‘Dark Empath’: a hot new personality
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 พ.ค. 2024
- Stop data brokers from exposing your personal information. Go to my sponsor aura.com/elliotsang to get a 14-day free trial and see how much of yours is being sold.
Join the channel to get access to perks!
/ @elliotsangestevez
edited by Danae O.
thumbnail by Jules Tong
Follow me on Instagram: / elliotsangestevez
Selected Bibliography
Heym et al. (2020). The Dark Empath_ Characterising dark traits in the presence of empathy. Elsevier. irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4045...
Paulhus, D. and Williams, K. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality. www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition. Continuum. envs.ucsc.edu/internships/int... - บันเทิง
I have a friend who used to do this thing where he would pick up on the tiniest changes in tone and gestures, and would run off with it thinking that what I ~really~ meant was etc etc and become a huge source of pain and conflict. Turns out what was happening was: his doctors had prescribed him all these stimulants and his anxiety was running 10 steps ahead of what anyone had actually said or done.
Ah I feel that tbh. That's how I am on bad days though I do my best not to push that onto those around me 😅
I've struggled with this a lot in the past. Having an undiagnosed anxiety disorder really makes it hard for you to function and hold healthy relationships.
This is also what happens with severe trauma. The danger detection system of the brain fires off at every little thing in an attempt to protect oneself from whatever caused the original trauma.
That's part of why one might read 10 steps ahead imagining the most cruel and manipulative intent in other people. They're in full blown fight or flight and, against any reason, trying to imagine every possible threat so they can be ready for it.
Read "the body keeps score" if you're interested. It goes into the neuroanatomy of such things and is an insightful read.
@@Pensnmusicthis is something i’ve had to realize myself. thanks to some abusive relationships in the past, one small thing my partner does can lead me to think something like what has happened in the past may happen again.. had to talk myself out of a lot of spiraling!
That sounds awful, hope he got it sorted out
Oh this is where that meme I saw came from.
“I’m an empath,”
-the worst person you’ve ever met.
To be honest I wish empathy were actually that badass maybe in the future the dark side of empathy could be more accepted I could be more stable and I could just be like
""And you KNOW IT MOTHERFUCKER,,.
Reason I find it so annoying how little limited people's view of empathy is cause empathy isn't just about feeling happy things it's about feeling ALL things
Okay my comments not showing up its pretty much I wish in the future I could be stable enough to respond with ""AND YOU KNOW IT MOTHERFUCKERS,,.
I hate the fact that dark empathy is considered such a bad thing look everything has its good and bad sides plus people don't understand empathy these assholes preaching about ""empathy" are misleading empathy isn't just about feeling positive emotions from other people its about feeling ALL EMOTIONS
this comment feels like it's missing the point of what's being said immensely
@@capnbarky2682 yeahhh :(
my mom (and me by proxy but I've been working on it, also stopped using the term empath once I saw that instead of feeling what people felt I just felt what I thought it felt like which is A WORLD of difference and was hard to get into my head the difference, I do practice empathy but I recognize it as different)
I’m autistic and the stereotype of autistic people is that we lack empathy. While some of us struggle with it, it’s also possible for us to fall on the other extreme; hyper-empathy. I’ve struggled with hyper-empathy for my whole life, and it has caused me plenty of anxiety and stress when I’m too involved with friends, friend groups, or others in general. I get overwhelmed quickly because it’s so easy for other people’s feelings to become entangled with my own. My way of coping with this is basically by being solitary for a majority of the time; I don’t text people often, when I’m alone at home, that is MY time. It’s really helped since I’m very content with being alone for long periods broken up by socializing with friends at parties or get-togethers, and helps me decompress from my retail job where I’m around so many people.
I feel like autistic folk who are hyper-empathetic are extremely vulnerable to becoming "dark empaths" and / or BPD upon trauma
I feel you so much.
Autistic as well.
Also, I love your name!
I do this as well!
I'm autistic as well, and I relate sm
I’ve got the tism’ too. I don’t know if I lack empathy or am extremely empathetic. It’s like I can turn my empathy on or off when I want to.
Truly empathetic people learn to communicate better, and listen better. Empathy isn't a special power, but a skill you develop your whole life.
Exactly
I have empathy, but only for shadow people...
racism!!! (joke)
@@cartoonfantasy4541 I can't be racist, I have plenty of Light friends.
@@renaighracism is not dependent on the friendships you possess, in fact that line of thinking is showing that you aren't an anti racist. Meaning you don't even try to confront unconscious racism that you expressed.
THIS COMMENT IS SPONSORED BY MKULTRA
A lot of people assume evil is only done because of ignorance to other human beings experiences, but this is simply untrue. There are people who DO know the negative impact of what they say or do, and choose to keep going anyway. Pick literally any politician - they know the statistics, peer reviewed scientific studies, and human rights that will be violated by whatever policy they wanna push - they just choose to do it anyway for xyz greedy reasons.
thats actually more in line with what I thought dark empaths would be like lol. before i searched it up i thought the term meant people who have a lot of empathy/feel others emotions but still actively cause harm
I agree. Your ethics and actions define whether you are a good person or not. I mean you can have continuous thoughts about killing someone. Whether you actually do it or write a thriller about it, it's on you.
I lost a really close friend because he bottled a bunch of issues he had with me up, which made him treat me flat out awfully by the end of our friendship. He would actively lie to me when I asked if he was bothered by anything or if something was wrong. Only after he made our relationship irreconcilable was when he decided to finally tell me that he had issues with me for like, a year.
What was wild about it all is if he had just...told me what wrong the issues could have been solved without anyone getting hurt.
dam, saving this for later bc I have a childhood friend and whenever we would talk they things they said would bother me for days, like I lowkey hate them but I dont want to say anything bc they and I are part of a larger friend group and I dont wanna rock the boat, but also its not fair to either of us that I despise them
I had similar experience with my ex bestie
Telling you right now that in most of their lifetime I guarantee you it was not safe to speak up about stuff that bothered them.
