how to not be a dick?

@redKite5600

I'm wondering what would happen if you were proactive about it. Like, tell someone exactly what you wrote here BEFORE you say something hurtful, and ask for their help. Along the lines of, "look, i usually react badly when people get emotional around me & i say the wrong thing, and i don't even realize. Can you pls lmk when u see me doing that, and tell me what would be a good thing to say instead?"

Then you could maybe go back to the people you hurt and apologize, let them know you are trying to change, and see if they will give you another chance. Ask them for pointers, too.

Some people are just not so great at reading emotions in others, but it is a skill you can learn!

@redKite5600 I know what you mean. I've had battles with my temper too. It's really hard to unlearn things and someone once told me that you cannot give what you do not have. My only advice is to surround yourself with kind people who can give you kindness and I'm sure it will inspire you to give back that kindness. I once felt inspired to change my work attitude because someone was really kind to me at work. I read also in a book that changing our thoughts is not enough. We need to seek evidence and experiences that support and strengthen our thoughts and decisions... I wish you can get more experiences! Don't give up. Cheering for you!

@redKite5600 hello dear 😊

I can feel your situation. One of my friends is just like you and she feels just like you but I know what she really wants.

So please tell me your exact problem. I can't promise but believe me I will try my best to understand you 🙂

I do the same thing man

@redKite5600

Man, I just go into it. You want to care but you don't. So stop wanting to care. Be who you are

It's like a 6ft 5 guy wanting to be a gymnast or a 5ft 2 guy wanting to be a basketball player

You might find if you give up trying to be what you are not you will fin that you are happy with who you are

When I was young, my siblings bullied me constantly, sometimes making me cry. Because my parents were so busy with 5 children and struggling to get by - they would tell my siblings off for bullying me, but at the same time they started to think I was rather fragile in my temperament because of how often I cried. So in addition to reprimanding my siblings, they usually added ‘You know how he gets/you know what he’s like…!’

It was my parents’ scorn for my crying that damaged me more than my siblings bullying me. In my young impressionable mind, I took from that scorn a harmful and toxic lesson - EMOTIONS ARE WEAKNESS, something contemptible to be avoided if you want to be accepted. And for a long time after, I was emotionally crippled, and didn’t know how to express myself properly. It instilled in me a fear that if I show emotions it would be perceived as weakness.

Maybe there is something in your past relationships that caused you to internalize something similar/ to behave similarly? It seems to me like your avoidance of engaging in supportive behaviors is like a defense mechanism of sorts. Especially since you automatically disengage (you called it ‘autopilot’) this leads me to believe you are protecting yourself from something you subconsciously believe might be harmful/triggering to some part of you.

From reading your responses above, you stated your friends are wonderful people deserving of kind support. So in distancing yourself from supporting them - it leads me to believe it is not precisely THEM or their situations you are avoiding, but possibly something within yourself that you are afraid of confronting?

You seem to genuinely want to improve this about yourself, so do not think you are some kind of terrible person. Love and accept yourself. Be intentional about your feelings and seeking to understand yourself. Your initial instinct might be to run away, to avoid pain, to escape into ‘autopilot’. But our fears elicit primitive reflexes and responses, that in the long term impair us and impede our personal growth. Your friends went to you for support. They must see something in you - a companionship that is worth nurturing if you can find the courage within yourself to embrace it.

Hello I'm in the same boat as you I feel like I dont have a heart or nothing to give but your heart says other wise you want to change its hat's good that you have self awareness I believe you dont have to give any advice to help solve their problems you just have to learn and apply skills when it comes to empathy. Just listening to them and being supportive is fine

This is only one suggestion, but have you researched dissociation, depersonalization, and/or derealization? I say this because of the way you described going on autopilot and feeling incapable of empathy.

When gone unaddressed, dissociation can get bad enough that it causes you to detach from your emotions, and it can make empathy really difficult because your brain won't let you feel the emotions that you need to understand what your friend is going through. Not everyone who dissociates knows that they do it, but some good indicators include forgetfulness or random gaps in memory, ranging from only remembering segments of the week to missing chunks of childhood memories. In my experience, dissociation can also make memories only accessible during certain emotions; for example, I can always remember the joy of playing with toys as a kid, but I can only remember the feeling of failure in the classroom when I'm feeling anxious before a job interview.

If, after looking into it, you're reasonably confident that tips and tricks used for dissociation could help you, your next step is gonna be to focus on feeling your own emotions. Try to observe when you feel grounded, and when that feeling isn't there. Then figure out what the difference is. For example, sometimes when there's Irish folk music playing, I tune out and I'm not really aware of time passing.