I don’t feel empathetic anymore.

[Guest HelpPlease]

Recently, I’ve been feeling kind of.. weird? The only word that really fits it I think is numb??

When I was younger, I used to have a ton of empathy. Every time something bad happened on a movie or show, like a character dying or somebody getting bullied, I would just feel awful about it and it would stick with me for a while. But lately, anytime something like that happens, I feel like I’m just using a reflex, if that makes sense. I just don’t feel bad, or even truly grieve anymore. A teacher at my school that I’ve known for a while passed away due to Covid recently, and it scares me that I don’t really care and can’t force myself too.

Nothing feels very big or real anymore, I just feel like I’m drifting through life on a boat, and don’t care what I hit. (I’m bad at metaphors, but you get the idea)

I feel like I only make myself pretend to feel things for other people when my own social credit is on the line. I get very easily anxious and often exaggerate the outcome of things in my mind, so whenever I’m at school and a situation of some kind happens, I have to pretend to really care, or I feel like somebody will call me out and humiliate me somehow. I do actually care about some of the situations, but it’s not really the people, mostly the topic.

I still feel scared and sad and anxious, as well as happy and satisfied like I always have, but when it comes to others, I can’t seem to feel anything for them.

Same goes for romantically, too.

I came out as bi maybe a year and a half ago after crushing on my female friend, and since then, I have been open with my identity, and have purchased a few pride things that clearly have the bisexual flag on them. But now, I can’t seem to make myself look at anybody romantically.

I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t met the right person yet, or if I genuinely just can’t make myself like somebody romantically and that also scares me.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is anything wrong or bad about being aro, I just have made being bi a part of me for quite a while, and I do still feel like I want a partner in life. I just can’t seem to connect to that part of me very well.

I desperately want to talk to somebody about this, but there’s never the right time and I never have the right words, or it’s not the right people. And it’s not like I don’t care about anybody, I still love my family and friends. But anybody else feels so… insignificant (that’s not really the right word but I can’t think of a better one) that I can’t force myself to care.

I feel so selfish every time I don’t care when somebody that I’m not close to gets hurt somehow, and I feel so anxious whenever I think about this. I feel like I’ve been lying to everybody about my sexuality, even thought I felt very confident in it for a long time.

Is something wrong with me that I have to see a therapist or something about, or is it just, idfk, teenage hormones??

[Holmbo]

It can never hurt to see a therapist. You could go and talk to one and see what they think.

[Arsenic]

As Holmbo says, I guess that the best option would be to see a therapist.  If you are a minor, you should try to tell your parents about it, if it is save for you, and maybe set an appointment with an expert. If you are not able to talk to them because of x or y reasons, does your school have an orientator (I don't know if it is called this way, in my school we call the specialist in mind this way...)? If it does, you could try to talk to them about the way you feel (or don't feel).

 

On 12/25/2021 at 8:07 AM, Guest HelpPlease said:

I feel like I’ve been lying to everybody about my sexuality, even thought I felt very confident in it for a long time.

Sexuality is fluid, and it can change during lifetime, depending on the situations. As a personal experience, my way to describe my identity has changed like twenty times. I started like a cisgender female bisexual and in six years I went through labels like lesbian, pan, bi again, pan again, bigender, intergender, genderfluid, ace, gray-ace... And more. And I felt confident in those all. With this I want to say that labels are a way to describe ourselves in a determinate moment of our life. Ones might want to label themselves, others don't. If bisexual was a label that once fit you, then everything is alright, it accomplished it's will, but if you feel that this label does't fit you anymore, there is no rush to find another that does, if you want to change it.