Has your disease made you a better person?

From time to time I come across replies from posters saying that their disease has made them better people. I don't understand what this means and it's probably because I don't know what their lives were like prior to coming down with a chronic or idiopathic condition.

Has your illness made you a better person? How so? What were you like before you developed your symptoms? Many say they have become more tolerant, more appreciative, calmer etc. What were you like before?

 

I can't say it made me a better person. It has definitely made me a different person.

If I had a choice I would return to the old me, not for internal reasons but for all I have lost due to my symptoms.

 

Interesting topic, Intrepid. Thank you for that.

For me it has been a journey to the brink of what many folks here deal with, enough to know what it is that they feel, from physical symptoms, to psychological symptoms. As a result I believe I can empathize with folks with whom I otherwise would not. And I believe empathy, or sympathy, when acted upon appropriately, gives evidence that one is a better person than one would be if one did not act at all. Empathy or sympathy left unrequited by actions to try to in some way help the person toward whom one has such feelings is just emotion. So to the extent that the experiences with Meniere's have brought me to the point that I am willing, and do take steps to try help folks who suffer with the same or similar symptoms, or other folks who just suffer, then I do believe I am a better person for the experience.

Hank

 

Isn't empathy something we feel regardless of whom it is directed toward? Were you not an empathetic person before? Do we have to experience every condition to feel empathy for others or can we simply relate to their state because we're kind people to begin with?

You bring up an interesting point. Maybe some posters were uncaring and selfish before their illness and being in a position of need, help, understanding, support made them realize how self absorbed they'd always been.

 

Humans are not hard-wired for empathy. You are taught it or you learn it from suffering yourself. You dont have to suffer the exact illness to empathize with someone.

And to say that posters who learned empathy from this disease were selfish and uncaring before is silly. It's not a dichotomous variable. They could easily have been caring ppl who just got a bit more caring.

 

I thought that's what our mirror neurons were there for.

 

It's not my thought so chill.

I was elaborating on Hank's views and offering him the opportunity to further elucidate his point.

 

They have to trained to work properly. Take note of what part of the brain they reside in. When does that part of the brain fully develop?

Everyone has mirror neurons. Not everyone is empathetic. Follow the logic.

 

I understand that. I was pointing out that the fact that we have 'em means we are hardwired for empathy/sympathy/imitative learning etc. Whether we choose to or even can (antisocial peeps probably don't) depends on learning/training. But the mechanism is in place.

 

I think I was a pretty good person before. Hearing loss and dealing with cochlear hydrops have made me better educated and better able to deal with mytery illnesses. I am also more sympathetic to people with sensory losses because I get it.

 

I believe we can only empathize when we have experienced what another experiences. Now, empathy only goes so far. There is no way that I or anyone can know exactly what another feels, about anything. But I believe that having a taste of what another goes through is enough to create a working degree of empathy.

Regarding whether humans are wired for empathy, of course we are speaking metaphorically. But unless the circuit is present, then empathy has no route from which to proceed. I believe that we are all born with the wiring to empathize. And perhaps this is a good way to express what I am trying to say. Before I had these symptoms, that circuit was not being utilized. And since nothing flowed to and fro on that circuit, then any action that may have proceeded due to knowledge of this kind of suffering, must have passed along a more indirect route to cause me to act. But because empathy is a more direct route to action than is sympathy, or so I offer for consideration, then utilizing that direct wiring that was otherwise dormant, might make me, and anyone in my position, a better person, perhaps just marginally, but better nonetheless.

 

Or you may not have had the circuit in place at all and neuroplasticity allowed the circuit to grow. One can never tell with the blunt instruments we have in neuroscience.

 

And then again, there are some folks, regardless of any commonality in suffering or experiences, with whom I find it very difficult to summon empathy.

 

Has PLF made you a better person, S?

 

Are you speaking to me?

 

I was asking CGR but it's really a free for all. You said it made you more empathetic. Has it changed you in other ways also?

 

In general, or in regards to empathy?

I don't think it's made me any better or worse. I'm known by my students and friends as being extremely empathetic, although i realize that i don't come off that way online. I have difficulty expressing myself in writing in the manner that i really think, so i come off as being cold and "scientific" in the online world. But it's ok with me. I am what i am and i'm happy with myself.

 

I didn't know what PLF was. I know that PLO made Will Stockdale a better person though. (You might have to look that one up)

Other ways...hmm. Well, I think it all boils down to action. Whether one thinks kind or kinder thoughts is not what really makes one 'a better person.' 'Better people' show it by example. They live it. But I expect that the experiences to which I refer which have elicited certain actions in myself, which would not have been forthcoming before, I do not necessarily attribute in total to empathy. I believe that certain actions I attribute to empathy, and the consequences of these actions, themselves elicit additional actions, which derive from the first, which actions I might offer are actions of a better person than the first. I believe that one's actions and the consequences of those actions feedback as additional input to help determine one's next actions.

And here is at least one key to becoming a better person, I believe, and that is that regardless of what actions one takes due to empathy or whatever cause, any feedback mechanism that causes improvement from there depends upon the FEELING one receives from having helped, or tried to help, another person in the first place. If some feeling of worth does not derive from one's actions helping another, then those actions will be hard to summon again. But if those actions and the consequences result in feelings of additional worth, then the end result is a person more willing that even before to help others, AKA, a better person still.

And I also believe that feelings of inferiority, and all that those feelings cause, are many times due to the lack of action on the person who feels inferior, to try to help others. One's feelings of inferiority naturally subside when one helps another, or tries to help another who is suffering.

Our actions that uplift us to further help others, make us better people. Our actions that deny help to others, make us worse people. And both are apt to spiral in their respective directions.

 

I understand what you are saying, but I guess since I don't believe in free will then I don't differentially empathize with ppl.

 

In general...more mindful, more self aware, live more in the moment, general sense of contentment, more receptive rather than reactive, sweat the small stuff less....something along those lines.