Is it normal not to care about your friends, uncle, cousins or anyone? Like, you have friends, but you couldn’t care less about them and don’t value them. If they have kids, you don’t care about their well-being either. Basically could not give less of a fuck about anyone. You don’t care about your friends or family members at all. If they are sick, you don’t care; if they die, you don’t care. Is this normal?
If it’s a new thing in life, it’s alexithymia, emotional dysregulation, and likely a consequence of mental health problems, from trauma to other, deeper underlying conditions. The good news is this can be treated, it’s just a survival mechanism gone haywire, you can get better and have love and happiness and friends and family again and enjoy the full range of human experience. It may take time and effort to find a good therapist and stick to the plan, but trust me, it’s worth it.
If you’ve always felt this way, it still may be a chemical imbalance but also may be a personality disorder.
Personality disorders are incredibly hard to treat. But this is often because people with personality disorders don’t think anything is wrong with them, they think the people around them are the ones with problems. But the good news in this case is if this is your issue, you are already suspecting something is wrong and that’s already the hard part crossed. The rest is just structure and planning. The human brain is incredibly flexible and you can actually rewire yourself to be the person you want to be for your loved ones, for yourself, to experience more and feel more. But again, it takes time.
Be good to yourself. Take stock of your life and situation, make a few calls to some all-inclusive mental health clinics, there are a lot of places that will both set you up for insurance/financing, and they will do the preliminary health tests, medication recommendations and therapy sessions. You have options, don’t go into it alone.
I commented on your other post about this. No, this is a problem and seeking help from a professional is absolutely paramount in your situation. If this post isnt about you, your responsibility is to urge the individual to seek help. A general uncaring for the world is the first ingredient in dozens of tragic recipes. You’re/they’re not alone, even if thats preferable. You need people in almost the same way you need food and water. I care about you/them and I’m absolutely positive plenty of others do too.
This would be called Emotional Detachment or Emotional Blunting. It is associated with several mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, and it can be developed as a coping mechanism for a stressful or abusive childhood or past. It can also develop as a side effect for some medications, so it could be worth looking into a change in prescriptions if you think that could be relevant.
That is to say, it is an abnormal mental state, but you are not unique in this mindset. You should strongly consider reaching out to a mental health professional to see if you can work on this as it is likely to lead to more isolation and a worsening of your overall well-being.
A someone with anxiety and depression, I think I have this.
I can’t be bothered with worrying about everyone else’s well-being, when every waking moment I’m just one bad day away from having a complete mental breakdown. I simply do not have the emotional stability to handle anyone else’s drama.
When I told my psychologist this, their only response was “you’re fine; you clearly have empathy”. So I went to another, and another, who both said the same thing. So I stopped going. The pills don’t work anyway so I was just wasting my money.
I wish I could afford a therapist.
No. Obviously not.
No. I don’t miss people while they are alive - I don’t need to talk to them or see them, I know they are alive, and don’t miss them somehow, yes friends, yes even my parents and siblings and grown kids, I love them but if I know they are ok that seems to be enough.
But when they are sick or hurting I care. I want them happy and healthy and if I can help I want to.
And when they die I miss them, so much.
Not sure what normal is, but no that doesn’t sound normal. How do you feel about your own self? Do you care for your own body and mind?
ADHD here. That might be related to time blindness or something.
I’m exactly like what you describe. Went years without talking to my dad. Not because I was angry, it always felt like I just spoke to him recently and would talk again soon.
It wasn’t until he died that I missed him.
It’s very weird to explain to people. “I dont miss you because my brain doesn’t recognize you’ve been gone for a while. It thinks that talk we had three years ago was a couple days ago”
Yeah my kids tell me I have ADHD, and by the current understanding of it I would agree (when I was growing up it only applied to literally hyperactive kids, I have seen some and it was extreme and disabling, they were wild and screaming, couldn’t stop moving or learn.) and certainly have not a good understanding of time at all. And it’s like I know they are ok, and that is satisfactory, I am happy if they are happy.
lol don’t say “the thing” we all hate that lol
“I had a little brother with adhd, he had such a hard time in school”
Unless he died he still has adhd and it’s not a problem with school is a condition with life long concerns. People just learn to hide it after childhood. Plus many women have adhd as well and it never gets diagnosed. So the “nephew in school” comparison is a little bit frustrating lol
Look into adhd. There’s all kinds of symptoms one could have and it really helps to understand what’s going on inside your mind.
Like the time blindness thing. “Am I a bad person for not missing people” no, it’s just a condition.
Even if you decide to never take medication it helps to know what’s going on.
Edit: and I know you didn’t technically say “the thing” I just like explaining that to people so they don’t accidentally offend someone
Edit: I personally am going thru this weeks episode of “when was the last time I ate something? Jesus… has it been a week!!?” I have severe adhd lol. I was in training videos as a kid. Cocaine makes me sleepy that’s the severity of my adhd lol I’ve used cocaine like some people use melatonin
Oh my gosh when I was younger I absolutely loved to sleep on speed, it felt so good. Caffeine would leave me wired but amphetamine - it’s not that it made me sleepy exactly, but the sleep on speed was so delightful.
And yeah I gained 20 lb when I went to school in England and was fed 3 times a day, I had never eaten like that before. Just when I got hungry and remembered, lol.
