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#1
Symptoms - Other / Complex Relational Trauma, Emp...
Last post by TheBigBlue - Today at 05:32:13 PMThe thoughts here were inspired by an exchange in NarcKiddo's Recovery Journal.
This made me think deeply about Empathy.
In a video Chart posted a few weeks ago
My immediate reaction was almost offended:
"Wait - if anything, I have too much empathy."
If someone starts telling a story - especially one involving animals - I often stop them and say, "If anyone gets hurt or dies, I don't want to hear it."
For them, it's a two-minute anecdote.
For me, it can be a lifetime of pain that I feel in my body.
So I paused Schore's video and asked myself a question:
Do people with CPTSD have less empathy - or more?
Here's how I now understand it.
Complex Relational Trauma, Empathy, and Why CPTSD Survivers Can Feel "Too Much"
1. Trauma does not reduce the capacity for empathy.
In fact, many CPTSD survivors show heightened empathic sensitivity.
But what trauma does impair is something more subtle - but crucial:
The ability to feel others' emotions without losing oneself.
2. Empathy needs a stable self to rest on
In healthy development:
a child develops a cohesive sense of self through safe, consistent co-regulation. Empathy then emerges on top of that self. You can feel with others - and return to yourself.
In CPTSD, especially developmental trauma:
inner safety was never reliably established; the "self" remains fragile or underdeveloped. Empathy develops anyway - but it has nowhere stable to land. So instead of empathy sitting on top of the self ... empathy can end up replacing the self.
What that looks like in real life:
- you don't just observe another's pain, but you become flooded by it
- you lose track of your own needs
- your nervous system reacts as if the pain were your own
=> This isn't kindness gone wrong.
It's a trauma adaptation.
What looks like "too much empathy" is often a combination of:
threat detection ("I must feel what others feel - to anticipate danger, prevent harm, or preserve connection") AND
hyper-attunement without regulation.
3. Right-brain dominance without right-brain safety
Neuroscience helps explain this:
- empathy, emotional resonance, and nonverbal communication are largely right-hemisphere functions;
- trauma, especially early trauma, leads to right-brain dominance
- but without secure attachment, that right brain develops without safety
=> So you get:
- intense emotional resonance
- exquisite sensitivity
- fast detection of distress
- but without the ability to modulate, contain, or step back.
That's why stories hurt. That's why we get pulled into the runarounds of our FOO's. Not because we are weak - but because our nervous systems never learned boundaries for empathy.
4. For completeness: CPTSD does not look the same in everyone
Survivors can also oscillate between two poles:
A. Trauma-based hyper-empathy:
- intense
- involuntary
- exhausting
- boundary-less
=> It feels like: "I feel what you feel because I had to - not because I choose to."
B. Empathy shutdown / dissociation:
- emotional numbing
- withdrawal
- reduced resonance
5. Why this matters in daily life
This helps explain why:
- other people's obliviousness feels shocking or cruel
- we're exhausted by "small" stories others shrug off
- we struggle to know when to put ourselves first
- we feel deeply - but often feel unseen in return
6. Something I found online that made me cry (unknown source)
"When a person grows up feeling unseen, they learn to love by overgiving.
They pour into everyone else, hoping that one day, someone will finally pour back into them.
They become the caretaker, the fixer - the one who shows up even when no one shows up for them.
And the hardest part?
Deep down, they're not trying to be strong.
They're just waiting for someone to do for them what they've spent their whole life doing for everyone else."
So, maybe the 'obliviousness' that Chart mentioned, comes from a collision:
The parents who traumatized us came from different maladaptive directions
— some narcissistic/extractive
— some boundary-collapsing (horizontal enmeshment) and need-driven
— some avoidant or dissociative
Those patterns then crash into a child's survival adaptations
— hyper-attunement and awareness
— fawning
— unregulated co-empathy
— self-erasure
And what emerges is exactly what hurts so deeply: the feeling that something fundamentally human - reciprocal empathy - is missing.
Maybe the work isn't to harden ourselves against people who seem oblivious, but to build enough inner safety that empathy no longer requires us to disappear.
