Sympathising comes from the word sympathy, which is similar to having compassion. Empathy, on the other hand, means having the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
The two verbs are often used interchangeably, although they have fundamental differences.
When you sympathise with someone, you understand what they are going through, from your point of view. You see someone fall and scrape their knee and feel sorry for them because they’re hurting, but you don’t necessarily feel what they are going through. You see their pain from your point of view, where you stand.
When you empathise, you not only understand what the person is going through, but you also share their feeling. In the example above, you would feel their pain, because you are able to put yourself in their shoes and see it from their point of view. Putting it in very simple terms: sympathising involves judgement while empathising is completely free of it.
How can this help you as a survivor of abuse?
During your healing journey, there may be times when you hear someone say they sympathise with their abusers. You may ask yourself how the hell someone can understand someone’s abuser. This may upset you and bring up feelings of anger. That is natural and understandable. I can empathise with you because I have felt the same way in the past.
And yet, I also understand those who say the above and can sympathise with them.
Throughout my own journey, through my coaching certification, and now while doing the psychotherapy certification, not to mention through my own therapy, I have learned a lot. In a previous article I wrote, Abusive parents aren’t always bad people, I briefly speak about this.
Abusers often do what they have experienced themselves. Most of our (abusive) parents grew up in abusive households as well, without being aware of it. Think about it: emotional and psychological abuse is something that wasn’t really spoken of until a few years ago.
Does that mean what they do/did is ok? No, absolutely not! Abuse is never the answer! If you are reading this, chances are you’ve experienced emotional abuse from your parents growing up (and later on in other relationships). Having that in mind, answer me this: can you honestly say you have never ever acted in a similar, if not the same way as your abusers, in your life?
Let me go first: there are moments when I lose my patience and yell at my son. That is not the way I want to raise him, and yet it has happened. Does that make me a bad mother? No, it doesn’t. The difference with my parents, who did and still would do that to me, is that they kept doing it. They never stopped to think if what they were doing was right or how that made me feel and even after I brought certain things up, they never once tried to understand how I felt, instead simply putting the blame on me for being “too sensitive” or not taking their feelings into consideration (blaming the victim).
I am aware that my parents did what they were taught, what they themselves saw while growing up and that I sometimes in the heat of the moment don’t realise I am doing the same thing. I have sympathy for them, and for myself. However, I understand what it is like to be so excited to show something to my mom or just want her attention and what it feels like to be yelled at because I wasn’t patient while she finished something. I can empathise with my son.
Having empathy, I think, is the key thing for a survivor. Whether we want to admit it or not (and it took me a long time to understand and admit this to myself) we were not modelled healthy and respectful relationships growing up. If you did not experience healthy behaviours in those formative childhood years, how can you expect to do it differently than your parents, without empathy? It is empathy for your younger self that makes you want to change, and that makes you start this healing journey. You want to do better, be better, and break the patterns so you can be a better mother, father, wife, husband, friend and overall better human being. And in order to do this correctly, to really heal, you need to learn to also have sympathy.
Tell me one thing you empathise with, with your younger self or your inner child. And tell me one thing you sympathise with when it comes to your abusive parents.
Great post!