@KS-bo5bg I definitely think so, however it doesn't make it okay. The way they handled the situation was incredibly manipulative and downright malicious.
I don't care what your traumas are there's no excuse to treat people horrendously because you refuse to communicate. It's just toxic
Some people are just super entitled and narcissistic. You must deal with it immediately as soon as you notice it. Which takes both sides, but cant help if it’s a one-sided conflict. Yet of you weren’t aware to begin with, imo, its not your problem.
Something that struck me, as an autistic person, was where you discussed 'assuming what people think and acting accordingly'. Small caveat for this discussion: I have a lot of trauma-related defence mechanisms that make me likely to do this, probably best to consider that even though I suggest 'people with autism in general', it could very well just be my personal experiences.
To summarise, I wondered if that kind of behaviour (making quick assumptions/judgements about people that tend to lack nuance) can be related to, or at the least can be influenced by, having autism. In my experience yes it very much is a defence/survival mechanism, but I'm considering now that it could also be a mechanism of regulation and information processing that crops up more in a society where self-regulation is becoming an increasingly difficult need to have met, thanks to capitalistic productivity values, and we receive information at a speed FAR greater than ever before, and it's only going to get faster in my view.
Consider this line of thinking:
> People with autism tend to relate to the idea of having to plan or 'script' everything. In my mind that can also mean more concepts than just "mentally planning out a series of events".
> Information and stimuli are two things that are processed in different ways by people with autism (and neurodivergent people in general). Oftentimes I will be at my most overwhelmed, upset, and uncomfortable when I am receiving large amounts of information in a short time, when previous information I learned becomes false, or when I'm exposed to constant (or discomforting) stimuli for longer periods of time.
> In order to combat my issues with the world inherently being quite overwhelming/overstimulating, I subconsciously categorise different pieces of information I receive into my set of assumptions-- I sort them into the right boxes, or connect them to the right 'scripts' in my brain so that I no longer have to spend time actively processing them. This also, I think, contributes to the stereotypically autistic 'black-and-white/all-or-nothing thinking'.
> Connecting with people can be difficult as an autistic person, because, for new people, there IS no script to read off of. If I have just met someone, I need to have a backup script in order to be able to move past the initial awkwardness. Then once I have enough information (which I need a lot of), I can use my 'person-specific' script, which takes less effort and is usually a bit closer to having actually authentic interactions with someone.
> As it can take a lot of mental effort/energy for me to figure someone out, it makes me wonder if autistic people (or at least myself) are more likely to engage in this behaviour as means of recording a 'relationship shorthand' script- taking our surface-level understandings of someone and using that as a basis for our internal 'script'. This does of course come with all the drawbacks described in the video, but the idea is that this kind of script would be used around people who are yet to display a clear indicator that it is safe to be authentic around them.
Of course--and it's even illustrated in how my previous points are presented--it still functions primarily as a defence mechanism- I am subconsciously still distrustful of others and feel weird about the 'uniquely uncertain' process of getting close with people. Because this this scary and uncomfortable, I take away the option of allowing them to react or have opinions about my authentic self-expression, based on the assumption I make that I will be ridiculed, or get in trouble, or be made to feel alienated, as I was so many times throughout my childhood. However, that is not to say it could not be informed by the autistic need for information abstraction as a means of coping with a world that is going so *fast* these days.
It's hard to stop. If I stopped making assumptions about people, I feel I would have to lean too heavily on my weak foundation of self-esteem to prop up my attempts at authentic expression/connection. I need to be able to advocate for myself (and my 'visible' autistic traits, both of which I struggle to do at the best of times) before I can feel safe to make that authentic communication with (most) others. If I am already running at an energy deficit by faking my identity every day then (in my mind at least) I would only dip further into the negatives by having to spend energy venturing into unknown and (what is perceived by my brain to be) dangerous territory. BUT at the same time I've heard people say that unmasking your autism and trying to make that work, while a rocky path to freedom and authenticity, is a path nonetheless, so, food for thought.
Thanks for reading folks, whatever's going on with you, you've got this
This is art, Mr. White. Glass grade introspection.
Holy shit, spectrum nigga here, you've just described my entire experience with navigating the social world. Fuck.
Thank you for sharing!! It seems exhausting.
We didn't have to do all these if people weren't SO driven to fit us into their boxes..honestly
I’m crazy about your name
The handling of this video assures me the narcissism video will be safe.
Many people w npd(self included) are probably "dark empaths" so its funny that one tiktok puts a dichotomy between us.
Empath is not a scholastic categorization. Most people heavily invested in this have a lot of overlap with vulnerable narcissism. It makes sense because the lack of self awareness, that presentations grandiosity comes from superior suffering or victimhood, the splitting that comes from both immature coping plus idealization/devaluation and the empathy is cognitive not very affective. Then the projection of aspects the person cannot address properly is seem among all kind of clinical and subclinical unhealthy personality styles. It be nice if people focused on treatment modalities for NPD like BPD has DBT. But mental health care is by and large a joke and the monetary interference and motives of a lot of people in charge really hampers research and care.
@@KoreaMojo YESYESYESYESYES HOMIE we talk about this all the time in NPD circles and then the "empaths" get mad about it lol. This whole comment is so fuckin true thank u so much for ur words. NPD gets no mental health care focus at all and expected to be helped by BPD care.
That's literally where the term comes from, to describe certain traits in Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other personality disorders.
@@LilFeralGangrel ......what are u talkin abt fellow WoD lover? Dark empath isn't even a real valid psych term so no, it doesnt.
Do y'all in npd circles consider npd to be a spectrum of particular clusters of complex trauma presentations?
TLDR; assuming empathy is what makes someone a good person is stupid. Theres many factors that add up to being good or bad.