Not less empathy - but regulated empathy.🙂
How? I don't have this fully figured out yet, but it likely involves:
- building a cohesive inner self
- learning that empathy can be chosen, not automatic
- discovering that you can feel with someone without losing yourself.
(If it is ok)
Quote from: NarcKiddo on February 10, 2026, 01:35:26 PMI feel like a fool. [...] nobody likes being played. [...] I have not the slightest interest in going out of my way to be helpful in the future.And Chart's question:
Quote from: Chart on Today at 10:03:58 AMNK, this makes me wonder where Empathy comes from. [...] Why do so many foo seem absolutely oblivious to something I believe is a fundamental aspect of being human?
This made me think deeply about Empathy.
In a video Chart posted a few weeks ago
Quote from: Chart on January 25, 2026, 01:24:30 PMDr. Allan N. Schore - Modern attachment theory; the enduring impact of early right-brain developmentProf. Schore mentioned that empathy is largely a right-hemisphere function, and that he was preparing to speak to a large group of lawyers about how trauma affects empathy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0sKY86Qmzo
My immediate reaction was almost offended:
"Wait - if anything, I have too much empathy."
If someone starts telling a story - especially one involving animals - I often stop them and say, "If anyone gets hurt or dies, I don't want to hear it."
For them, it's a two-minute anecdote.
For me, it can be a lifetime of pain that I feel in my body.
So I paused Schore's video and asked myself a question:
Do people with CPTSD have less empathy - or more?
Here's how I now understand it.
Complex Relational Trauma, Empathy, and Why CPTSD Survivers Can Feel "Too Much"
1. Trauma does not reduce the capacity for empathy.
In fact, many CPTSD survivors show heightened empathic sensitivity.
But what trauma does impair is something more subtle - but crucial:
The ability to feel others' emotions without losing oneself.
2. Empathy needs a stable self to rest on
In healthy development:
a child develops a cohesive sense of self through safe, consistent co-regulation. Empathy then emerges on top of that self. You can feel with others - and return to yourself.
In CPTSD, especially developmental trauma:
inner safety was never reliably established; the "self" remains fragile or underdeveloped. Empathy develops anyway - but it has nowhere stable to land. So instead of empathy sitting on top of the self ... empathy can end up replacing the self.
What that looks like in real life:
- you don't just observe another's pain, but you become flooded by it
- you lose track of your own needs
- your nervous system reacts as if the pain were your own
=> This isn't kindness gone wrong.
It's a trauma adaptation.
What looks like "too much empathy" is often a combination of:
threat detection ("I must feel what others feel - to anticipate danger, prevent harm, or preserve connection") AND
hyper-attunement without regulation.
3. Right-brain dominance without right-brain safety
Neuroscience helps explain this:
- empathy, emotional resonance, and nonverbal communication are largely right-hemisphere functions;
- trauma, especially early trauma, leads to right-brain dominance
- but without secure attachment, that right brain develops without safety
=> So you get:
- intense emotional resonance
- exquisite sensitivity
- fast detection of distress
- but without the ability to modulate, contain, or step back.
That's why stories hurt. That's why we get pulled into the runarounds of our FOO's. Not because we are weak - but because our nervous systems never learned boundaries for empathy.
4. For completeness: CPTSD does not look the same in everyone
Survivors can also oscillate between two poles:
A. Trauma-based hyper-empathy:
- intense
- involuntary
- exhausting
- boundary-less
=> It feels like: "I feel what you feel because I had to - not because I choose to."
B. Empathy shutdown / dissociation:
- emotional numbing
- withdrawal
- reduced resonance
5. Why this matters in daily life
This helps explain why:
- other people's obliviousness feels shocking or cruel
- we're exhausted by "small" stories others shrug off
- we struggle to know when to put ourselves first
- we feel deeply - but often feel unseen in return
6. Something I found online that made me cry (unknown source)
"When a person grows up feeling unseen, they learn to love by overgiving.
They pour into everyone else, hoping that one day, someone will finally pour back into them.
They become the caretaker, the fixer - the one who shows up even when no one shows up for them.
And the hardest part?
Deep down, they're not trying to be strong.
