Just need to talk

[JayCS]

It seems to me they can because what I crave is someone to take me at my word. Just believe what I am saying. //
Herein we disagree, sun.

Don't get that yet: People who really care are always able to believe what I'm saying about my FM symptoms? Even though we're trapped in many beliefs of our own? ("Everyday theories" is a German social science expression for that.)

And how far can we believe what we are thinking ourselves? Therapy encourages us to change negative beliefs about what we think, feel, to our and everyone's good....
Somehow we are billions of islands, even though we constantly play the game of interaction and think it works. Unless we argue if something is green vs. blue . Or talk to someone of a different family. Or gender. Or nationality. Or culture. Or belief.
On many levels we appear to be all a part of the big whole (e.g. part of existence), some, where we believe to be so, but communication I feel is usually hypothetical, an exciting walk on thin ice, and extremely so if it's about subjective things like feelings or symptoms.
Or am I off on a tangent here?

 

[sweetkamie20]

Don't get that yet: People who really care are always able to believe what I'm saying about my FM symptoms? Even though we're trapped in many beliefs of our own? ("Everyday theories" is a German social science expression for that.)

And how far can we believe what we are thinking ourselves? Therapy encourages us to change negative beliefs about what we think, feel, to our and everyone's good....
Somehow we are billions of islands, even though we constantly play the game of interaction and think it works. Unless we argue if something is green vs. blue . Or talk to someone of a different family. Or gender. Or nationality. Or culture. Or belief.
On many levels we appear to be all a part of the big whole (e.g. part of existence), some, where we believe to be so, but communication I feel is usually hypothetical, an exciting walk on thin ice, and extremely so if it's about subjective things like feelings or symptoms.
Or am I off on a tangent here?

I would call it a fascinating look at communication and what it involves and means. I sometimes pursue a more sophisticated perspective of things but I rather find that communication can be rendered useless when some fundamental qualities are not "assumed".

I am applying the concept of taking me at my word not to be regarding some observable detail. I am applying that concept to accepting my subjective experience for what it is, mine and real to me. If I say I feel like crap, believe me. Simple. If I say I am too tired to do something, dont interpret it as me being lazy. (Granted, if a person's character is suspect for other reasons, well, then he or she can't expect to be believed.) Treat me as though what I said is true I.e. graciously accept that I won't attend a 4 hour birthday party full of 5 year olds lol. Don't assume I ___________. Believe what I said. I don't know. Sounds simple to me. It's something we do every day - believe what someone says.. And yeah, I think it's fair to expect that of someone unless we have discredited ourselves...and I think everyone can make a decision to trust what someone says. They make that decision every day, all day.

 

[sunkacola]

Herein we disagree, sun. And I suppose I might say that is the bottom line of this conversation No worries. We are all bound to disagree with one another somewhere along the way.

Sure, no problem with disagreeing, and as you know I don't want to try to convince anyone else they are wrong about anything.

I just see it this way: Just as other people cannot completely understand what we are going through because they have not been through anything like it themselves, so we cannot know for sure what another person is capable of. We can't be inside another person's brain, and as we with "invisible" but debilitating conditions all know, you can have conflicting feelings or abilities, such as being excited to go somewhere and really wanting badly to do it and not being physically able to do so. Depression is the same way.....you want to get things done or to care about something and you cannot manage it. Other people, seeing you from the outside, cannot know what you are truly capable of or not, and we equally cannot know the same for them.

sometimes it is a problem when other people assume that I really am capable of doing something that in fact I am not, either physically or mentally/emotionally. So I try not to assume about other people that they have any certain capabilities.

 

[JayCS]

And yeah, I think it's fair to expect that of someone unless we have discredited ourselves

Fair expectation... ah, I may be getting closer. Expectations ... fairness .... justice .... all the 4 or more types...
Yes, from what we deserve, we can expect people to believe what we say.
This is why pain experts try all they can to convince docs who don't believe us that they should, because the chances are far higher that this is the case than us being malingerers, even if they don't know us.

From what we experience, we can expect most(?) people to believe what we say and a few(?) not to. Varies.
From what we experience, people knowing us helps them believe what we say, them caring for us even more.
But there will be exceptions to this rule. In my experience they are exceptions at least, that may again vary.

So the difference of opinion here seems not to be whether people will understand and believe us, but whether they ought to, morally, is that it?