Now I mostly just make sure to exercise - I was very active as a teen too but now it really works, if I exhaust my body my mind does settle.
One of us! One of us!
Lol. Yeah sounds like adhd.
I walk a few miles a day to burn off extra energy as well.
It’s not all negative tho. I bet you’re also a quick thinker and an out-of-the-box thinker. When everyone else gets stuck on a project do they come to you for a solution?
Everyone left in my department is amazing actually, so we go to each other because we all think differently, and yes sometimes my do everything different ways all the time approach really pays off. Work seems to think I do a good job but to me it feels more like occasional flashes of brilliance and longer stretches of slower work because I can’t do anything I don’t understand, have to see the whole picture first.
I am worried about OP, he put another post up about is it normal to care only about your romantic partner and no interest at all in anyone else.
Op sounds like they have some trauma they are working thru. They don’t sound violent tho. I hope they get some help
ADHD people work well in groups for the reason you described. Nobody has brilliant ideas all the time. A few bright flashes is all you can ask for.
Doesn’t this fit the bill for a sociopath?
I think a sociopath would value people for what they can do for them. This sounds more like crushing depression.
Ahh, yeah I think that tracks
No definitely not. Like, it’s fine if you don’t care for some uncle who’s kind of a dick and who you see once a year. But if you care for no-one but yourself then something is out of the norm. Might not be something you can help, but it’s probably a good idea to run this by a professional.
Personally I’m kinda extreme in the opposite direction. I can feel intense empathy towards inanimate objects. I’ll feel sad for the slightly fucked apple at the supermarket because no-one will buy it. I struggle to watch movies with too emotional plots because I start to experience those emotions myself intensely.
Adding link context/titles:
The first one is an ask lemmy post titled: Is it normal to not value any other type of relationships other than romantic?
The second one is a showerthought post titled: “fridging” is honestly the only good motivation to become a superhero or good person
And in the elaboration on the showerthought, they essentially say that the only believable motivation for someone to become a hero is loss of a romantic partner and that it is unbelievable to care that much about anyone else in your life. That it is not tragic to lose a family member or friend. They seemed to think this was a universal viewpoint
Has this always been the case, or is it a new thing? If always, some of the other comments have some suggestions around neurodivergence. If new, it might be due to stress - if I am drained from work and basic household maintenance and just feeding myself, I have no brain cells left to care about anything else. The caring comes back if I manage to work in more rest time per week.
One of my coworkers says she has no fucks left when she feels like that. “Sorry, all my fucks have already been given.”
Behold the field where I grow my fucks and see it lies barren
Sounds like a mental illness that a professional should help with.
No, you need to go to therapy and talk these feelings through with a professional.
I’ve been in a similar emotional state and with therapy I realized my ‘dgaf’ attitude was the only way I could keep living after a traumatic incident I experienced as a child, twenty-five years ago. I had been forcing my self away from having any meaningful relationships out of fear that they would make me feel bad, like I did on that day. Before therapy I had forgotten it had ever happened, but afterwards I realized so much about myself and it all just clicked into place; all of my strange behaviours, my anti-social tendencies, my mentality of not giving a fuck about you or anyone else. It was all to avoid negative emotions. I wish I had gone, or been able to go to therapy a lot sooner. I would be much happier then I am now if I did, but it matters not because I did go, and I talked things out; I worked out the cause of all this pain and
healedstarted healing.Ask yourself, when was the last time you cried?
I do care about people, but I have to admit the only time I cry is when their pets die.
I was partly the same. I only cared about my pets. The last time I had cried before therapy was when my cat died, and before that when my dog died ~10 years prior.
I cry to music also
thats not normal. its normal if you dont care about the person, because they did something to hurt or that you dislike, or look a certain way(eventhough this is a very negative thing to do its not abnormal in the sense you dont feel anything). apathetic seems to be a mental illness.
No. What it means exactly, is harder to say without knowing you and your story.
People attribute way more power to mental health professionals than they actually have, but I feel like this is something they could at least diagnose. If you have access to it…
I think we all jump to recommending mental health professionals because if people are asking these kinds of questions to strangers on the Internet they clearly do not have anyone to talk to.
Yeah, it’s not bad advice, but I do see it get pushed as a panacea or used as an insult as well.
The good news is that you care enough to ask about it. As others have said, see a medical professional.
I’ve been there. Reasons for this might be different depending on who you are. For me, I’d been hurt by the ones that I loved, and subconsciously put up a wall to protect myself so I was “prepared” in case I would get hurt again. On the flipside I also couldn’t be my most authentic self, so I felt a lot more distanced when being with friends and family. For me, a lot of talking, therapy, and books helped me tremendously, but I’m still on a journey.
So yes, it’s normal, and it can get better.
I feel my current situation matches with what you described, can you share which books helped and what kind of therapist / therapy should you look for
I tried cognitive behavioural therapy which helped with a bunch of other stuff, but didn’t help me get to the root of my core challenges. I’m with one now which does the following (according to her website):
Theoretically, I am grounded in the psychodynamic tradition and the neuroaffective understanding of attachment and emotional development.
I realized the books I’ve read and got a lot out of may only exist in Danish: “Drop opdragelsen” and “derfor forelsker du dig aldrig i den forkerte”
