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"My pain for the world"

Why is it that I feel so much empathy for people?

The guy who lives upstairs from me is an alcoholic. He stumbles around in the night and wakes us up, he throws up loudly every morning and makes me feel sick. I feel deeply sorry for him. My boyfriend can't understand why I feel sorry for him. My boyfriend is just annoyed by him, and the fact that I feel sorry for him, makes my boyfriend even more annoyed.

Yesterday I heard about what happened to Amy Johnson. It made me cry. I bet it did't make anyone else cry. Shouldn't my incessant video gaming have de-sensatized me to things like this by now?

I can't bare anyone to be dissapointed. It gives me an awful hollow feeling inside.

I can't look at the shocking picture of chemical and biological warfare victims that appear in the papers, because I wouldn't be able to stop myself crying.

Sometimes I feel that I have no right to be happy unless every one in the world is happy. I feel guilty when I am happy.

I feel guilty every time I walk past a homeless person. Especially because I have so much and I don't give something to everyone of them.

I wonder if there is something wrong with me that I feel this way. I don't know anyone else who feels this "World Pain".

I know how you feel Ros.

I saw something truly heart-breaking in Cambridge yesterday.

I imagine that these two people were parents divorced, who had either met accidently or were "trading" the child. The man was walking along talking to the daughter and saying "Your mother is a lying cow. She doesn't know what truth is. yadda yadda yadda" And the mother was getting annoyed. And then before they parted the guy bent down on his knees and held his daughter's shoulders and said "It's not going to be like this when you're with me. I promise"

And I hated him. And felt so sorry for that little girl having such crap parents.

I also felt sad when I saw two tramps fighting over a begging spot while everyone walked past without doing anything.

Anyway, I'm going to do some Tort now. I have a going over Tort session tonight with a girl I like. So I need to know some tort. I can't wait :-)

The problem with Rosalind (I think...) is that Rosalind's to kind, that's why she crys when she thinks@sees homeless people and people with problems....Which is basicly a good thing, makes one not to be so arogant, if U know what I mean....

*I think.....

I wasn't going to argue with you Mendax Bartender but I was thinking about it while I was out at lunch.

You are wrong - you are coming on again with your - your are weak I am strong attitude which is not right at all.

You go out and have beers etc get a bit peed, go home wake up with hang over and thats that - at the moment - you could easily do this three nights on the trot at sometime and the amount / type of alcohol you consumed could be just right to tip you over from becoming a regular drinker to an alcoholic - somebody who's body needs the alcohol to function.

As I stated before - one person could have there very first drink at the age of 16/18/20 whatever and could become an alcoholic there and there - it's in the chemical make up of the individual. The only way to surely never become addicted to alcohol is to never drink in the first place - but our culture is such that it is a way of life nowadays.

I have spoken to many alcoholics about alcoholism - we now have many friends through AA who are alcoholics obviously and I have spoken to many of their partners - very few of them started drinking because of a life changing event - most of them were "normal" drinkers and for whatever reason the addiction kicked in.

Research is being done into what the underlying factors are and more needs to be done - certain drugs have already been made available to try and cure the illness but none have so far been succesfull.

Thanks Ros - and don't worry - there's nothing wrong with feeling compassion for other people. It's good. Don't lose it.

Mendax Bartender wrote:
while you're
> welcome to feel pity for everyone less fortunate than yourself, I much
> prefer to watch the world wearing a far more cynical brow.

I don't want to feel pity for people. The fact that I do makes me hurt. Thats not good, and I would rather I wasn't that way. But I am.

You talk about where to place the blame. I can't understand why there has to be blame. Someone is alcoholic. Why does that have to be anyones fault. The world seems to want to blame everything on someone.

What I meant was that you're just as likely to get addicted to the former as the latter. I wasn't aiming for a semantic, symptomatic argument.

Of course an alcohol addiction is going to have more side effects. Chocolate gives you energy and endagers tooth enamel, easilly countered by exercise and brushing your teeth, while alcohol is a depressant, kills brain cells and rots the liver among other things.

Comparing the consequences of being addicted to the two is next to pointless, but that was not my aim.

Most people can drink alcohol all their lives and never become addicted to it. Yet people have started ranting about it like it's morphine or cocaine. And while it may be true that more people die every year of alcohol abuse than both the above drugs combined, if almost the entire country took either drug on a regular basis, the statistics would read differently.

And I don't care what you say, there is rarely any reason to blame an addiction on anyone but yourself.

eg:

event: Girlfriend leaves / dies.
reaction: pick up a bottle.

if this leads to an addiction, who do you blame for it? your girlfriend leaving you? The person who killed her? Your friend for introducing her to you in the first place? Her parents for conceiving her? amino acids for reacting in a primordial soup?

No, you can only blame your own physical weaknesses. A cynic might bump that on to their own parents for not teaching them to be stronger. But personally, I don't think that is the case at all.

Swallow yourself in alcohol, pump yourself full of needles, become promiscuous, mutilate yourself, etc etc.

Unless you have been told that any of the above is the best route away from your pain, then becoming addicted and suffering from it cannot be effectively blamed upon others.

Now, and this is where you completely fail to understand me - this doesn't make people who get addicted bad people. It just makes them weak.

I've no doubt that all of the above will make me come across as the nasty man again, but I don't care. That's how I feel, and while you're welcome to feel pity for everyone less fortunate than yourself, I much prefer to watch the world wearing a far more cynical brow. After all, everything that happens does so because SOMEONE wanted it to.

Mendax Bartender wrote:
> And in my mind you seem to be contradicting yourself Flanders. You say
> your wife starting up alcoholism because she went through some trauma,
> but then you say she didn't do it to ease her pain.

No - she didn't turn into an alcoholic overnight - that doesn't happen - she drank - a bit - more than she used to - much like 90 % of people that drink, and the addiction took over.

Not enough is told about the effects of alcohol on people. Some people out there only need one drink to become alcoholics due to the addictive properties. Some people need a bit more before whatever chemical reaction happens actually happens in the body.

And yes - probably best not to go into personal situation any more - cheers.

Mendax Bartender wrote:
> Alcohol is only as addictive as chocolate, that is also fact.

Alcohol is one of only two substances that are physically addictive. The other is not a drug of abuse. What I mean by Physical addiction is that if you go 'cold turkey' off alcohol your body is very likely to go into alcohol withdrawl, and die. This isn't a well know fact (but it should be). Most people think you can stop drinking and be fine.

This doesn't happen with chocolate.

Alcohol is only as addictive as chocolate, that is also fact.

And at a guess, I would say that it is everything to do with the sugar involved.


And in my mind you seem to be contradicting yourself Flanders. You say your wife starting up alcoholism because she went through some trauma, but then you say she didn't do it to ease her pain.

I would inquire further, but I'd rather drop the subject, lest it upsets you further.