me of months of sleep.
It was my wedding day. An event I was incredibly excited about and happy about and couldn’t wait for. But that morning, my brain said “stop.”
It wasn’t some sign for what the future would hold. It wasn’t a red flag. I was truly overjoyed that the day had finally arrived. I couldn’t wait to see that the caterer we had been working with for months was set up perfectly, and the florist, and the DJ and the decorations and the bridal party and the limo and the weather and and and… boom.
My brain called an audible and told my body to shut her down. “She’s about to blow!!! Shut it down, shut it all down!!!” Essentially.
And so, as I was lying there in my bed, unable to physically get myself up, hours before I was supposed to walk down the aisle, I understood that I just needed to breathe. Take a moment, calm myself down, compartmentalize the worry from the excitement and take as much time as I needed focusing on anything and everything else for as long as it took.
As I’ve now identified, that was (is) my response to extreme stress. It hadn’t happened since. Not through the births of two babies, not while going through a brutal divorce.
But it happened last week. And with the help of my own past experience and my incredible therapist, I have been able to identify why.
I was drowning in sadness, worry and grief. It was coming from every direction. It was bombarding my mind, body and soul all day, every day. It had infiltrated my every thought, both waking and subconscious. And I thought I was managing it. I thought I was navigating it. I’ve been through trauma. I’ve been able to keep myself ok through it.
Not this time. This was different. This was “Shut it down. Shut it all down!”
And I’ve been starting the work of the “why?”
Ever since the horrific Hamas attack on Israel, I have felt this compulsion to try to put myself in the victims’ shoes. To try to fully understand the horror of what had been done to the Jewish people. I felt selfish for looking away. I thought, if they have to endure this reality, I don’t have the right to turn off the tv, or stop reading a story about someone’s family being slaughtered, I thought I owed it to those human beings suffering unimaginable loss, to look directly at what had been done. That I couldn’t look away because it was too hard. And I would spend hours a day crying. Physically sick, and grieving the loss of so many beautiful, innocent souls.
I won’t look away. I still can’t.
And I won’t look away from the suffering of the innocent Palestinians either. Atrocities against children do not excuse atrocities against children. Nothing does.
So, that dark day and the darkness to follow has been and continues to be something I am personally and intentionally, making a priority for myself to pay attention to. To understand. To empathize. To listen. To learn. To care.
Coupled with some very personal worry and grief I’ve been grappling with, it’s all triggered this physiological response in my brain.
My 14 year old son had been dealing with lingering back pain for about a month. We thought it was a muscle strain and were treating it with Advil, ice and heat, but it wasn’t going away, wasn’t getting better. So, we finally took him to the orthopedist, after keeping him out of sports, and they sent him for an MRI.
When the results of the MRI revealed a fracture in his L5 I was gobsmacked. My son had broken his back, was all I could think about. My baby boy could have and nearly did, suffer a life-changing injury. And while I didn’t process how that was landing on my subconscious at the time, all I could focus on was KEEPING HIM SAFE. Not letting it get any worse. What he couldn’t do. He can’t do this, and he can’t do that, that’s not safe, what if, what if, what IF?!?
My subconscious was sounding this alarm that I had failed to protect my baby from harm, and I know kids get hurt, I know, believe me I know… but I own who I am — good, bad, hot mess and otherwise, and ever since my then 11 year old son told me that my divorce from his dad was the most painful thing I could have ever done “to him”, I have made a pact with myself to protect him from anything and everything that could ever cause him additional pain. It’s a totally irrational, extremely unrealistic and wildly unhealthy thing to think. I am fully aware and believe me, I’m working on it — but when he broke that bone, all I kept hearing was ‘you can’t keep him safe, you didn’t keep him safe’ over and over again. And with all of the atrocities in Israel right there at the front of my mind, and the children who were murdered, and the 17 year old high school senior from our town who had died in a car crash the week prior, it was all getting smashed together. This collision of sadness, grief, suffering, loss, fear, images of babies killed, my son going to school and accidentally doing something to make his back worse, the family here in town with an empty chair at the the dinner table, and the inability on my part to control any of it, was overloading my circuit boards until my brain said “enough!!”
And my body shut down.
And then the Maine shooting happened… and it only made everything so much worse.
And then someone shared a term with me that I had never heard. Empathetic distress.