My personal experience is it's better not to expect much of people, including this believing. Better for me, better for my relationship to them, a better to convince them of believing, even. I behave as if I trust, but I actually don't.
Do I really believe that "my neighbour" is in pain, even though I can't see any reason? Even though I appear to be a person with too much empathy for my own good: I have to admit I find this difficult to do. That includes people very near to me. If I had less empathy it would be even more difficult, let alone if I had autistic or sociopath traits. I don't like me being that way, it feels superficial and insensitive. But there it is, that's how it appears to me at the moment. I'll re-check it, maybe you have ideas for that.
And do I believe myself? No!: I find it hard to believe my hunger, my thirst, any of my physical needs, my pain. It takes all my concentration to prioritize them, to act accordingly, I have to struggle for that amongst the many other things my brain believes, I have to coax and often enough force myself.
So what do I expect from others regarding my symptoms? I'm actually pleasantly surprised that everyone believes me, pretty astonished actually. And not surprised that they don't understand much. Surprised that they let me gabble on, like I'm surprised you let me gabble on (there's a UK group where many dislike me for that...). Yeah, when someone forgets I told them something, that's a sort of expectancy that they might remember it if they really cared. But then I remember what they have on their plate, still expect it, but chide myself for expecting it, I feel that expectancy is unfair. When my previous boss first expected me to get up at 6 to get to work one day a week it was unfair, but I did try all I could to do it, and I can't really say I expected her to change that judgement, so was a bit surprised when she did - maybe the pseudo-'visibility' of the disability badge helped put me into that pigeon hole, so she could turn her look and expectancies to that pigeon hole instead of believing me. And I in turn "expected" to get the disability status for my fibro, which severely disables me, so would have been fair, but instead got it for my seizures, which hardly disable me at all. But can I say I morally expect them to judge me fairly? No, it's hard for me to expect that, these rules don't yet understand fibro like they don't understand my seizures. Rules and laws are crutches for people's decisions that can't understand all this stuff. And there we're getting more into the question of people abusing rules, applying for things that are not right. I also applied for a higher grade of disability and it got turned down - at the time I could hardly walk, and I still can't walk much, they didn't believe me, I don't think even the lawyer helping me did, and how could they seeing I can lift heavy things for a short time, see I can walk quickly, I could even sometimes run 50 yards at that time. No, I can't expect people to believe things that are so hard to perceive and believe myself.... Can you really in all honesty really "believe me" that most of my body is in many ways fitter than 30 years ago, yet can hardly move today, but could lift and carry 40 kilos for 1 or 2 minutes, can you "believe me" that the cold can really cause a ton of pain, yet I go into a cold shower to get to sleep better most evenings, do you believe me that GABA of all things does quite a lot for me, do you believe me that I can stop my severe short-breathedness inside of 30 seconds every time? Etc.... OK, not sure if I'm still on track, so I'll brake....

 

[sunkacola]

Don't get that yet: People who really care are always able to believe what I'm saying about my FM symptoms? Even though we're trapped in many beliefs of our own? ("Everyday theories" is a German social science expression for that.)

And how far can we believe what we are thinking ourselves? Therapy encourages us to change negative beliefs about what we think, feel, to our and everyone's good....
Somehow we are billions of islands, even though we constantly play the game of interaction and think it works. Unless we argue if something is green vs. blue . Or talk to someone of a different family. Or gender. Or nationality. Or culture. Or belief.
On many levels we appear to be all a part of the big whole (e.g. part of existence), some, where we believe to be so, but communication I feel is usually hypothetical, an exciting walk on thin ice, and extremely so if it's about subjective things like feelings or symptoms.
Or am I off on a tangent here?

I am glad you have had the experience of having everyone who cares about you believe you with regard to fibro, Jay; that's great! But not all of us have had the same experience.

Many people here have written in to say their spouse, parent, friend, other family members etc., don't believe them. I cannot imagine that all of those people just don't care about their friend/spouse/family member who has fibro. Most of them no doubt do care. They just don't understand and don't accept what they are being told for whatever reason.

