why don't I care about other peoples feelings? and why don't I feel for them/sympathize?

Hi and thank you so much for reaching out to us, and for putting your trust in our hands. I hope that I can help you by answering your question and give you the guidance that you need now. Let me start by introducing myself; my name is Alin Tovar, I am a licensed professional counselor in the state of Texas, and I have been working for BetterHelp for over two years now. There are many therapists on this platform and we are all here to provide each client with the best guidance that we can. I hope the following information is helpful to your current situation.

I think it would be important for you to ask yourself the following questions: How long have you been feeling like this? Is this something that you have experienced as far back as you can remember? Did anything happen in your life that changed the way you perceive people's feelings? Have you ever felt different than the way that you are describing? For example, has there ever been someone that you have loved that has been in trouble or is hurting and how have you felt in these situations?

Are you familiar with what empathy is? The easiest way to define this word would be “for a person to put themselves in somebody else's shoes and to feel as if they were experiencing what the other person was experiencing.” Sympathy is a little bit different; sympathy is understanding that the other person that is hurting are in a difficult situation, but you do not necessarily become emotionally affected by it you just realize that it is a difficult situation and sometimes can offer help but the feelings that are more related to empathy are not there. Sympathy is more of “pity for another”. The reason why I wanted to define this for you is because I feel that it is important for you to identify which is the one that you have and which is the one that you never had or currently do not have? As mentioned before, was there ever a time that you did feel empathy or sympathy, and if so what happened then or what is the difference?

I unfortunately do not have information besides your question of why this is happening to you.  I can give you general explanations based on my experience and what I have seen in this field of why some individuals really cannot feel what the other person is feeling or not really care about it but this does not mean that it will be you. Based on what I have observed as a mental health professions, a person’s characteristics are built from experiences and our genetic formation. Do you know somebody in your family that feels the way you do? Do any relatives have similar characteristics that you do? This lack of empathy and sympathy can come sometimes from genetic predispositions as I said before. These genetic predispositions are so engraved in who we are that we might have to accept that this is part of our characteristics. Our environment plays a big role in our formation as human beings too, that is why it is important for you to analyze if something happened that made you like this that could have changed the way you perceive. I think it is important too to address sibling orders, are you an only child, do you feel that you were not taught to care for others and needed more immediate gratification and it was given? Either way there can be solutions to it.  If a person is identifying that this is something that they lack, they can practice positive empathetic characteristics to try to help your brain recondition this way of feeling. I cannot tell you that everybody starts to feel empathy based on the practices, but I do feel that the more you practice empathy, compassion and love towards others it will come easier for someone to act out in such way. I have met individuals that are born without empathy and like I mentioned before, the best thing that I can help them with is to understand that this is a characteristic that they have, become aware of it and through their behaviors try to demonstrate positive behaviors towards those that they love and care for. Some examples of practices is what you are already doing, verbally showing someone that you care and that you are sorry for what they are going through, following up with them periodically to see how they are doing and offer solutions to their problems.

To go to a deeper level of why this might be happening to you I would recommend to talk to a mental health professional, there are several therapists in this platform that I hope can help you find the rooted cause to why you are manifesting what you are now.

I thank you once again to have sent out this information to us and for making this first step of reaching out for help. It is evident that you are willing to find help for yourself. I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you took away some information from here and that everything turns out well. Thank you for trusting us and sending this information our way and I hope that over all you feel better each day.