Long version: My biggest issue with any discussion surrounding empathy is just how much weight people put on it in the first place. So many people assume high empathy = inherently better person and low/no empathy = inherently abusive and terrible pos. Its so much more variable than that. And i think the "dark empath" bs was starting to try and get at that and then people started using it in a really cringey "im not like other girls" way and ruined that. Theres multiple kinds of empathy, some can be learned, some you are born with. Having little or even no empathy doesnt inehrently make someone a bad person (i have low empathy most of the time, yet im in a long term healthy relationship and have multiple healthy friendships). Plus, empathy fluctuates. It doesnt stay the same day to day for everyone. You dont suddenly because a mosnter because your emotional empathy is a little low one day. Ive found im better at comforting people when my empathy is low because my own emotions dont get in the way and i can focus solely on what they need. Because anotherpoint: compassion and empathy are different. And because of all of that we demonize entire groups of people solely because of the mental illnesses they have. Which is messed up. And if you do that, you are the problem and i hope you work on that.
THANK YOU! FACTS!
💯💯
Quality comment
It's not the size of your empathy that matters - it's how you use it.
In all seriousness I think you're correct, even though I think we conflate empathy with "taking in the perspective" sometimes. Some people do maybe switch perspective, but aren't empathizing enough to be actually compassionate. I think it has something to do with the mental ways we allow each other to be different in the ways we feel/express them/ourselves. If there's a disconnect people may seem "helping", because "they take the perspective of a person that has these problems" And not about the special person struggling in their own ways being in that situation.
This is where I'd argue compassion and empathizing is very needed.
You're also spot on with our fluctuations. It's impossible to be our best selfs everyday. And people have a great potential for empathy and compassion when their needs are otherwise fullfilled.
Yet many people also try to fullfill their social needs through crooked behaviour which keeps them further away from connecting with people wholely
THANK U!!!
Recent research on self-described "highly-sensitive people" and "empaths" would suggest that a lot of them are, in fact, "dark empaths" who rate high in Dark Triad traits (especially narcissism, based on the studies I've read).
I've also personally encountered some self-described empaths who just strike me as deeply-traumatized and hyper-vigilant, but not necessarily toxic or bad.
the callout for coloialism and capitalism made my brain so happy
SAME
Anyone who thinks this is capitalism …well..ur being gaslit….this is far from capitalism and is a mutated for of socialism and communism twisted together and being called capitalism because the owners that he want us to hate capitalism because it must be crushed in order to make us all accept this mutant form of communism….taking tax dollars and sending it to other countries and handing out our ss funds to refugees without question while forcing the tax payers to suffer and eliminating our ability to own and operate a small business…if ur not a big corporation, u won’t be allowed to prosper..
And yet it's stupid. Communist countries were vastly worse on this end, people would literally make up stuff to get their neighbors thrown into camps. It's a much deeper spiritual issue
I just wish people would log off of TikTok and start talking to real people again
Easier said than done in this capitalist society. Unfortunately it's easier to communicate with randos behind a screen than people irl who perceive you AND know your location😂😂
@@littlerednoneyayes, I am aware. Regardless, it needs to be done. It’s not exactly optional. Getting rid of capitalism isn’t going to happen by consuming more TikTok and social media. It happens by creating a revolutionary movement in real life.
Lmao😂 if people were real again instead of hiding behind masks then maybe people would start talking to each other again everyone is so caught up in the mundane and how other people view them that thats all people care about now just materialism not like you can take everything thing with you when you die…those people they care valdition from arent gonna jump in their grave when they die so when ppl can start being themselves and trying to stop idolizing other ppl then maybe just maybe there can be “real conversations with real people again”
Ngl when I heard the term empath, i thought it was like a super power. I didn't think people ACTUALLY believed that they intuitively understood everyone's emotions just through like... vibes? Like, what part of that makes any sense? I really don't understand how people on tiktok basically convince themselves they have superpowers and/or take one half truth about science or psychology or sociology and make it their entire personality
I don't think that what people mean when they use that term. It's more that they just have/practice empathy more than the average person. Like someone who calls themselves a runner, because they run a lot, does not think they have superhuman running abilities, they just do it more than average.
Actually empathy is a real thing that has a neurobiological basis in science in fact. It's not just vibes. It's literally all of your senses working together with your brain to pick up on nonverbal cues from the enemy... Or stranger... Potential friend.... Mate... Whatever. It's some pretty primal feral animal shit actually but it gets interwoven without complicated human societies get. Empathy is a real thing not a superpower.
You might just lack empathy?
A "dark empath" is a Narcissist(someone with actual Narcissistic personality disorder), plain and simple. If they actually had real emotional empathy, they wouldn't do dark manipulative things to people they claim to love and care about (or anyone for that matter). What dark empaths do have is cognitive empathy. Which is simply just semi-understanding empathy and what someone is probably feeling.
I've had a few past relationships with girls who claimed to be empaths. But in the grand scheme of things, that didn't add up. Theres a ginormous difference between actually feeling others emotions because you truly are an empath versus being good at scanning and reading people's emotions for the sake of manipulation and personal advantage. That's not an empath, that's a predator.
I’m impressed you pulled up the scholarly articles! I’m studying psychology for my masters and I was like lmao “I know those symbols and article formats”! Very nice 😎
this is such an eye opening video cause i just found myself guilty of assuming what people feel and think just to make myself the victim of the situation as a way to protect myself, that’s something i really need to work on
also as a dominican myself it’s really good to see a dominican who makes this type of videos!
I don’t know if this is quite the same thing, but I’ve noticed a personality archetype (which for whatever reason seems to be much more common in women than men) in which the person centres traumatisation and their own fragility in their identity and essentially uses it as a justification to control people around them via emotional blackmail, often with a heavy component of relational aggression I.e. something like “this person did not do the things that I need as Poor Vulnerable Traumatised Person, now I will make everyone see how cruel and abusive they are”.