They're just waiting for someone to do for them what they've spent their whole life doing for everyone else."
So, maybe the 'obliviousness' that Chart mentioned, comes from a collision:
The parents who traumatized us came from different maladaptive directions
— some narcissistic/extractive
— some boundary-collapsing (horizontal enmeshment) and need-driven
— some avoidant or dissociative
Those patterns then crash into a child's survival adaptations
— hyper-attunement and awareness
— fawning
— unregulated co-empathy
— self-erasure
And what emerges is exactly what hurts so deeply: the feeling that something fundamentally human - reciprocal empathy - is missing.
Maybe the work isn't to harden ourselves against people who seem oblivious, but to build enough inner safety that empathy no longer requires us to disappear.
Not less empathy - but regulated empathy.🙂
How? I don't have this fully figured out yet, but it likely involves:
- building a cohesive inner self
- learning that empathy can be chosen, not automatic
- discovering that you can feel with someone without losing yourself.
(If it is ok)
#2
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by HannahOne - Today at 05:27:33 PMThank you NarcKiddo, The BigBlue, Sanmagic7. SM, your description of it as Alice and Wonderland rings true to my experience. Things were so upside down!
#3
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by NarcKiddo - Today at 04:40:56 PMI'm sorry your D is not well and hope she is better soon. Also that you do not catch it.
#4
Recovery Journals / Re: Miscellaneous ramblings of...
Last post by NarcKiddo - Today at 04:38:33 PMThank you The Big Blue. This is all really good information. I think it might be worth copying to another section of the forum into its own thread simply so that others can more easily come across the information if they are researching empathy or want to discuss it further. But please do leave it here.
I think it is crucial to realise that others have the ability to feel with someone without losing themselves. I wasn't allowed that and have only recently realised it is possible. As a child I had to feel whatever M was feeling. I was called a traitor the one time I chose not to follow her upstairs and comfort her after a row with my F but instead stayed with him. Because he was in a good mood after the row and was happy to spend some time playing with me rather than reading his newspaper. I have become so adept at feeling the emotions of others that it can be quite problematic. My husband's way of releasing anger at a minor annoyance is to explode and curse and then it's all over. The problem is that it reliably used to trigger me into an EF. It doesn't always these days as I know he is a safe person but nevertheless the anger feels like an oil spill and I take it all on. He's got rid of it onto me but I struggle with getting rid of it from me. His 30 seconds of anger about a dropped piece of toast can mean an entire day of stress for me. Equally I could not understand how he could see me sad, comfort me as best he could, and then go about his day in a good mood.
I think it is crucial to realise that others have the ability to feel with someone without losing themselves. I wasn't allowed that and have only recently realised it is possible. As a child I had to feel whatever M was feeling. I was called a traitor the one time I chose not to follow her upstairs and comfort her after a row with my F but instead stayed with him. Because he was in a good mood after the row and was happy to spend some time playing with me rather than reading his newspaper. I have become so adept at feeling the emotions of others that it can be quite problematic. My husband's way of releasing anger at a minor annoyance is to explode and curse and then it's all over. The problem is that it reliably used to trigger me into an EF. It doesn't always these days as I know he is a safe person but nevertheless the anger feels like an oil spill and I take it all on. He's got rid of it onto me but I struggle with getting rid of it from me. His 30 seconds of anger about a dropped piece of toast can mean an entire day of stress for me. Equally I could not understand how he could see me sad, comfort me as best he could, and then go about his day in a good mood.
#5
Neglect/Abandonment / Re: deprivation
Last post by TheBigBlue - Today at 04:13:40 PMQuote from: sanmagic7 on Today at 01:51:22 PMQuotethanks to frank for all his wisdom, too, in showing us the way.🐇 🐰
🤍
#6
Recovery Journals / Re: Miscellaneous ramblings of...
Last post by TheBigBlue - Today at 04:06:39 PMChart - the Schore video you posted a few weeks ago, together with your question here, made me think deeply about empathy.
In the video, Prof. Schore mentioned that empathy is largely a right-hemisphere function, and that he was preparing to speak to a large group of lawyers about how trauma affects empathy.