I have had this same experience. I know for a fact one certain person cared about me. But they refused to believe me when I told them how much pain I was in. If I cancelled or postponed a date we made, they'd be angry and accuse me of various things from just not wanting to go to being a flaky person. They never believed me when i told them it was only because I was in too much pain to do it. I had to put that person out of my life due to the stress they caused me, and their reaction when I did certainly showed how much they actually cared about me and wanted to be around me, if I had ever had any doubt (which I had not). But they couldn't, because of their own mental workings I suppose, accept my disability as being real. people are all so different and we cannot ever know what is inside a person or what they are capable of.

 

[sunkacola]

And yeah, I think it's fair to expect that of someone unless we have discredited ourselves...and I think everyone can make a decision to trust what someone says. They make that decision every day, all day.

I agree that it is fair to expect that of someone, especially if that someone is close to us.
But what we expect from other people and what they are capable of giving us are two different things.

We can expect, ask, demand, assume all we want to but it doesn't mean we will get what we want or need. And sometimes that's because the other person won't give it to us and sometimes it's because another person cannot give it to us because of their own emotional and/or mental makeup. We don't know the landscape of another person's mind. sometimes I wish we could, at least get a glimpse of that landscape, because I think it would make us more empathetic to others and less like to make assumptions about each other. I try daily not to make assumptions about others based on my own standards. I have found that doing so is not useful, and I sure don't want someone else to make assumptions about what I am mentally or physically capable of based on their personal standards.

I am always interested when someone says make a decision to trust or make the choice to believe. I don't get that at all. I either trust someone or I don't. I either believe someone or I don't. I can't just decide to believe it and that means I suddenly believe it. I can't just decide to trust someone or what they say and suddenly trust them. Belief and trust in another person have to come from experience I have with that person. Sometimes I can believe what someone says right away, even if I don't know them, because my gut tells me they are telling the truth. Of course, my gut can be wrong about that, too. And other times I don't believe someone but later discover they are telling the truth and I change my mind. In the latter situation, though, I couldn't have changed my mind by just deciding to.

 

[sunkacola]

And how far can we believe what we are thinking ourselves?

Such a good point.
For instance, we all know that Depression lies. It tells us we are useless or worthless, no one likes us and so on. Things that, when we are not depressed, we don't really believe, and can recognize all the evidence that shows otherwise. But when in the depths of a depression, those things are invisible or don't count.
I am always fascinated with how we can try to use one part of our brain to control another, as in sending away negative thoughts or changing them in some way. It's certainly possible to do that, but I don't know if anyone actually knows how that works, how it is possible. The human brain is like the universe in terms of how little we know about it.

 

[sunkacola]

So the difference of opinion here seems not to be whether people will understand and believe us, but whether they ought to, morally, is that it?

To me that's not the essence of this discussion. We each have out own personal, community-influenced, societal and human morals and they do not all agree, as we know. To say someone "ought morally" to believe me is a huge stretch for me because i don't think morals come into it at all.
Also, "ought" or "should" are value judgement words which are very useful in daily life but not necessarily useful when applied to what we want from others or from life or a situation. IE: "I ought not to have fibromyalgia" It is what it is. You can make your own assessment, and think or say that a person ought to do or not do, but beyond having that opinion I don't see much practical use for it.

My personal experience is it's better not to expect much of people, including this believing. Better for me, better for my relationship to them, a better to convince them of believing, even. I behave as if I trust, but I actually don't.

I am pretty much the same, Jay. My life has taught me the less I expect from other people, the better. Other people have been every possible way toward me in my life, including incredibly kind and supportive. But I don't expect it, not even from those who have been so in the past, because maybe right at this moment they can't be that way. Those who have been supportive in the past are the people I can ask for support if I need to, but I don't do so with the expectation that they can offer it every time.

Do I really believe that "my neighbour" is in pain, even though I can't see any reason? Even though I appear to be a person with too much empathy for my own good: I have to admit I find this difficult to do. That includes people very near to me. If I had less empathy it would be even more difficult, let alone if I had autistic or sociopath traits. I don't like me being that way, it feels superficial and insensitive. But there it is, that's how it appears to me at the moment. I'll re-check it, maybe you have ideas for that.

This gets to the crux of this matter, for me. People have varying degrees of ability to have empathy, and some highly functioning people such as those who are on the autism scale or are sociopathic or have other mental issues (not necessarily all being actual mental illnesses or disabilities) simply cannot feel that. They are not wired that way.
If you are not wired in a way to be less than the perfectly empathetic that you would like to be, stop feeling bad about it. You have a lot of company! I think empathy and compassion are things that many people including myself work on and try to improve in ourselves.

