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Infinite feelings/needs
I could write for ages, and it's pretty unsettling because there's a chronic fear I have that sharing my thoughts and feelings will be burdensome to other people. I have a sense that if I were to ever start sharing, the desire to continue sharing and open up more and more would grow to infinite proportions.
It's like I'm a baby bird with its mouth open waiting for food. And if someone feeds it, there's a feeling of satisfaction, but also a feeling of, "Oh, you're going to feed me? Well that's really convenient, because I'm actually really hungry! Here's a list of all of the grocery items I would like for you to procure. [shuffles over to edge of nest, grabs spectacles from table, and pulls out humongous scroll of parchment from a drawer; opens beak 3x wider]"
Theistic myths as allegories for this infinite need
I relate to the heaven myths in Christianity that express something to the effect of, "There is a deep, spiritual longing for a perfect, infinite happiness and wholeness that cannot be fulfilled in this world/lifetime." Another allegory is this idea of a primordial paradise that existed in the Garden of Eden and was lost. Even if it can't be found, there's still a taste for it and some sort of unconscious memory. In psychoanalysis, it's this idea of an infantile or pre-natal womb-like state of bliss in which every single need was met and absolute dependence on one's surroundings was met with complete satisfaction (oral/holding needs).
Object relations theory and layers of interpersonal disturbance
There's something I remember reading in Fairbairn's "Schizoid Factors in the Personality".
1) There's one level of fears where it's like, "I don't want to depend on other people because I don't trust them and I'm afraid they're going to let me down if I depend on them."
2) But there's another layer below that one where it's like, "If it turns out someone does give me what I want, my basic self/desires/needs themselves are bad/poisonous and are going to hurt/destroy that person." If you're kind to me, I will punish you by depending on you.
If the first dilemma is, "Nobody understands me and everyone is unreliable," then the second dilemma is, "If someone does understand me, all of my repressed neediness/loneliness and my intrinsically bad deep self will pour out and I'm going to annihilate/ruin that reliable person by depending on them too intensely/fiercely." I'm really afraid that if I write, I'm going to expect or hope for people to listen, and that's going to create an endless stream of needs that impose stress on other people.
How I see empathy/helping
For me, empathy is like there are two people in the situation (myself and the other person), and I choose which person's thoughts or feelings I want to pay attention to.
1) Myself
If I'm empathizing with myself, then I really sink into my body, I let my own thoughts go where they want, I focus a lot on how things make me feel, and in concentrating/absorbing myself in this I naturally am not paying as much attention to other people.
2) Other person
On the other hand, if I'm empathizing with another person, I'm trying to focus on what they're saying, mirror/reflect their meanings, fully inhabit their worldview, hypothetically imagine what I'd feel in their situation, remember any situations where I have felt similarly and put myself back into that experience, and avoid introducing any foreign elements from my side that might distract from or deter a mutual immersion into the other person's intrapersonal world. Although there are all kinds of experiential and emotional connections happening here, the process as a whole involves bracketing off or temporarily ignoring my own experiences and reactions if they don't connect to the broader purpose of engaging with and being in harmony with what someone else is experiencing.
Is empathy dishonest?
I had a girlfriend who got offended/angry when I told her about the way that I experience empathy, because it made it sound like my empathy was a conscious, effortful, farcically dishonest act of labor -- rather than some sort of divine, natural, intuitive, heartfelt, sincere, sacred, simple experience.
I think I'm just very aware of the fact that even in the best-case scenario where another person and me seem to be completely in tune with one another and on the same wavelength, we're still different people and there's a difference between my experience/story and the other person's experience/story.
There is a contrast between what I will do if I'm sharing my own personal/spontaneous reactions and trying to fulfill my own needs... versus what I do if I'm really dedicating myself to understanding and appreciating another person's perspective and trying to listen, absorb, process, harmonize with them.
If I'm pursuing empathy, I am making a conscious decision to prioritize the other person's story over my own, and I'm deciding at that moment that it's more important for me to hear their story and for them to feel heard/understood than it is for them to hear mine and for me to feel heard/understood. I'm also deciding that it's more important than *me* hearing my own story.
