Is it empathy?
I mean, I have empathy for real live people.
But imaginary people? That's something different.
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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Fun fact: I think I had to purposefully construct my sense of empathy.
I was literally like psychopath-sadist when I was really young. I didn’t really enact anything irl besides torturing bugs or imagining cartoon characters in pain, but around 4yo I started feeling like I was a bad person because other people didn’t seem to desire to do those things, in fact hero’s in movies purposefully avoided violence.
So the shame/guilt of feeling like I was a monster, a the desire to be like everyone else, lead me to try and make myself feel pain when I hurt other things. When my mother or sisters would tell me to come kill a spider I’d pinch myself or bite my tongue while doing so.
Then, being a curious kid, I started just trying to imagine the physical sensations of being in different bodies and having different injuries. This eventually spread to trying to imagine different emotions and by and by I didn’t have to force myself to feel it anymore. When I see someone/something get hurt, I don’t have to think about it now, I just feel it.
While I’ll admit it is possible that I’m correlating this purposeful imagination with some possible natural development of my brain creating empathy, considering that until recently I only really felt pain, negative emotions, and physical sensations through empathy, I’d say it seems most likely I built it myself.
Since realizing this a few years ago, I have started trying to feel happy/positive empathy too and it does seem like it’s been working. Though, it’s slow going because I’m hella antisocial lol.
Oh and just in case anyone is worried, I’m no longer sadistic at all. I literally can’t bring myself to kill spiders or other bugs, and there are some scenes in movies I can’t stand to watch. I can unfortunately still feel those old feelings and empathize with sadistic characters/actions, but the saccharine feeling of enjoying causing pain actually makes me physically sick now.
I wouldn't be too hard on yourself, kids are weird in that they can have huge blindspots in their empathy because they're too young to have had to wear another person's shoes, so to speak. By the time you're an adult, either you've gone through enough shoes to become a well-adjusted, empathetic person, ...or not. But even then, we all have blind spots we can improve on.
So if anything, putting yourself in another person's/bug's shoes like you describe in the comment is proactive and should be lauded if you ask me. Lots of people don't seem to gain empathy until they're the ones on the other end. Hell, I don't know you, but consider that maybe you being self-conscious about your capacity for empathy is ironically out of your empathy for the people you interact with. If you really had no empathy, then why would you care?
Just like birds are born with wings but it does not make them able to fly, humans have the capacity for empathy but it doesn't mean it's complete from birth.
Things need to be cultivated and let grow.
No one and nothing starts at complete. And this is something that we as a society need to learn again.
I'm glad you found space to grow.
The lions actually wearing clothes is a nice detail
I figured it was just CYA for copyright, trademark, intellectual property infringement purposes, but I can see now it's part of the joke.
That'd be like watching the part in The Walking Dead >!when Carl has to shoot his mom but they're all naked.!<
Also the younger brother being curled up in the mother's lap
I just realized the artist has made meme templates featuring these characters available for free on their web site. Neat!
Heh heh heh!
Dad's shirt: [Dated pop culture reference]
Me: 
This didn't start happening for me until I started HRT. The first time this happened (unconsciously mirroring the emotions of a character), I suddenly realized why people like reading romance novels. If you can vicariously actually feel like you're falling in love with somebody, why the hell would you not want to?
Previously I had enjoyed stories, but plot-driven stuff like mysteries and heist movies, or idea-driven stuff like hard science fiction.
Dated pop culture reference?
Fun fact: my mom says that I would always laugh at this scene when I was little.
...No, I haven't been institutionalized. Why do you ask?
If there's one thing I've learned from posting comic strips it's that humor is very subjective. Everything is funny to someone!
my mom didn't want me watching Lion King because she was worried I was gonna get scared of like the hyenas and scar.
which is completely acceptable because I was very easily scared. For example Darth Maul and the dementors from Harry potter made me condemn the series because I was terrified of every seeing them again
Are you likely to run into hyenas on the regular?
More likely than Dementors, I would imagine.
not at all. I'm just a scaredy cat
Dated pop culture reference: [INSERT DATED POP CULTURE REFERENCE HERE]
When Lion King came out, my best friend at the time and I were taken to see it in the cinema. We were quite young.
We were asked to leave because this scene made us cry too loudly.