My immediate reaction was almost offended:
"Wait - if anything, I have too much empathy."
If someone starts telling a story - especially one involving animals - I often stop them and say, "If anyone gets hurt or dies, I don't want to hear it."
For them, it's a two-minute anecdote.
For me, it can be a lifetime of pain that I feel in my body.
So I paused Schore's video and asked myself a question:
Do people with CPTSD have less empathy - or more?
Here's how I now understand it.
Complex Relational Trauma, Empathy, and Why CPTSD Survivers Can Feel "Too Much"
1. Trauma does not reduce the capacity for empathy.
In fact, many CPTSD survivors show heightened empathic sensitivity.
But what trauma does impair is something more subtle - but crucial:
The ability to feel others' emotions without losing oneself.
2. Empathy needs a stable self to rest on
In healthy development:
a child develops a cohesive sense of self through safe, consistent co-regulation. Empathy then emerges on top of that self. You can feel with others - and return to yourself.
In CPTSD, especially developmental trauma:
inner safety was never reliably established; the "self" remains fragile or underdeveloped. Empathy develops anyway - but it has nowhere stable to land. So instead of empathy sitting on top of the self ... empathy can end up replacing the self.
What that looks like in real life:
- you don't just observe another's pain, but you become flooded by it
- you lose track of your own needs
- your nervous system reacts as if the pain were your own
=> This isn't kindness gone wrong.
It's a trauma adaptation.
What looks like "too much empathy" is often a combination of:
threat detection ("I must feel what others feel - to anticipate danger, prevent harm, or preserve connection") AND
hyper-attunement without regulation.
3. Right-brain dominance without right-brain safety
Neuroscience helps explain this:
- empathy, emotional resonance, and nonverbal communication are largely right-hemisphere functions;
- trauma, especially early trauma, leads to right-brain dominance
- but without secure attachment, that right brain develops without safety
=> So you get:
- intense emotional resonance
- exquisite sensitivity
- fast detection of distress
- but without the ability to modulate, contain, or step back.
That's why stories hurt. That's why we get pulled into the runarounds of our FOO's. Not because we are weak - but because our nervous systems never learned boundaries for empathy.
4. For completeness: CPTSD does not look the same in everyone
Survivors can also oscillate between two poles:
A. Trauma-based hyper-empathy:
- intense
- involuntary
- exhausting
- boundary-less
=> It feels like: "I feel what you feel because I had to - not because I choose to."
B. Empathy shutdown / dissociation:
- emotional numbing
- withdrawal
- reduced resonance
5. Why this matters in daily life
This helps explain why:
- other people's obliviousness feels shocking or cruel
- we're exhausted by "small" stories others shrug off
- we struggle to know when to put ourselves first
- we feel deeply - but often feel unseen in return
6. Something I found online that made me cry (unknown source)
"When a person grows up feeling unseen, they learn to love by overgiving.
They pour into everyone else, hoping that one day, someone will finally pour back into them.
They become the caretaker, the fixer - the one who shows up even when no one shows up for them.
And the hardest part?
Deep down, they're not trying to be strong.
They're just waiting for someone to do for them what they've spent their whole life doing for everyone else."
So, Chart, maybe the 'obliviousness' comes from a collision:
The parents who traumatized us came from different maladaptive directions
— some narcissistic/extractive
— some boundary-collapsing (horizontal enmeshment) and need-driven
— some avoidant or dissociative
Those patterns then crash into a child's survival adaptations
— hyper-attunement and awareness
— fawning
— unregulated co-empathy
— self-erasure
And what emerges is exactly what hurts so deeply: the feeling that something fundamentally human - reciprocal empathy - is missing.
Maybe the work isn't to harden ourselves against people who seem oblivious, but to build enough inner safety that empathy no longer requires us to disappear.
Not less empathy - but regulated empathy.🙂
How? I don't have this fully figured out yet, but it likely involves:
- building a cohesive inner self
- learning that empathy can be chosen, not automatic
- discovering that you can feel with someone without losing yourself.