Summary of problems of empathy/expression
Based on the above, the grim picture I have of human relationships is that they involve:
-Two people with infinite needs
-Existing in a zero-sum game where at any given moment, only one person's needs can be attended to and satisfied at a time
-Where any care one receives is necessarily temporary, impermanent, and imperfect (unless if one parasitically sucks the life out of another person and they consent to it in codependent fashion out of feelings of obligation/guilt/fear)
-And where giving care to help another person requires sacrificing some of one's own self-connection, honesty, or expression in order to relate to another person's milieu
By posting on here and expressing myself, I'm putting out content into the world that has a need associated with it of, "Please read me and respond in a particular way that helps me feel heard." I'm presenting and imposing a need, which possibly introduces feelings of strain or a sense of being coerced/exploited in conscientious people who have committed themselves to being responsive or helpful.
I am simply one in a sea of thousands of baby birds with gaping beaks clamoring for attention.
Possible resolutions?
I'm trying to imagine a long-term arrangement where it is possible for people to co-exist but still be in touch with their own depths both inwardly and through external expression.
Options I can think of:
1) Reciprocity
-I agree to mirror or listen to you for X amount of time and attend strictly to listening to you and inhabiting your perspective, and in return you agree to mirror or listen to me for X amount of time with a similar level of care. We are both able to feel heard.
-Problem: there will likely arise natural imbalances where maybe one person is better at listening/satisfying needs than the other, or one person has a far greater intensity of needs than the other.
2) Synergistic selfishness
-I express myself without any special intention of mirroring or empathizing with what you're saying. I simply respond freely to what you're saying. You respond likewise, just reacting out of your own spontaneity.
-Concept: Although we are to some degree ignoring one another or not fully reflecting/listening, if we are sufficiently similar to one another, it may happen that what you have to say is naturally exciting, stimulating, or validating and we derive happiness from hearing what the other has to say.
Blending of these two?
Maybe a free negotiation in which both people sort of sit down and decide who wants to share/listen at a given moment, and they flexibly move around between different arrangements based on how they're both feeling--with some kind of assurance in place that both people are safe and will hear/support one another equally?
This was the solution I proposed with my previous girlfriend, but she shot it down because didn't have the same needs I did for safety, she didn't have the same capacity for mirroring/listening, she thought it was a stilted/legalistic arrangement, and she felt like my proposing it expressed that I didn't trust her. (Which is completely accurate, but somewhere in the whole mix, my entire worldview and experience got thrown off a cliff and subjugated.)
Overall feelings
I'm just trying to understand the degree to which Rogerian methods (i.e. the active listening that is done in this site) is applicable or extensible to real-world relationships, or whether it's even possible to do there.
There is something extremely special and almost holy about it. But it almost feels like something unrealistic to expect. I'm unable to reach out and lean into it, and I'm also unable to give it.
I feel guilty at the thought of receiving it; to the extent that someone is meeting my needs, I am pressuring them to bury their own needs. That experience is why I stopped listening; from the listener side of things, I felt like I was an effective mirror, but I didn't have anyone to hear the things that I wanted to say and share.
The experience of listening also taps into a sensitivity that is so dissociated/estranged from my real-life relationships that it just increases a pre-existing sense of alienation/isolation to engage in listening. Listening creates an accumulation of just that many more new experiences/selves that are off-limits and have to be hidden.
***
I have the greatest admiration and respect for the people on this site who listen/empathize, are actually good at it, and yet are somehow able to retain their sanity while doing that. By "good at it", I mean people who actually mirror/empathize at a deep level and care about connecting with what someone else is experiencing... as opposed to people who chuck pre-fabricated solutions at the other person, see if any of it sticks, and then blame the Member for being too complicated/messed-up and not responding positively to their well-intentioned but misguided suggestions.
When I first started using this site as a Member, I was appalled by the quality of listening I received. Before that point, I was so doubtful whether I was any good at listening. Now I feel like I'm good at it, but I'm just incapable of doing it until my own needs are satisfied and I have enough inner clarity/space (and some reassurance of being able to safely/consistently maintain that) that I'm willing to offer some of that space to another person.
