When Empathy Sucks You Into Despair, Pull Back to Cope!

The world has geared up its scariness a zillion-fold in just a few months. How on earth are we to cope when we're consumed with empathy for those who’re suffering everywhere we turn?

And how is your child to cope? For they surely know about it, too. Has empathy run its course? Will we all shut down now and creep inside our own worry zones?

I ask because there’s a huge “coping” problem if we can’t contain our own anxiety. That’s because our children need us to be able to deal with theirs as well. After all, we still want them to empathise with others, yet right now it’s understandable if their anxiety levels are rocketing. Empathy can do that to you.

So what can be done?

I think the answer is similar to how we're taught to think in the therapy room. We know we have to be able to feel “as if” we were the child or young person. But we're also trained to keep 20% of our mind free to step back and consider.

The thing is, if we jump headlong into their problem, and the things that have happened to them, we’re really just being sympathetic – in other words, in the mud with them. 100%. Hardly helpful!

The more useful idea is to be able to be in the mud with them, empathising, but with one foot still on the hard ground, so we don’t sink in too. That’s the 20% bit.

How does this link to our super scary world and all its worries? Because 100% empathy is definitely not working.

Are we to ditch empathy, stop feeling, turn aside, give in to despair, and affect our children too? Or find a way of keeping that 20% back and coping? For our sanity and theirs.

Let’s look at these ideas more closely.

A way to think about empathy

1 If we completely imagine what it’s like to be that person being bombed or that person cowering under a school desk, we lose ourselves in despair.

How can anyone ever manage that sort of situation, we think?

That’s 100% empathy with all the awful detail totally taken on board. It finishes us off. Cuts off any hope.

2 Feeling intensely like that – in the 100% empathy way – cuts off our thinking brain, so we’re stuck with just feelings and impressions.

So, perversely, it’s important to remember that we, personally, are not living in that situation (callous as that may seem). If we can’t manage to do this (albeit with a huge bucketful of gratitude), we’re going to be no practical use at all. Neither to those in the situation, nor to ourselves, nor to our children. We'll sink in the feelings bog.

3 If, on the other hand, we can pull back with 20% of our minds, and think about what’s going on, we keep room for useful empathy and will cope better ourselves and with our children.

For instance, we can likely come up with a good idea about how we can help in some way. It doesn’t solve things now, admittedly, but it’s positive. And being positive focuses us and our children away from anxiety and dread so we can still cope. Useful empathy-in-action.

So what’s useful empathy – and how can it help our children cope, too?

Have you noticed that when your child is anxious, they’re on the brink of something? Maybe

• pulling out of a party
• refusing to go to school
• a toy-throwing session
• screaming and crying
• descending into despair

And have you noticed how we parents immediately feel for them, cuddle and kiss, getting totally involved – or else cut ourselves off and say “don’t be so silly” or “stop that NOW!”?

I guess a half-way point would be the more useful stance! Bringing on board useful empathy.

Useful empathy is therefore the sort that:

• shows your child you totally get their anxiety and fear (by listening and accepting it)
• helps them calm down enough to slow their breathing and relax (by deep breathing, sorting, tapping, tidying, distraction, hand-rub, or other calming technique)
• keeps 20% of your mind back to be able to lead them into working out how they can cope with the situation positively.

The thing is (drum beat)… we can only do this if we’ve controlled our own empathy enough to keep our own 20% mental thinking facility online! Tricky, but doable. This is how:

How we can stop empathy sucking us into despair

1 We can limit our own watching of news and disaster. 

24-hour television and twitter threads have never been our best friends. They consume us into their echo-sphere. How so?

We discover an additional fact or opinion in the news item or tweet (it was a hospital, for Pete’s sake; they were just kids; that person should never have been allowed out of jail; if they had just listened…) and immediately share, or agree, or pass it on to the nearest person, or ruminate.

I know we need to know. But client case work has taught me that knowing even more doesn’t actually help even more in the long run. It’s best to turn the news gathering off after an agreed time and preserve that 20% of our brain!

2 We can decide what our children might be picking up and make sure we calmly open the topic with them for a discussion at some suitable point. 

Keep it at their age level, of course, and allow questions, and only answer exactly what they ask!

Doing this is possible if we keep our sense of perspective regarding empathy – so we can still think clearly about how events might be affecting our child.

In turn, this type of discussion helps them maintain some empathy with others without being scared witless. 

3 We can join with our children and think of a way to do something useful with our empathy. 

That may be to: 

• sign a petition for change, 
• collect for a charity,
• donate clothing etc.

They’ll love having a positive idea and carrying it out with you. They're doing their bit to help instead of being swallowed up by anxiety.

OK, I admit to having had dubious thoughts at first about all the yellow and blue ribbons people pinned to lamp posts in February – but those were an example of a positive act of empathy rather than being sucked into despair. All good.

In essence…

It’s all about pulling back in order to cope.

And cope we must, because our children have simply had enough on their plates for too long. They NEED us to be coping parents. They need us to have empathy but also to be available to help them regulate their nervous system when they’re in danger of being sucked into despair.

Especially when it’s about things they can barely make sense of at the age they are. 

So – at the risk of repeating George Orwell’s “four legs good, two legs bad” sort of thinking, let’s remember: “80% empathy good, 100% empathy bad”. Give it a go?

A book to have handy

TAKEAWAY>>>>

• The world is going through tough times, and it can make us and our children feel anxious.
• We can still be understanding and supportive to our children without getting overwhelmed by their anxiety. It's like having one foot in the mud (empathizing) and one foot on solid ground (staying calm and thinking clearly).
• To do this, we can limit our exposure to upsetting news and have age-appropriate talks with our children about what's happening.
• Instead of feeling helpless, we can find positive ways to help, like supporting charities or doing something kind for others.
• We should remember that it's okay to feel for others, but we need to take care of ourselves too, so we can be strong for our children. "80% empathy good, 100% empathy bad." 

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ALWAYS:

Trust your instincts,
use your judgement, protect the spirit
of your child