Does suffering build empathy?

[andrewducker]

I mean, I know it does in me, but I don’t know if this is one of those things that produces two divergent reactions.
I was bullied at school, and one of the long-term effects is that I would never bully anyone else, because I know what it feels like. On the other hand, I’ve known people who were bullied in school, and the lesson they learned is that there are two kinds of people, and they’d rather be the ones doing the bullying.
Which could also be a fundamental “levels of empathy” thing - if you have high levels of empathy for people then you probably learn different levels from the people who care a lot less. Not that I know where “empathy” falls in the nature/nurture scale, or whether it’s something that’s easy to change in later life.
All of which is brought to you by my increased empathy towards women going through menstrual cramps, having spent an hour or two on the toilet on Tuesday evening, with stomach cramps so bad that I thought I was going to throw up. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to go through that, let alone once a month.

Comments

[lilysea]

When I was 19, my menstrual cramps were so bad that at times I couldn't

- sit upright
- stand
- walk

I once had to abandon a shopping trolley full of groceries in the street (I was a poor uni student at the time, the potential loss of a fortnights worth of groceries was non-trivial) and stagger home to lie down in a hot bath for several hours before I could get up and walk back to see if the trolley was still there - my cramps were so bad that I couldn't walk and push the trolley - I could barely walk.

[rmc28]

I am so grateful for my contraceptive implant also stopping my periods.

And also that when I was a teenager in a lot of pain several days a month[1], my GP happened to also be a family planning specialist who took me seriously and worked through different pain relief and hormonal treatment regimes until I was taking the contraceptive pill, which actually worked to take the pain down. I gather that a lot of teenage girls in my position do not get that kind of care (because periods are meant to hurt, aren't they, what are you making a fuss about, how bad can it be?)

[1] not enough to miss school; enough to take the maximum dose of ibuprofen during the school day, and still find it hard to concentrate in class, and curl up round a hot water bottle as soon as I got home

[marahmarie]

You can also have the weird straddling of multiple states that I have wherein being bullied when very young has made me both more empathetic but also more adept at bullying. I have to restrain myself from the latter (but lots and lots and lots of times, especially when I was much, much younger, I failed to thusly restrain it much at all).

It's a learned behavior, probably adapted to survive. That's not to say it isn't a completely harmful, useless, and painful behavior, though. Maladaptive might be the better word.