[NK, apologies for rambling so long in your journal; I can move this out if you prefer]
In the video, Prof. Schore mentioned that empathy is largely a right-hemisphere function, and that he was preparing to speak to a large group of lawyers about how trauma affects empathy.
My immediate reaction was almost offended:
"Wait - if anything, I have too much empathy."
If someone starts telling a story - especially one involving animals - I often stop them and say, "If anyone gets hurt or dies, I don't want to hear it."
For them, it's a two-minute anecdote.
For me, it can be a lifetime of pain that I feel in my body.
So I paused Schore's video and asked myself a question:
Do people with CPTSD have less empathy - or more?
Here's how I now understand it.
Complex Relational Trauma, Empathy, and Why CPTSD Survivers Can Feel "Too Much"
1. Trauma does not reduce the capacity for empathy.
In fact, many CPTSD survivors show heightened empathic sensitivity.
But what trauma does impair is something more subtle - but crucial:
The ability to feel others' emotions without losing oneself.
2. Empathy needs a stable self to rest on
In healthy development:
a child develops a cohesive sense of self through safe, consistent co-regulation. Empathy then emerges on top of that self. You can feel with others - and return to yourself.
In CPTSD, especially developmental trauma:
inner safety was never reliably established; the "self" remains fragile or underdeveloped. Empathy develops anyway - but it has nowhere stable to land. So instead of empathy sitting on top of the self ... empathy can end up replacing the self.
What that looks like in real life:
- you don't just observe another's pain, but you become flooded by it
- you lose track of your own needs
- your nervous system reacts as if the pain were your own
=> This isn't kindness gone wrong.
It's a trauma adaptation.
What looks like "too much empathy" is often a combination of:
threat detection ("I must feel what others feel - to anticipate danger, prevent harm, or preserve connection") AND
hyper-attunement without regulation.
3. Right-brain dominance without right-brain safety
Neuroscience helps explain this:
- empathy, emotional resonance, and nonverbal communication are largely right-hemisphere functions;
- trauma, especially early trauma, leads to right-brain dominance
- but without secure attachment, that right brain develops without safety
=> So you get:
- intense emotional resonance
- exquisite sensitivity
- fast detection of distress
- but without the ability to modulate, contain, or step back.
That's why stories hurt. That's why we get pulled into the runarounds of our FOO's. Not because we are weak - but because our nervous systems never learned boundaries for empathy.
4. For completeness: CPTSD does not look the same in everyone
Survivors can also oscillate between two poles:
A. Trauma-based hyper-empathy:
- intense
- involuntary
- exhausting
- boundary-less
=> It feels like: "I feel what you feel because I had to - not because I choose to."
B. Empathy shutdown / dissociation:
- emotional numbing
- withdrawal
- reduced resonance
5. Why this matters in daily life
This helps explain why:
- other people's obliviousness feels shocking or cruel
- we're exhausted by "small" stories others shrug off
- we struggle to know when to put ourselves first
- we feel deeply - but often feel unseen in return
6. Something I found online that made me cry (unknown source)
"When a person grows up feeling unseen, they learn to love by overgiving.
They pour into everyone else, hoping that one day, someone will finally pour back into them.
They become the caretaker, the fixer - the one who shows up even when no one shows up for them.
And the hardest part?
Deep down, they're not trying to be strong.
They're just waiting for someone to do for them what they've spent their whole life doing for everyone else."
So, Chart, maybe the 'obliviousness' comes from a collision:
The parents who traumatized us came from different maladaptive directions
— some narcissistic/extractive
— some boundary-collapsing (horizontal enmeshment) and need-driven
— some avoidant or dissociative
Those patterns then crash into a child's survival adaptations
— hyper-attunement and awareness
— fawning
— unregulated co-empathy
— self-erasure
And what emerges is exactly what hurts so deeply: the feeling that something fundamentally human - reciprocal empathy - is missing.
Maybe the work isn't to harden ourselves against people who seem oblivious, but to build enough inner safety that empathy no longer requires us to disappear.
Not less empathy - but regulated empathy.🙂
How? I don't have this fully figured out yet, but it likely involves:
- building a cohesive inner self
- learning that empathy can be chosen, not automatic
- discovering that you can feel with someone without losing yourself.