Someone last year stalked me and tried to psychoanalyse me, straight up said he was a dark empath and tried to diagnose my friend and I with dark empathy claiming "this is what connects us"
Edit: I ended up finding a bunch of studies on dark empathy proving that it was pseudoscience not even coined until 2021 and debunked him and then told my teacher to make sure he left me alone
Bro I have a friend I'm on the rocks with who loves manipulating people, and she also tried to diagnose me as a manipulator and push her own personality onto me and like,,, hello?? I'm literally nothing like you but okay
That sounds like my verbally abusive, transphobic, fanatically Christian ex-roommate, who claimed to be a former psychiatric nurse, before her alcoholism and subsequent homelessness before she got her old apartment and waitress job. She confused my autism with intellectual disability and had a conspiracy theory that I somehow fooled everyone into thinking I was a child prodigy and savant! I began to doubt her old job!
@@darlalathan6143 oh dude this kid was a senior in hs but there's this homeless woman living in my parents basement for 2 years from chinese church (shes white) who claimed she got evicted from her apartment because christians are being prosecuted and then tried to convince me that i was manipulating my parents when i was in 8th grade (i barely knew her)
Mao zedong once wrote a article called "against liberalism". The title seems like it's gonna be a ideological dispute, but no, it's actually an analysis about everyday activities that are influenced by individualistic values. Gossip, criticizing people on their backs, assuming responsabilities without conversations or just choosing not to share anything at all is a form of liberalism. This article is a great example about how apathy and selfishness are mostly capitalistic problems, east block socialist writers are some of the most dedicated in creating new moral perspectives to guide new societies. Actually a really rich read.
He did mass authoritarian imperialism and more genocide though so..
@@artosbear well... when? And how? Remembering that he's one of the men behind china's liberation from a multinational colonization from europe and japan, imperialism is a capitalist concept and these nations have been genociding and humiliating china for more than a century.
@@artosbear Well... when? And how? Just remembering that he's one of the people behind China's liberation from a multinational colonization from Europe and Japan, Imperialism is a capitalist concept, and these nations have been colonizing, killing and exploiting chinese people and territory for more than a century prior to Mao.
Oh wow that’s a good point. I guess I should forget when he also caused the single biggest famine in human history and killed over 80 million people because of boneheaded collectivization policies that were disastrous.
Can we all please agree that the guy who ordered that all sparrows be killed isn’t the kind of person we should be listening to.
Being autistic I feel like empathy has always intrigued me because the way people described it made me think neurotypical people had this whole other complex internal life that I didn’t see and couldn’t understand. It made me almost question if maybe time was passing slower for them and that’s why they had more time to think about more things. But now I think that they just understand each other more easily because they relate to each other when it takes me a minute to try and understand their position because I can’t directly relate to them. Empathy is very valued like intelligence but in my opinion those two concepts are very vague and are often misused. My way of showing empathy as a person who struggles with cues is to leave people space and be open. I have also learned that being invasive is not empathy and it would make me uncomfortable for empathy to be the same as mind reading.
Thaaannk you for making this exact connection to capitalism, colonialism and layers of genocide and deliberate ecocide etc as a societal base being why abusive behaviors (and accepting being abused without even realizing it) are so widespread. I've been spreading this idea as I can it's good to know other people have seen widely and deeply and far enough alllll the way front to back to see how this stuff has become the zeitgeist.
Aculturation is the 2nd great word I learned today to use instead of having to describe something. Thank you. The first one was umvelt/umwelt which is like "to properly study a bird, you need to study after leaving the human umvelt." The usage gives a different coverage than saying "leave anthrocentrism"
I think most every armchair internet pop psychology weirdo doing constant analysis about how to spot the narcissist/dark empath/psychopath/sociopath/BPD/(and they more recently have added "avoidants" as the latest bad guys with no understanding of what anything in attachment theory frameworks are for) are doing fascism or proto fascism/precursor to.
Like it's constant insular non-falsifiable jargon that gets more and more complex based analysis (if you ever look at the old FBI and CIA McCarthy era communism public surveillance files they have a very similar character to the kind of nonsense they make up about people...also just all modern police and government law enforcement report writing does it), and an infinitely growing out group with an increasingly competitive in group.
Those circles of people have dramas where they "out" this or that community member or content creator that's in group as being a secret narcissist or whatever the terms they like to use at the moment and will try and kick people out too.
This is definitely me to an extent. Raised being emotionally manipulated and ignored has done huge damage to me that I'm only now beginning to unpack. The dance of getting frustrated over unmet needs and being so scared to dare to be vulnerable is genuinely terrible, it's hard to describe. You never know anyone and no one knows you (or that's how it feels, very black and white despite being more nuanced) all because you were never allowed to develop a healthy sense of self or belonging. The world was scary and you could only survive by abandoning yourself and others. And as pointed out in the video, you are victim but no one else is obligated cover for you or do the work for you. You have to be radical and go against deeply imbedded beliefs and patterns, even if it feels like shit and continues to as you painfully learn what many others naturally got as children. It blows, but you gotta commit to yourself.
this was genuinely an eye opener as i realise how often i and many others just tend to assume things without really asking what said things really mean and i sometimes genuinely struggle with this as i enjoy predicting trends. a lot.
as an infj (might be neurodivergent) i find myself predicting how everyone is like and their thought processes (mbti geek) without really knowing them and trying to understand what they truly think and it just hurts me realising all i had to do was to ask what some of the people i knew needed (and even to more detail about it) and not just assume that they need this
in the end, thanks for the informative video! in fact your videos have made me thought about many different things. the first video i saw was the sg video and im a singaporean myself so i became intrigued about your other videos and whatnot
omg im digressing so hard rn LOL
This is not unnatural, it is part of theory of mind. If you lacked this there would be a bigger problem, this is pathologized in the typical sense.