I'm surprised you let me gabble on (there's a UK group where many dislike me for that...).

Well, that's not a group I would want to belong to myself. If a person hasn't the time or inclination to read your long posts they can skip them. Your posts are often full of information and are never rants or pity parties so I don't know why anyone would object to them.

No, I can't expect people to believe things that are so hard to perceive and believe myself.... Can you really in all honesty really "believe me" that most of my body is in many ways fitter than 30 years ago, yet can hardly move today, but could lift and carry 40 kilos for 1 or 2 minutes, can you "believe me" that the cold can really cause a ton of pain, yet I go into a cold shower to get to sleep better most evenings, do you believe me that GABA of all things does quite a lot for me, do you believe me that I can stop my severe short-breathedness inside of 30 seconds every time? Etc.... OK, not sure if I'm still on track, so I'll brake....

I think you are right, Jay - expecting others to believe you or to have any certain reaction to you is unfair both to them and to you. There's nothing inherently wrong with that expectation, and it's not unreasonable to expect the kind of support we want from our closest ones. But to do so lays us open for possible disappointment.

Like you, I prefer to approach things without expectations of a certain outcome. for instance, maybe I feel it is completely reasonable for me to ask someone for something, but not reasonable for me to expect the answer to be yes just because i asked. I get to ask -- they get to say yes or no.

 

[JayCS]

I am glad you have had the experience of having everyone who cares about you believe you with regard to fibro, Jay; that's great! But not all of us have had the same experience. //
Most of them no doubt do care. They just don't understand

Yeah, I know. I was agreeing. And whilst most seem to believe me in the superficial sense we're mainly talking about, I don't think they truly can, so I've been trying to take this point even further.

 

[JayCS]

I am always interested when someone says make a decision to trust or make the choice to believe. I don't get that at all. I either trust someone or I don't.

Do you mean a decision to trust in human persons? Or in a certain belief system, a 'leap of faith'?
In a certain sense I also either trust people or I don't.
I've grown fairly good at that, but it didn't come naturally to me, I've trusted too much in my life.
And everything you say after that is certainly the same for me, too.

But to me it's never 100% of either, so it's actually never "either/or", it's always both, depends on many things.
I 120% trust a good friend of mine in a certain sense, but as he hardly ever has time for me (or others except his wife) the trust in him as a friend has now been so disappointed the last 10 years that it is more like 10%, despite him never doing thing 'wrong', and we always somehow warm up our friendship, but it doesn't feel true. So I "pretend", allow myself that.
Same with partnerships - especially at the beginnings and ends I (we?) make a decision to try to be together with a certain person, although we may not be quite ready for it or although we are starting to disbelieve.

Also trust spawns trust: my openness spawns a certain amount of openness of the other. Or it sometimes doesn't, and that's no problem either, I can then quickly see where it's going and am always quick to reduce: no more pearls out in the open.
"Earnestly pretending" to believe, trusting we can trust, can make a truth out of it, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we are too careful, too slow, it can still go well, and if it doesn't, that probably has a good reason, even if we have self-doubts if we were too slow with trusting.

But I think we're probably in full agreement with all of that too.
After thinking thru, I still really can't imagine how someone can decide to trust 100% if they actually distrust 50%. What I do think is that we live say +10-20% trust, not knowing whether that will go well, not based on distrust, but on not knowing.

 

[JayCS]

To me that's not the essence of this discussion. We each have out own personal, community-influenced, societal and human morals and they do not all agree, as we know. To say someone "ought morally" to believe me is a huge stretch for me because i don't think morals come into it at all.

Well, I agree, I'm wondering whether that's what sweetkamie meant, because otherwise I don't know what...

 

[sweetkamie20]

This is why pain experts try all they can to convince docs who don't believe us that they should, because the chances are far higher that this is the case than us being malingerers, even if they don't know us.

Yes, good advice for doctors

From what we experience, we can expect most(?) people to believe what we say and a few(?) not to. Varies.

Yeah, varies I think...

From what we experience, people knowing us helps them believe what we say, them caring for us even more.

Is there a correlation between caring and believing? Maybe if someone cares they try harder to understand and that, incidentally, results in believing.