Empathic distress is the strong aversive and self-oriented response to the suffering of others, accompanied by the desire to withdraw from a situation in order to protect one's self from excessive negative feelings.
I’m sharing all of this, not because I want to diminish the horrific realities other human beings are forced to grapple with as I sit at a computer tapping on a keyboard, and not because I think this is exclusive to my own personal experience, but on the contrary — I want to find a way to empathize with other human beings, I want to support them, while acknowledging that there can be, and has been for me, an emotional toll to all of it as well. One that I believe is worthy of talking about, because I really think so many of us are struggling in our own ways of navigating all of this.
And it’s ok to talk about that.
It’s ok to say, I don’t think I’m ok. I’m struggling. I need help. I don’t know how to focus on the suffering I see all over the world while taking care of my own mental state at the same time. It’s ok to say, I don’t think I can do it.
It’s not only ok, it’s important to identify how you’re feeling.
There are people out there who can help. And there are things we can do for ourselves and for others. There is a way to frame our thinking more in terms of compassion than empathy, and that is the journey I am on now.
I’m working on something called “empathic concern.” Another term I had never heard.
Empathy can be a beautiful thing which connects us to one another. It’s something I’ve always tried to instill in my own children.
“But Empathic distress, which is associated with negative feelings, can lead to withdrawal, poor health, and burnout.
Empathic concern, on the other hand, can lead to positive feelings, good health, and the desire to help.
However, when you experience empathic concern, you aren’t necessarily sharing the same painful feelings as the other person (e.g., sadness or fear). In fact, you may also be quite aware that you are distinct and different from the suffering person near you.” - Greater Good Magazine.
Some of the ways I’m learning how to do this:
Checking in with myself.
Asking myself questions about how I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it.
Verbalizing my feelings (like I’m doing in this essay).
And trying to nurture a more compassionate response where I don’t take on the actual pain of others, but still seek to understand and alleviate it at the same time.
This may be something which resonates with you, and it may not. You may be much more adept at navigating the pain in the world, or like me, you may be discovering that you’re having a hard time.
I’m not an expert on mental health. I’m just a human being walking through life with my eyes open for the first time in decades. And I’m sharing the view in case someone else sees their own story in mine.
And if my experience can help even one person feel less alone, feel less afraid, or less crazy, then it will have been worthwhile.
I’m at a place in my life now, where I know I can only ever truly be exactly who I am. I am complicated. We all are. I’m imperfect. I’m raw, I can have a temper, and I tend to cry a lot. But I know I’m worth the time I’m now taking to understand both who I am, and how I can be better.
But I also know that ultimately, I am guided by my heart. A heart which wants goodness, love, peace and Justice, and for all children to be safe and protected, but a heart which often also gets me into a lot of trouble. Because it leaves me vulnerable to pain.
And I know that to help myself, so that I can do more to help others, I’m going to have to work on myself. And I’m ok with that.
I don’t want to stop wanting good things for people. I don’t want to be able to ignore the suffering of others. But I know I won’t be able to truly do anything productive about any of it, unless I make sure I’m ok too.
It’s like the masks on airplanes — you have to put your own mask on so you can help someone else put on theirs.
I just want to do my part for making this a better world, while making sure I take good enough care of myself that I can continue to do it.
I want that for all of us.
We are all in this together. Even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
💞
I often rely on the serenity prayer when I get overwhelmed. I admire the ability to put yourself in the others shoes and feel what they feel. Too many of us cannot see things from the other side. I no longer look for why I feel how I feel rather I look for how to change what I feel. I hope it makes sense. Admit when I stopped drinking and did get brutifully honest with myself. FYI the hardest thing I ever did. That is when the why no longer mattered. I could give you 300 reasons why I drink. Today I can only say I drink because I drink.
I still stay sober 1 day at a time. My dry date is Feb 15th. 1978.
May you always be you JOJO, may you always have the empathy it is what makes you amazing. May you find a way to not care for the why and only deal with changing how you feel. I for one love your openess thank you
Thank you for writing this, in particular on this day. I won’t go through what is transpiring in my life. Suffice to say, that your words resonate with me and are helping me ease an immense pain deep in my soul. God bless you for always awakening in me a greater appreciation for life’s trials and tribulations. They do make us stronger. Namaste.