But it is important to double check your 'instinct'/subconscious.
yeah i forgot to mention about that; but yeah definitely agree
Ah seeing this comment is a neat coincidence for me because I am also a Singaporean who was first drawn in by this channel’s video on Singapore and am now watching this bc I tend to overthink peoples intentions and pull conclusions out of thin air. The world is a lot smaller than it seems I guess 😅
LOL how interesting yeah
I’m not trying to be mean here but the 16 personalities/Myers Briggs test isn’t really supported by evidence. Maybe just as a lil note to counter the pseudoscience
(The Wikipedia article talks about it and gives some sources about it en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator)
If you want to learn about your personality I’d say HEXACO is the most up2date scientific model (no guarantee tho)
“But when we meet people who do communicate well. Who do require our trust to build real lasting bonds will we be able to do it? Not without healing, not without analyzing.” I cant say much i resonate with this. This has been my journey. As much as I’d love to be in a lasting serious relationship. I dont think i could that when I feel like im bringing someone down. Not until I am capable enough in my own right to take care of myself and others.
You've got this. Relational healing does take place in relationships to an extent. It may take a few "failed" attempts, but even in these, if you are trying your best to be respectful, trust you can learn some things from each attempt and keep trying. Eventually, may you find people who want to learn to know all of you, as you learn to know all of them, slowly, over time ❤
Tiktok makes the dark empath type seem like some kind of anti hero, but from what you described its like a toxic person with w a tragic backstory.
I'd still wanna stay away from them as much as I do from your run-of-the-mill narcissist
(Edit is due to a typo)
Damn imagine how you're gonna react to his video on narcissism not hating us w NPD. Yall are ableist and saneist beyond belief.
@@rookregent5623"y'all are saneist"
- person combing through any/every comment to respond like this
🫵🤣
@@quicksilverGS do you know what saneism is?
You're engaging in it now by implying my investment in these topics is a sign of specific instability.
Straight up speaking as a dark empath... It was life and death for me or worse than death shit that I had to be able to read on the fly... Tragic backstory is an understatement. AMA if any of you have the guts... I love playing trauma chicken. I've nearly cut ties with all my best "friends" and "family"... Got a life of violence that I've survived and retaliated with... I've even done some things some kind of proud of... As miserable as I am with myself I'm proud of the things have done and have been a part of even if I'm not proud of myself at all... Being a dark empath is a lot like realizing that no one is coming to save you a long time ago and getting used to that. And then getting dumped into the regular world surrounded by regular people. The narcissist is the one that will smile to your face to your face and then bad mouth you behind your back pretty blatantly and it won't even be hard to figure it out. The Dark empath gets you share secrets with them, maybe they'll even actually share something that makes them feel really vulnerable! Maybe even the most vulnerable... Especially if it's got some kind of inherent fallback traits to it like if betraying the confidence of this secret would make you look bad anyway... Dark empaths are not pure narcissist though That's the biggest thing I can tell you all that is wrong about us. We are capable of caring and we do care. We do feel. We just are capable of turning it off at a moment's notice sometimes to survive. Narcissists will shun you to death well gossing eagerly about it. A psychopath will coldly and quietly chop you to bits. The dark empath will be screaming or crying or glaring as they stab you or shoot you. They're also makes no better infiltrator than a dark empath. There's also no better whistleblower than somebody who has dark empathic traits. Where the people that can relate to the very worst kinds of people in the world in theory at very least if not in totality and it is truly our individual choices and our own path that allows us to either recover enough to become something of a true antihero or serious problem for us, everyone around us, and the society that we navigate invisibly in many cases.
Dark empath sounds like something out of Star Trek: Next Generation. I hadn't heard that term before. I've found that the relationships and friendships I'm most content with are the ones in which I'm able to be vulnerable and communicate my feelings while leaving space for them to do the same. It's not easy or always comfortable, but it builds trust in your relationship and you become each others safe space. Also, the Light Yagami for Machiavellian was chef's kiss.
I love how mental illness and personality identities are becoming products to be marketted, bought, and owned. Mindless consumerism wins again. - Robert J. Linder
I feel like "dark empaths" are similar to sadists.
Narcissists and psychopaths lack empathy, so they are indifferent to others' suffering.
But sadists can empathize with the other person's suffering, and still want them to suffer anyway. They get some kind of satisfaction from being able to feel that the other person is suffering.
It's a little untrue to say we (narcissists, NPD) completely lack empathy.
For me and a lot of others, it's simply hard to care about issues that either aren't directly related to you, or someone you care about. It's difficult to care, and we register love differently, but we experience similar styles of attachment. We're neurodivergent, not demons. /nm
Autistic people can either be empathetic, struggle to feel empathy, or lack empathy too. Narcissists, empaths, and autistic people can all be sadists. Neurotypical people can be sadists.
Sadism is a trait, sometimes a disorder. As is narcissism (NPD =/= narcissism, the same way you can feel depressed without having disordered depression). Empathy is a trait. They don't cancel each other out, or 100% come together pre-packaged. We're all people, not character tropes.
There's just very few known about NPD beyond what we yap about to each other because the social climate stigmatizes it to the point where it's hard to find resources for NPD-specialized therapists. And non-specialized therapists tend to be ableist, the same way there's many racists who are doctors. Nobody wants to be mistreated while seeking treatment, so then they don't.
Narcissists and psychopaths will also typically enjoy harming other people. Narcs because it's a source of supply, psychos because it's an expression of power.
@@stardewpostingIf you are self aware enough to seek treatment for NPD then you probably don’t have NPD.
People with Aspd can have cognitive empathy
Those are sociopaths
I agree with the rice and beans take, but adding a little bacon to the caraotas (black beans) takes it next level!
> bacon
Gross. Live vegan.
@@rabbitcreativewhy?