So the difference of opinion here seems not to be whether people will understand and believe us, but whether they ought to, morally, is that it?

Hmmmm I'm not sure morally we are owed that. I did use the word fairly but I think the word reasonably might be better...

My personal experience is it's better not to expect much of people, including this believing. Better for me, better for my relationship to them, a better to convince them of believing, even. I behave as if I trust, but I actually don't.

It's true. Expecting less prevents disappointment but it also bears some negatives as well.

Do I really believe that "my neighbour" is in pain, even though I can't see any reason? Even though I appear to be a person with too much empathy for my own good: I have to admit I find this difficult to do.

Now that's a surprise to me! I can't see myself not believing a neighbor who said they were in pain unless there was a reason like character faults.

That includes people very near to me. If I had less empathy it would be even more difficult, let alone if I had autistic or sociopath traits.

(Sociopaths do have some empathy and have the capacity to develop and express more empathy as do autistic people.) I feel like we would find it easier to examine the issue outside of the outliers.

I don't like me being that way, it feels superficial and insensitive. But there it is, that's how it appears to me at the moment. I'll re-check it, maybe you have ideas for that.

Well, maybe it depends on which nature we are acting out of? I say this to my brother <wink wink>

And do I believe myself? No!: I find it hard to believe my hunger, my thirst, any of my physical needs, my pain. It takes all my concentration to prioritize them, to act accordingly, I have to struggle for that amongst the many other things my brain believes, I have to coax and often enough force myself.

This does not mean you are incapable of believing yourself, does it? It sort of seems this is an acquired habit. A child does not usually distrust it's feelings of pain, hunger, etc. You, along the way, may have elected to distrust yourself?

So what do I expect from others regarding my symptoms? I'm actually pleasantly surprised that everyone believes me, pretty astonished actually. And not surprised that they don't understand much.

You are fortunate to have such support in your life. I'm fortunate, too. As for wishes: I wish they did understand more for a myriad of reasons, mainly selfish ones but some not.

Surprised that they let me gabble on, like I'm surprised you let me gabble on (there's a UK group where many dislike me for that...).

Well, clearly we like you gabbling I do feel like this confession has reopened the door for me to invite your personal attention to others' posts . Your fault

Yeah, when someone forgets I told them something, that's a sort of expectancy that they might remember it if they really cared. But then I remember what they have on their plate, still expect it, but chide myself for expecting it, I feel that expectancy is unfair.

herein we venture away from attitude to physical ability. My focus being on attitude...

don't yet understand fibro like they don't understand my seizures

Yeah, not expecting anyone to understand what they are. I do think it's reasonable for someone to believe what I'm saying instead of a lie like I'm lazy or I'm faking something. They can choose to believe one side or the other. If I haven't disqualified my word, it is socially harmful when someone chooses to believe an explanation with no known basis in the instant situation.

. Rules and laws are crutches for people's decisions that can't understand all this stuff. And there we're getting more into the question of people abusing rules, applying for things that are not right. I also applied for a higher grade of disability and it got turned down - at the time I could hardly walk, and I still can't walk much, they didn't believe me, I don't think even the lawyer helping me did, and how could they seeing I can lift heavy things for a short time, see I can walk quickly, I could even sometimes run 50 yards at that time. No, I can't expect people to believe things that are so hard to perceive and believe myself.... Can you really in all honesty really "believe me" that most of my body is in many ways fitter than 30 years ago, yet can hardly move today, but could lift and carry 40 kilos for 1 or 2 minutes, can you "believe me" that the cold can really cause a ton of pain, yet I go into a cold shower to get to sleep better most evenings, do you believe me that GABA of all things does quite a lot for me, do you believe me that I can stop my severe short-breathedness inside of 30 seconds every time? Etc.... OK, not sure if I'm still on track, so I'll brake....

Yes, I do believe you Jay! Why wouldn't I? And I believe everyone here that drops in to say how bad their day was or how fibro symptoms affected them. I feel like when we all chat we are implicitly extending trust and good faith to one another and that it's a necessary action for good communication. It's simple to me and reasonable to expect someone to believe you.

Is it because people have disappointed us by not believing us that we make excuses for that behavior? Or is it because we see ourselves struggle to believe people that we make excuses for our behavior? I don't know. I just think we can have reasonable expectations of people (and should) and that this expectation of mine is reasonable.

