I've been trying to kind of stimulate my mind and work on my critical thinking by diving deep into youtube, of all places. I watch videos of people discussing different kinds of problems; personal, societal and world wide, in attempts to see where I stand. It is not to gain any kind of knowledge about the world, because it's mostly just opinions that don't define how the world actually is, and I don't care much about the world anyway. What I do care about is my place in it, being able to take in and sort facts from misinformation, and facts from opinions.
A lot of the issues I've been stumbling upon on that website is of course transgender issues, but also a lot of feminism, religion and some other political stuff. I believe my asperger is partially to blame for my habit of continuously taking things seriously and not being fully able to tell if something is meant literally or not. Partially I also blame my own selfishness and lack of interest in what's going on outside of my bubble. The real issues of the world still don't interest me, I find it boring to listen to/read about and I just continuously zone out whenever I try.
I have no ability to keep focus because there is no interest. The only bits of news that I do have at least some interest in, is what directly or to some degree indirectly, affects those around me that I care about. Like I don't give a fuck about, let's say a mass shooting in Colorado or wherever, because neither me or anyone I personally know is affected by it. But, I do have at least some amount of interest if what's going on in the world happens close to or directly to, someone that I know and care about.
My problem is that I don't feel collective empathy, meaning I can't feel empathy for complete strangers. An example to that is that if I would, say, watch a news clip about children starving somewhere in Africa, I feel absolutely no emotions, no empathy, no care, absolutely nothing, for those children. Same with strangers suffering in any other part of the world, even here in Sweden. Even in my own village. I have no sympathy, or empathy, for humanity as a species. I feel extremely disconnected from them, and this also applies to most other animals as well. That's why I don't generally care about animals getting treated horribly in for example the meat industry. Because I don't know those animals personally.
I don't think it is in any way a good idea to treat anyone or any animal wrong or in harmful ways, but I am definitely one of those people that just passively sit on my ass and don't give a fuck about the problem strangers are facing. If I have given the impression that I do care, it's because I have deliberately done so, out of fear. I pretend that I do care and blame my inactivity in society on other, totally unrelated, but yeah, believable things. I have done so since... I don't know, early teens, I think. I am scared of what consequences it might lead to if everyone knew the real reason why I am so passive in this society.
I don't think this is something that will ever change, I've always been like this, even in my childhood. I was more careless back then. Then I could bluntly say things like "I don't give a fuck about world problems because I don't care at all about those people. They can die for all I care". It had some reactions. People would mostly just laugh, others looked at me in horror, yet others tried to reason with me. They either didn't believe me or they thought they had misunderstood me somehow. I began to realise the problem with how I am in a society where most people do care for one another in ways I have never been capable of. So I began to pretend, make up excuses or avoid the topic altogether. I was afraid I would lose my friends, mostly. The few people back then who actually liked my company.
And sadly, I keep on with that charade, still afraid of the consequences. There's a lot of guilt and shame connected to this for me. I feel horrible for not being able to feel anything for strangers, so to the point where I can't stand myself and immediately just... dissociate away from the topic. That's a part of me that I have not yet come to accept, or even understand. I guess I could call it a form of selective empathy. Cause in other words, I can only feel empathy for people that I know and or like. That I am in some way or another directly connected to.
To me, most people are just a grey mass. I see that they're different from each other, I understand on a fact based level that they all have thoughts and feelings just like the ones I know, but I am cold. I can't understand that they are actual people, in a way, on an emotional level. I am emotionally cold and shut off until I get to know them. It doesn't happen instantly, that my emotions just turn on as soon as I say "hello" to a stranger, but it usually takes a bit of time. How long it takes depends on a lot of different things but it can take everything from a couple of months to years.
This is an issue that I haven't found any way to solve at all. I don't think it even can be solved, but only be learned to live with. I have one way of living with it, which is pretending that I'm not this way, but lately I've been beginning to realise that maybe that is not the best way. I have no idea what would be the best way. Or a better way, or even just a decent way that isn't shitty. Cause I do think that deceiving people is actually a quite shitty way of "dealing" with this. And most of all, I don't want to deceive you.
To clarify a few things: no, by watching/reading news and such does not affect me TOO much emotionally, it's the complete opposite which I can't handle, so I pretend that it's the other way around because that is something most people can understand and accept. I fear how they would react if I told them the truth. To be more precise, it is mostly affective empathy that I lack when it comes to strangers.
I have many times tried to say this to you, in person, on my blog and other ways, but I haven't been able to. Many many times, all the way from the very beginning. I am not afraid of your reaction now, whatever it might be, but I wouldn't know how to respond. I let down my guard. For all I know, it was like this way before I went through any kind of traumatic experiences, for all I know, I have always been this way, but of course I could be wrong. All I can say is that I've been like this for as long as I can remember.
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