@@rabbitcreativefuck no
I used to consider myself empath but over the years I come to realize I was empathic to come across likeable and to be more accepted and it worked but it doesn’t guaranteed people will stay with u. Nothing in life is guaranteed and the sooner y’all realize that the easier it is to pick and choose to be “empathic”
Elliot this might be your best video so far I fear
This has been AMAZINGLY thought out and written. ❤
I grew up in a social and home environment where this type of adaptive behavior was crucial for securing any sense of safety and peace in my day to day life. I’m now in my 30’s, and that behavior has become a harrowingly double-edged sword. I live with a pretty constant hyper vigilance toward anyone around me, and it takes a lot of compassion toward myself and others to keep it from directing the ways I relate to people, even those I’m very close with. On the one hand, all my friends say I have a warm and kind presence and I give really good hugs. One the other hand, if you’re not already someone I consider a friend, good luck getting me to warm up to you, and G-d help you if I’ve decided to write you off altogether.
Elliott continues to give some delightfully grounded and soothing takes on emotionally fraught topics. Kudos, my dude.
I gotta say, this video and the narcissism video have been incredibly healing. Thank you for your work!
Whoo another Elliot video !!
You are 1 beautiful soul, you are blessing the world with your forum. Blessings
Thank you for this conversation ❤
This was a great video very well structured and the content was most insightful 👍
"it was just a questionnaire of psychology students"
Ohohoho you do NOT want to look at the rest of psychology then.
Thank you so much for posting this! I will totally be exploring your channel. I listen to this shortly after waking up, and I went through the entire spectrum of curiosity, self identifying, facing my deepest miseries that span beyond my generation, remembering I am not the only one with these miseries and coming back into loving acceptance of everyone’s imperfections and the desire to keep working on it and helping others work on their shit too….if they want. Haha!! Great exploration!
I love messages you’ve shared in the end. To summarise video: “dark empathy” is deminishing other’s people ability to understand and communicate their feelings that creates opportunity for manipulations. That’s an imperfect tool for survival in imperfect world (aka protection mechanism as traumatic experience response). And it should be overcomed to create a safer environment for everyone and make the world a better place.
saw the notif for this at 2am, thumbnail included
What @brightblackhoney said is fantastic. We all write narratives. That's humans. I like to say that narrative is our fundamental unit of cognition.
We've *got* to write our internal narratives about other people by engaging with them and letting *their narratives* speak in those narratives. Assume and grant and respect their bodily autonomy.
Aaahhh I'm so glad I stumbled on this video.
great video as always elliot
The _Dark Empath_ paper by Heym, referenced in the description, was especially interesting. Thanks!
So, uh, have any of you ever met someone who calls themself an empath and is NOT a total dickhead?
Guess not 😢.. I’m underneath very “forgiving” person
No 😭 someone let me know if they have
What about the science? People take terms and don't look into supporting evidence. Highly sensitive people are the only academic categorization of empathy in high levels. However, empath is not in the DSM nor icd-10. Vulnerable narcissism is wild and the culture including effects of capitalism is very influential on the proliferation of these mental illnesses.
All narcissist have been traumatized but not all traumatized people are narcissistic.
All narcissists have some level of empathy but it is usually cognitive but not affective. That is what is being described in "dark empathy".
Sam Vaknin is one of the best resources for this but people don't give him due because he's highly academic, dense with content, recommends further reading and exposes the inconsistencies/debates about concepts. He developed most of the modern language used in narcissist discussion.
I think most people need to accept we have subclinical issues and our mental unhealth is very profitable.
I love this video. Reminded me of the discussion that Robert Greene had with the Diary of the CEO podcast. Made me rethink that podcast in variety of ways.
Another excellent video.
Omg new upload 🗣🔥🔥
12:40 Small aside that can probably be it's own video but I really dislike living in a world where I have to basically vet my content constantly: it takes a while for Algorithms to train and
1) It's still unreliable on purpose (Tiktok might be better but from what I've seen on youtube or goddess save you, Facebook, It really, *really* wants to throw you into a reactionary rabbit hole and will just keep trying no matter how many times you intentionally block said content and use their silly 'See less of this' options)
2) Even when it works as intended, it really only serves to lock you into their echosystem: it's why no Twitter competitor has taken off so far: nobody wants to go to Bluesky or Mastodo until most of their mutuals are there and even when that happens nobody wants to start working on a ban list from scratch again anynways so people begrudingly have kept Twitter alive: the innertia of just keep training these algorithms and keep within their finally-sorta-tuned confines is not actually a positive in any way.
You don’t need a punchy ending bc all u made ur point. Interesting and excellent vid
Ps. Thumbnail scary
Elliot Sangempath. It has a nice ring to it lol
P.S. Love the thumbnail #NeverForget
❤Elliot your work is appreciated. Thank you
More people need to here this. Myself included
I LOVE how much paulo freire you use!! brazilian fan here :3
Empathy is a skill and treating it as a superpower seems very unempathetic and self centered. Theres a mention in “adult children of emotionally immature parents” about immature adult’s tendency to create and adhere to imaginary roles. I have my issues with the book but I think this is something worth thinking about. Have you created a role for yourself and then used that role to justify your behavior, potentially in an endless circular loop? Like how an unhealthy mother may justify her behavior “because she is your mother”, have you discovered yourself as a “dark empath” to shield yourself from the reality of grasping for control? Are you looking for a justification for placing yourself above others?
Edit: to the people in the comments calling others they know “dark empaths” on assumption: Please stop. It’s the same thing. It’s not healthy. Quit putting boxes around other people.
Brazilian viewer here and you're 100% correct on rice and beans
i think the syncretism between subjectivism and objectivism that freire does is very interesting. It really makes you think what "material conditions" are. Fascists and capitalists tend to be objectivist, but on the left we have a subjectivity problem - meaning that we tend to put everything on a plane so relative there is not much we cannot do as society.
Welp, this is three years after you posted this, but it resonated with me so so much.