 

[sunkacola]

Do you mean a decision to trust in human persons? Or in a certain belief system, a 'leap of faith'?

Either one, but at the moment we were speaking of trusting or believing a person.

it applies across the board, though. For instance, you can't just decide to like someone you don't like and then you suddenly actually like them. One can't decide to believe in something (like a faith) and then you suddenly believe in it if one didn't before. At least, i sure can't.

Of course, one can take "a leap of faith" but that means you don't fully believe that it will work, or be true, or whatever, but you are going to go for it anyway. It's not a leap of faith if you actually have confidence in whatever it is and fully believe it. but a leap of faith is different from deciding to believe something. It's going forward despite not having the belief in it.

for instance I once did a fire walk. I didn't really believe that people could walk barefoot on red hot coals and not get burned. But I decided to try it anyway and I walked (slowly, putting down each foot with my weight on it) across about 20 feet of red hot coals and only got one very small blister on one foot. That's what I'd call a leap of faith. Before I did it I didn't think it could be done. The leap of faith for me was being willing to risk burning the heck out of my feet in order to find out if it were true or not. I really wanted to know.

when it comes to people, usually I find I can trust this person to do this but not count on them to do that. Very few people in a person's life can be truly trusted with everything.
What you say about all this makes sense to me, Jay.

 

[sunkacola]

Is there a correlation between caring and believing? Maybe if someone cares they try harder to understand and that, incidentally, results in believing.

If you are lucky.
But a person can care and still not be willing to try that hard.
Some people react to what they perceive as negative things by going into denial or hiding from it because they cannot face it for whatever reason. Kind of like how some people will desert you if you have a terrible loss and are in grief. Doesn't mean they necessarily don't care about you,; it may mean they can't handle grief, or think they cannot, or are scared. I think how people handle a serious illness or disability in someone they know is a lot like that. Many don't have the skill to handle it well.

(Sociopaths do have some empathy and have the capacity to develop and express more empathy as do autistic people.) I feel like we would find it easier to examine the issue outside of the outliers.

Part of the very definition of a sociopath is that they are not able to feel empathy for other people.
I have dealt with sociopaths and trust me, they do Not feel empathy.

If a person learns to have empathy then they are not truly a sociopath. I am not sure about "some" empathy. I don't know what "some" would be....to me that sounds like saying "slightly dead". Of course it depends on your definition. I define compassion as something that can be felt in degrees, but empathy is either there or it is not. This is semantics, of course.

Autistism spectrum people of course different and different from one another, and vary in their abilities. Some are not ever able to actually feel empathy. However, some can learn how to behave as though they did feel it and do that well enough to be good friends. Having read a lot of books written by people on that spectrum, that seems to be the case for most of them.

herein we venture away from attitude to physical ability. My focus being on attitude...

Having a lot on one's plate, or any of many other situations, can make a person unable to provide a certain attitude as well. Mind/body - not separate. We all know that when something is heavily on our minds or we are dealing with a whole lot of stuff in our own lives, we don't have as much emotional energy to give to others.

Yeah, not expecting anyone to understand what they are. I do think it's reasonable for someone to believe what I'm saying instead of a lie like I'm lazy or I'm faking something. They can choose to believe one side or the other. If I haven't disqualified my word, it is socially harmful when someone chooses to believe an explanation with no known basis in the instant situation.

A person can choose to believe, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they actually do believe. As discussed earlier. And for a person to want to choose that when they don't actually believe is a whole other thing. Some people, myself included, are not willing to just "choose" or decide to believe something they don't already believe, because it won't help. It won't change how that person feels. I know, I've tried that.

Feelings...and belief is I think more feeling than intellectual, cannot be mandated or demanded of oneself, let alone by another. So no matter how reasonable it seems to you to want or expect or ask for a certain feeling from another, it still may not come from them and if it does it doesn't necessarily mean they care, and if it doesn't it's not necessarily a sign they don't give a hoot.

I agree that it is socially harmful if a person refuses to believe you when you have given no context in which to expect you to lie. But I have experienced this myself and, as I mentioned, that person really did care about me. I don't lie, and there is never any evidence that I have lied because I just don't.....I have a thing about that. This person knew that, but still didn't believe me. There was no way that person could choose to or force themselves to believe me if they did not.

