I think my empathy is broken.

I used to consider myself a pretty empathetic and compassionate person. On the surface, I still seem to be that way. When someone is crying, I automatically cry. When someone I care about it hurting, I want to make it better. But I don’t think these emotions are hitting all the way to the bottom of me. I am consciously aware that someone is suffering but I don’t …understand. I feel sad for them. I feel sad that they are sad. Sympathy. But I can’t feel my own emotions of how I would (should) feel if I were in their place. I feel… unaffected. The two things that are pointing this out to me time and again lately are pets and/or death. I don’t understand the love people have for their pets (or animals in general) and I don’t really understand the grief that death brings.

I completely get and respect that people do have intense feelings for both of these things, but to me, they are abstract and nothing I’ve really experienced. I can’t imagine the way I would feel. The fact that I think I wouldn’t feel the way most people do kind of freaks me out.

Maybe I have even more mental problems that I thought I did. Lol. Am I a sociopath?!

Realistically, I would say this is depression. I know, in a detached objective sense, that depression steals emotions and messes with your reactions. And just the fact that I said I don’t think I was always like that should prove it, right? Maybe I’ll go back to ‘normal’ and feel regular things again. (Although, I don’t think I will ever feel mushy towards an animal.)