I have been out for quite some time and it has been difficult getting in contact with people for the medical part of my transition.
So I have felt immense pressure to present as male, to try to make myself pass in order to be seen as valid, especially since I don't have HRT yet or top surgery.
It's hard trying to be authentic, because I feel most people see me as a woman in 'male clothes' anyways but it's the most I can try to be recognised as male.
I sincerely hope that I will be able to dress femme again when I have passed for enough time but right now it feels impossible.
'empath' is a term used to frame someone as a good person, claiming that having empathy makes someone a good person. this is used by empaths to abuse people with personality disorders.
The first time I came across the idea of the "dark empath" was when I did researching something called "emotional checking". An emotional checker is essentially someone who lives in a constant state of anxiety and always checks the emotions of those around them to avoid bad things from happening. Like making sure you're partner or friend is happy. Because if they are happy when you're around them, then they won't abandon you. Its like living on survival mode where you feel you have to know the emotional state of you're loved ones because you're anxious that something bad might happen if you don't. So an emotional checker is called a dark empath.
Ive been working to be better about actually expressing my needs to people and not going woth my immediate assumptions (usually that they're mad at me for something). In turn, ive begun to hate the silent treatment and other tactics. People arent mind readers, you gotta communicate when things bother you
god these comments are more rancid than usual
Thank you for that video. It makes a lot of sense to me. I have "dark empathy" even for animals. I like the animals everyone deslike, like spiders and snakes. I have deep empathy for those who go to "the dark side". It made everything clearer to me.
I know some family member that would constantly try to pressure me till I would eventually get violent with them, now I'm seen as a violent individual, she always makes absolute statements like we always get into arguments but I rarely start the arguments it's usually when she tries to make me sound insane or talk down to me. Nowadays I just ignore them as much as I can.
nuance is radical!
describing a paper as "a reductivist mystification of social behavior... [but it] can at least be interesting" is such a damning comment in academia. shots fired
I was raised in a cult and was obviously horrendously abused. As a result I became mentally ill 🥳 and deeply empathetic. But because one of the methods used to abuse me was intense gaslighting I’d constantly check with those around me to make sure I was experiencing reality and that my empathy wasn’t lying to me. And very rarely was it but as I grew older I learned that asking people what they want and how they feel makes them appreciate you even if you already know. As a kid I had to analyze people and situations quickly and in great detail to protect myself, my friends, and my siblings and I got very good at it. It caused me a lot of pain that wasn’t mine to feel. A couple years ago I started to let it go because I realized how selfish it was outside of dangerous environments. Constantly applying other peoples’ experiences to my own and focusing on how I should make them feel instead of letting them choose is manipulative and exhausting. I had to be so manipulative when I was a child that I couldn’t develop my own personality until I was an adult. I’m constantly checking myself and explaining my own intentions to make sure I’m not manipulating those around me. It can be confusing to those just getting to know me and annoying when I just want to move on but I want to make sure that those around me have agency. If nothing else I am making sure that those that are my friends are truly choosing to be my friends. Empathy has many upsides but it’s not as empowering as compassion and respect.
People who go out of their way to mention they are an empath has been a big red flag for me. It has been proven true almost every time to be a manipulator or narcissist.
You're gonna be real unhappy with his next(or the next after can't remember) video lmfao
people-pleasing is reverse narcissism
(and is no better)
@@quicksilverGSit also can be a very common trauma response/survival strategy i.e. fawn (fight/flight/freeze/fawn)🙂
Eh im an empath and im not happy with that. I dont use that term though, too edgy and negative connotation like this. A better term is highly sensitive person. You can pick up on other person feelings, we either internalize it or filter it out. Its actually quite annoying and requires alot of emotional control to filter it out and figuring out the source, pinpoint if it's coming from us or if its coming from other people. Regardless I dont use it to hurt other people or manipulate but its 100% better than having 0 emotions, those are your narcissist psychopaths who don't feel anything for other people.
@@semekiizuio again, yall with using "narcissist" and "psychopath" like you know anything about NPD or ASPD. GROW UP. That's not what it's like having them. Not even like being Schizoid, which I also have, and is still often portrayed as having no emotions.
Rice and beans is, indeed, the best side dish. Hugs from Brazil :P
God forbid one of theses self-perscribed "empaths" guesses your mood incorrectly, then when you show disagreement with their preconceived world view, they act like its your fault and your hiding something from them. It's maddening.
Check out Richard Schwartz's work on Internal Family Systems. The overlap with this is uncanny
your videos breathe life into me
This video made me realize how in some ways I’m a dark empath. I hide so much of myself away, and I choose to act only as I suspect others like me acting. I try to read others, which is unfair to them. It’s just so hard to trust after my family lost all of it.
yeah it's hard to heal that type of relational trauma :'( hope you can do so with good guidance & support
Love your videos -subscribed!On a side note - do you / anyone in the comment section have tips for tailoring Tik Tok content to be educational/political. I had to delete the app because it was consuming too much of my time but definitely miss the good side of it!
you had me there for a sec with "ricin beans." lol
I've been in therapy for trauma (child abuse mostly but other stuff too) since I was 16, I'm in family therapy now, I just want a relationship with my family back and for him to say sorry. I am lucky where I live I get carers for that and autism and I sometimes need their help figuring out if when I got triggered it is because of a trauma thing I have and I need to figure out what it was and try and work on it, or if i got triggered because the person did something bad and I need to talk to then about their behaviour. It can be hard to tell when it happens so I try not to do anything until they help. I used to live near a person who behaved terribly and always used having trauma as an excuse (like playing really loud music in an apartment building at 3am through speakers and when people complained instead of using headphones the person ran through the building bashing on people's doors calling them rude names and then the next day saying 'music is part of my therapy i have a right to live here safely' yes she did, but so did other people who couldn't because of her behaviour which could have been helped by using headphones. She definitely tried doing the empath thing on me saying how I was feeling and stuff but honestly I just think people should try to be nice to people, the world would be better if it was like that but sadly it isn't.