[NK, apologies for rambling so long in your journal; I can move this out if you prefer
] #7
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by sanmagic7 - Today at 02:06:02 PMchart, very sorry about your estrangement with your D - i know mine does it as a punishment to me cuz she's so very, very angry at me, has been most of her life. i've offered to go to therapy w/ her, but she's refused every time. i believe it's cuz she knows the truth will come out and she wouldn't be able to bully her way out of that w/ yet another T. and, so, yes, as you say, we never give up on those who love us back. there have been so few, but i know my life is better for letting the rest go. still, there's a hole in my heart where D1 belongs. i just live w/ it and focus on the other things/people who give to me as well as take what i can offer. thank you for your support and wisdom.
i'm doing ok today. grocery store and library, just waiting for my D to wake up so i know what to get for us. she's still too sick to do anything. we've decided this is more than stress flu - lots of coughing gunk. she thinks she got it from a friend she saw last week. i've just been grateful that i've felt good enough to take up the slack, make food, do extra chores and the like. just more stress. bring it on!!!
i'm doing ok today. grocery store and library, just waiting for my D to wake up so i know what to get for us. she's still too sick to do anything. we've decided this is more than stress flu - lots of coughing gunk. she thinks she got it from a friend she saw last week. i've just been grateful that i've felt good enough to take up the slack, make food, do extra chores and the like. just more stress. bring it on!!!
#8
Neglect/Abandonment / Re: deprivation
Last post by sanmagic7 - Today at 01:51:22 PMQuoteOur nervous system is like that of any mammal, it needs touch to regulate itself. Being deprived of that is part of the injury to our nervous system in CPTSD. It makes it harder for us to regulate emotionally.
Thanks, hannah1. injury to our nervous system feels right on the money. and the rest of what you wrote here sure speaks to my own difficulty w/ regulating my emotions. they're either non-existent or blasting away full force most of the time. amazing to me once again how far reaching this goes. thanks to frank for all his wisdom, too, in showing us the way.
#9
General Discussion / Re: Help understanding dissoci...
Last post by Teddy bear - Today at 01:20:22 PMHi Noraw,
Thanks for sharing
It sounds a bit like me: I do often procrastinate in an absent state, when I can't get myself together. Sometimes I am even not aware, I think, of it's happening.
Just looking for a solution, so decided to drop a line here.
As Deepseek wrote:
"One thing that's can be helpful is not trying to 'force' myself out of it — just noticing it without judgment, and sometimes setting a 5-minute timer to just sit here and exist. It doesn't always work, but it takes the pressure off."
In a similar manner I manage to do some stuff sometimes. But I am still learning how to deal with dissociation and going to read about it again (haven't done lately).
I don't have DID diagnosis either.
Anyway, welcome here
Hopefully this place will be helpful for you,
Cheers
Thanks for sharing
It sounds a bit like me: I do often procrastinate in an absent state, when I can't get myself together. Sometimes I am even not aware, I think, of it's happening.
Just looking for a solution, so decided to drop a line here.
As Deepseek wrote:
"One thing that's can be helpful is not trying to 'force' myself out of it — just noticing it without judgment, and sometimes setting a 5-minute timer to just sit here and exist. It doesn't always work, but it takes the pressure off."
In a similar manner I manage to do some stuff sometimes. But I am still learning how to deal with dissociation and going to read about it again (haven't done lately).
I don't have DID diagnosis either.
Anyway, welcome here
Hopefully this place will be helpful for you,
Cheers
#10
Recovery Journals / Re: Miscellaneous ramblings of...
Last post by Chart - Today at 10:03:58 AMNK, this makes me wonder where Empathy comes from. There is the possibility to think of others, but knowing when to put yourself first. And, whatever path we take, we communicate and exchange, anticipating (if only a little) what the impact on others might be... Why do so many foo seem absolutely oblivious to something I believe is a fundamental aspect of being human? I'm very sorry for your runaround... seems like just one more thing to anticipate in the future. I think we hesitate less and less to stop playing the games so often organized in a disingenuous guise of innocence. (that was a weird sentence :-)