I just think we can have reasonable expectations of people (and should) and that this expectation of mine is reasonable.

You have said several times in this thread that you think it's reasonable to have the expectation of being believed. No one has refuted that. No one, I think, would say it is not reasonable to have that expectation.

But as said before, having expectations doesn't mean we will get what we expect., or even that it is required of the other person from whom you expect something that they provide it. An expectation doesn't create an imperative for anyone but the person who is doing the expecting.

 

[sweetkamie20]

If you are lucky.
But a person can care and still not be willing to try that hard.
Some people react to what they perceive as negative things by going into denial or hiding from it because they cannot face it for whatever reason. Kind of like how some people will desert you if you have a terrible loss and are in grief. Doesn't mean they necessarily don't care about you,; it may mean they can't handle grief, or think they cannot, or are scared. I think how people handle a serious illness or disability in someone they know is a lot like that. Many don't have the skill to handle it well.


Part of the very definition of a sociopath is that they are not able to feel empathy for other people.
I have dealt with sociopaths and trust me, they do Not feel empathy.

If a person learns to have empathy then they are not truly a sociopath. I am not sure about "some" empathy. I don't know what "some" would be....to me that sounds like saying "slightly dead". Of course it depends on your definition. I define compassion as something that can be felt in degrees, but empathy is either there or it is not. This is semantics, of course.

Autistism spectrum people of course different and different from one another, and vary in their abilities. Some are not ever able to actually feel empathy. However, some can learn how to behave as though they did feel it and do that well enough to be good friends. Having read a lot of books written by people on that spectrum, that seems to be the case for most of them.


Having a lot on one's plate, or any of many other situations, can make a person unable to provide a certain attitude as well. Mind/body - not separate. We all know that when something is heavily on our minds or we are dealing with a whole lot of stuff in our own lives, we don't have as much emotional energy to give to others.


A person can choose to believe, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they actually do believe. As discussed earlier. And for a person to want to choose that when they don't actually believe is a whole other thing. Some people, myself included, are not willing to just "choose" or decide to believe something they don't already believe, because it won't help. It won't change how that person feels. I know, I've tried that.

Feelings...and belief is I think more feeling than intellectual, cannot be mandated or demanded of oneself, let alone by another. So no matter how reasonable it seems to you to want or expect or ask for a certain feeling from another, it still may not come from them and if it does it doesn't necessarily mean they care, and if it doesn't it's not necessarily a sign they don't give a hoot.

I agree that it is socially harmful if a person refuses to believe you when you have given no context in which to expect you to lie. But I have experienced this myself and, as I mentioned, that person really did care about me. I don't lie, and there is never any evidence that I have lied because I just don't.....I have a thing about that. This person knew that, but still didn't believe me. There was no way that person could choose to or force themselves to believe me if they did not.


You have said several times in this thread that you think it's reasonable to have the expectation of being believed. No one has refuted that. No one, I think, would say it is not reasonable to have that expectation.

But as said before, having expectations doesn't mean we will get what we expect., or even that it is required of the other person from whom you expect something that they provide it. An expectation doesn't create an imperative for anyone but the person who is doing the expecting.

Forgive me in advance if this comes across short or terse. I’m just tired after getting home from the ER. Love this dialogue and really wanted to pick it up now cuz tomorrows going to be a long day.

I thought we disagreed on whether it is always possible for someone to choose to trust someone to which my answer is yes. It is always possible.

We could get into semantics but since we all pretty much defer to the “experts” (ha well maybe not experts but “the experts”), I suppose we could reference the DSMV criteria for sociopath. A lack of empathy is a characteristic, but not “no empathy”. Maybe I am interpreting that the wrong way but I am interpreting it that way for anecdotal and research reasons.

That distinction aside we might also consider whether the DSMV considers that a required characteristic or one of many common ones. I don’t have the answer to that but am curious since the diagnostic criteria for other stuff usually is a constellation in a galaxy of specific traits with no requirement of just one characteristic…

And then we could also go into more semantics which would be what is empathy? Does one have to feel it or does one have to express it or…? I think I’m looking at empathy as expressing it, not feeling it…

I’m not much into semantics because, unless they clarify an issue (which Jay is very good about doing), they require my little brain to do really hard thinking