Contrapoints said it best empaths just decide how people feel and tell them that. Ive noticed they do it to autistic people a lot bceuase we display empathy very different through dharing experiences and empaths think we want the focus on us when we want the person to know they arent alone
I think now my question lies in the difference between “dark empathy” and codependent traits. I kept trying to decipher the nuance of the conversation which I assume is to help not put so much “therapy talk” or “diagnostic” criteria into the ethos. Im asking in terms of the real codependency, not of “two over-reliant people in one relationship” but the over-functioning of an individual to make up for material or perceived lack in others as a form of unhealthy external validation that is harmful to themself and those around them. Sometimes codependent people can even create lack, they don’t have to necessarily be attracted to people already with lack. I think maybe the “dark” is that people are trying to emphasize the harmfulness of the “empathy” but I wonder if this is describing “empathy” at all. Since codependency is not empathy. Most people with codependent traits do not think they are harmful or malicious, they’re just not used to/comfortable with balance in relationships. In addition, they do not want to be abandoned and therefore manipulate (whether knowingly or otherwise) a place in one’s life. What helps me process the concept is visualizing that narcissism and codependency are like magnets or almost mirrors (“opposite” inverse) of one another, sometimes existing in the same person. The extreme toxicity of both also shows in their relationship with one another. I’ll try to rewatch for more understanding. I don’t have TikTok to flesh out the concept.
1: never use tiktok to flesh anything out. Worst idea I've ever heard and that I'm hearing it at all means something is wrong with reality.
2: I have npd and codependent tendencies, so you're kinda right. /neu I'd hope you're not speaking negatively of my mental illness but I can't tell.
1:13 loved the Zelda reference
So I have a problem in my life rn. Now that I’m watching this, I’m realizing I was expressing one of the dark empathetic traits which is the silent treatment and making someone feel uncomfortable. This wasn’t my intent originally I just shut down after everything fell apart in this particular situation and the fact that I had to see this person and interact with this person was way too much for me and my emotional and mental state and I began to go silent and overtly express my discomfort through body language towards/around this person. This has gone on for like 2-3 weeks and I’m feeling a bit better today. I’m feeling ready to stop the passive aggressive body language but now I feel awkward and embarrassed about my behavior. Which leads to the other point you mentioned of ppl expressing dark empathy of not addressing the issue but that person actually did that one first and I’m pretty sure has moved on from it. The whole problem has been tormenting me relentlessly. I’m ready to move past it though.
Thanks
One take I've seen is that the "dark empath" is somone who eventually had to learn to use the tactics of their environment in order to properly survive it. A lot of times these behaviours are normailized within a family system to the extent that some don't realize they're exhibiting these traits until they leave the environment that validated them.
This was great
The second part of the quote around 18minutes can be applied to the way that everyone who engaged in good faith politics sees their ideology. We all think that we are trying to see the world with as little bias as possible and be inquisitive.
i did three push-ups once so now i can read minds actually im basically edward cullen at this point
Honestly traditional martial arts is a great way to really hone your empathy also having a pet. Theres a reason martial artist turn out to be total sweethearts. Sometimes though.
Honestly every human has empathy its not rare its just some people have been able to ignore it or let their empathetic senses dull.
Its just high empathy people can take on some of those emotions without meaning too. It feels like their own. Once you can learn to regulate and set hard lines, because emotional immature people are icky, you can separate your feelings from theirs.
Again every human has empathy we're just the one species on Earth who often see it as either rare or a weakness.
If it ain't on the dsm-5 it ain't a thing, is my rule of thumb for internet fads nowadays
Elliot Sang for President!
With the narcissism issue I would like us to consider ocd. Many people with ocd struggle with thinking they might be a horrible person and seeking confirmation that they’re not. It doesn’t mean they have npd.
what do you mean side, rice & beans is THE dish!
TLDR: "You can't mind read, bro"
Which is kinda ridiculous to need to say, but it's been so necessary to keep in mind because I got really good at reading people's emotions, and you can perceive a lot that other people don't, but to really be able to connect, you need to use that as a cue to ask how someone is feeling and how you can help, or if they even need or want help.
I mean… do we need to adopt ‘Dark Empathy’ when ‘Emotional Manipulation’ was right there?
It’s a misnomer right? Because it’s not actual empathy but a coping mechanism to get whatever level of safety they (we) are aspiring to.
Empathy doesn’t make you a good person. Just like any trait, it matters how you use it.
I’m pretty sure the Dark Empath has always been there
I'm glad that I got diagnosed with PTSD before tiktok told me I was a dark empath lol
I'm so quirky. I'm a Dark Empath. It's so hard being me, but I keep doing it. You're welcome.
(not at all a cope for my own trauma)
You’re so brave 🙏🏻
I think you mean that "dark empathy is just a thing that people [exhibit not inhibit] in difficult environments." 20:55
I have autism and I have always had this need to overexplain my feelings to someone, because how deeply misunderstood I have felt since childhood. I don't open up to people truly ever, because masking has become the safest way to interact with people, but when I open up about something I feel especially vulnerable, because I never do that. So I was friends with someone for three years and I first opened up to them only after those three years, and the person handled the conversation poorly, I guess I was hoping for some basic understanding, but they were a little careless with their words and it really hurt me. I remember I stopped talking to them for a couple of days in order to process what happened, and they got so angry with me I gave them the "silent treatment" for no reason and told everyone how manipulative I am. Now, I wasn't diagnosed back then - I didn't know I am autistic, but I noticed this pattern where people would think I am emotionally manipulating them when I just don't intuitively know what social conduct I should implement in certain situations.
I have never officially been diagnosed but I relate with those with autism and Asperger's. It's more of a blessing than a curse.