Lack of empathy towards "family/life" things?

[u/jackaa_fackaa]

NOTE: Throughout this post i try to be as objective as i can with a serious outlook on it. I'm genuinely just confused as i do *not understand these things. I have tried immensely but i just cannot get behind it. So please, if it reads as very negative, it is not my intention, just to clear that out. Also, this is written in a very weird way, so i apologise. I'm not a native speaker.*

I'm not sure how to get my thoughts into text form but I am unable to empathise with things such as family/life achievements, but strictly connected to family.

A little background, M20 here, I come from a neglectful and abusive family, so family as a concept is very distorted to me as i have no good experiences with it. I'm always surprised if the parents of someone treat their children as normal parents should.

As a child, I was always the "black sheep" and outcasted from all conversations and interactions, always disregarded and considered stupid or "too young". So no surprises why I have some resentment towards the concept as a whole.

Now here's where the "problem" lies. Let's say, my half sister just gave birth. Why am i expected to be happy for her and jump around her as of an outer worldly miracle just happened? I don't feel anything. In my mind, it's just a normal human process of life, just as idk, excretion, I mean, it doesn't take much to become pregnant, just need a man to "nut" in you and there. Not so "special" when you rationalize it.

I'm also the type of person who will not pretend to appease other people for their own ego. Maybe because I despise lying and liars. I'd rather be honest than pretend to be something I'm not.

Back to the giving birth thing. Everyone is so surprised when i just shrug my shoulders when I'm asked information that i couldn't care less for. "Oh how many weeks, this, that?" I don't know??? Why am i supposed to know these things? Why should i be interested just because it's a normalized societal thing? I don't even really have contacts with my half sister as we're way too different in age and everything, really. I just couldn't care less what people do in their life. I just subconsciously seem to pick apart things that are "interesting" and "boring" and store them in my memory. Then again, my memory is filled with so much stuff that the average person might find useless if they're not centered in such field of interest. (Art, history, biology, etc.) I try not to be eccentric (I'm an artist) but it still comes out that way. I just wish to be normal at times.

I'm really confused. I always have to tread on eggshell whenever i have to speak just so i don't say something wrong or in a wrong tone or with a wrong facial expression/gesture. It's tiring.

I genuinely feel like a robot with "learned" emotions but heavily lacking empathy in certain areas. I tend to rationalize things more than "feel". Maybe that's why i suck so much at it.

Does anyone else experience this? High empathy in one area and little to no empathy in the other? How do you cope/work with this?

I'm happily open to any discussions on such topics.

[u/bishtap]

If you had a wife that gave birth to your child then you probably would see significance of it.

Or how amazing it is that a human produces a human

It's more incredible biologically than urinating. It's very life changing. It's Bringing a person into the world. The concept that a little person grows inside somebody. It happens all the time but that doesn't mean it's not an incredible thing in nature. And for the person whose body changes for it.

Being distant from the pregnant person or relative is something else.

[u/jackaa_fackaa → u/bishtap]

I'm antinatalist so i do not sadly see this as an inherintly positive thing. If not, I'd be filled with a sense of dread. Being the reason of another person's existence is more of a tragedy to me as I'm riddled with genetic predispositions to mental disorders and other health conditions that have been passed on for 4 generations.

And no, the concept of growing life does not have an "incredible" appeal to me. A disease can also be life-changing yet it's not celebrated. (Unless you have enemies you want dead) What i find incredible is people doing things that are out of their "biological" ability, not in line with "nature", simply put.

[u/bishtap → u/jackaa_fackaa]

I didn't say it's an inherently positive thing. I also didn't say it was incredibly appealing.

And there are many different senses to the term incredible.