I am sure most of us must have come across stories involving people who go out of their way to help others. Surely helping & saving someone’s life in case of accidents, natural calamities like floods & epidemics, or any other life – threatening event is a noble act of humanity. But, can this so – called virtuous behaviour of being Sympathetic, become a vice? Yes, if a person is unable to set limits of helping others in day – to – day life. Excess of anything is bad & being oversympathetic is no exception. So, lets understand what is this behaviour.
What is Oversympathy?
Sympathy refers to the mental state where you feel sorry for the pain or suffering that another person is going through & tend to console that person to reduce the emotional strain. This seemingly innocuous behaviour becomes a problem if the sympathetic person is unable to control his own emotions, starts getting personally affected by the problems of others & distresses himself, which is then called Oversympathy.
Manifestations of Oversympathetic behaviour
While most will agree that being unsympathetic & unhelpful is against basic human nature, the extreme opposite behaviour of being oversympathetic, is equally harmful. That’s because, an oversympathiser starts troubling himself unnecessarily with constant thoughts of the distressed person’s problems & loses his own peace of mind. Such a person usually takes the burden of solving that other person’s problems even when he is not expected to do so or helps beyond limits with scant regard for self.
Common examples of situations where Oversympathetic persons help beyond limits:
Anyone asking for any help be it money, food, resources or shelter by narrating a sad tragic story.
Horrible sad events shown on TV, websites, newspapers or any other form of social media.
Anyone hospitalized because of a critical illness or a serious injury
Family members, Relatives, Neighbours or Friends or even Strangers asking for any kind of help.
Any Religious function or Charity or Funds organized for the needy.
What makes a person Over – Sympathetic?
The exact reason varies from person to person but these are the commonly observed causes.
Distorted Perception of the Self & the Situation
The oversympathetic person feels as if he is the only human born on this earth to solve the problems of everybody else irrespective of familiar persons or strangers. His innate tendency of being compassionate is abnormal because he perceives the problem faced by others to be larger than what it actually is. Hence, he helps unnecessarily & excessively to the point of being meddlesome but realizes this only when others reject & refuse to acknowledge his well – intended deeds. This makes him unhappy but he refuses to learn from it & instead keeps repeating the same mistakes without introspection. He fails to understand the basic difference between a helper & a hindrance.
An oversympathiser is unable to see the reality beneath the façade of someone’s tragic story. More so he often refuses to believe that appearances can be deceptive & that one needs to verify the truth before helping someone who may be merely pretending to be in trouble.
Hence, an oversympathetic person not only goes out of his way to help such fraudsters but also on knowing the truth, tries to justify his own actions & gives his own theory as to why the crook cheated him. Even if others negate that his assumptions are inaccurate & incorrect, he still indirectly keeps supporting the wrongdoer.
People – Pleasers
This oversympathiser readily helps others just because he doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. While being sensitive to the feelings of others indicates a caring attitude, helping others by saying ‘Yes’ just to please them, indicates indiscretion. Such a person will say ‘Yes’ even when he can say ‘No’ & get away with it. He states that he feels happy when others are happy because of his helpful nature but in reality, others make him a scapegoat & laugh scornfully behind his back over his foolishness.
Image – Consciousness
Low Self – Confidence coupled with Low Self – Esteem creates a strong need to be valued & appreciated. An Oversympathiser wants to create an image of being a good – natured human in order to be praised & accepted by others & believes that its possible only by helping others beyond reasonable limits. He fears that if he refuses to help, then the other person will feel bad & then will have a bad opinion about him. He eventually feels disappointed because while longing for the good opinion of others, he failed to realize that manipulators are actually misusing his generosity for their own ulterior motives.
Guilt & Religion
An Oversympathetic person often feels that by refusing to help someone in need, he is doing a crime or a sin. For him, helping others is his moral duty & to justify it, he quotes religious teachings & spiritual preachings like:
Refusing to help is wrong when the Almighty has given you the power & resources to do so.
If someone comes to us asking for help, then it means that we have been ordered by the Almighty to help him.
Such a person forgets the basic truth of life that the world existed before him, exists with him & will continue to exist even after his death. No human on this earth is indispensable or irreplaceable. Hence, even if he is unable to help someone, there will be somebody else to help that needy.
The Oversympathetic behaviour can also be:
A form of Self – punishment in order to atone for a real or perceived wrongdoing.
A compensation for the guilt arising out of one’s inability to help oneself or someone in a similar troublesome event that occurred in the past.
Bad Effects of being Over – Sympathetic
Self – inflicted Suffering due to Self – Denial & Poverty caused by Overspending one’s time, energy, money or resources on others.
Self Depreciation when taken for granted
Due to his excessive benevolence & lack of Self – respect, people contact the oversympathetic person at odd hours for help, disregard the trouble & inconvenience that he will have to go through & exploit him unscrupulously.
Worse is Ungratefulness & Disrespect, despite being helpful which only further lowers down the person’s morale.
Emotional Blackmail
If the Oversympathiser refuses to help, then the exploiter uses flattery & moral sermons to persuade him & finally as a last resort, may call him Hard – hearted, Selfish or even Inhumane.
This vicious cycle of Emotional vulnerability, Guilt & Atonement forces the Oversympathiser to help beyond limits, while exploiters enjoy at his expense.
Problems in Personal Relationships
An Oversympathetic person’s near & dear ones may find it difficult to put up with his undue generosity towards complete strangers who may be crooks intending to make a quick buck. This altriusm may cause domestic & even marital discord if it strains the already limited resources.
Solutions
Love yourself first
Any person on this earth has to remember that he has to think of himself because nobody else is going to do that for him. Also, prioritizing oneself & giving importance to one’s own needs doesn’t always mean being Selfish. Loving yourself shows that you are concerned about your well – being. What you think of yourself should be more important than what others think of you.
I always remember the advisory announced on airplanes that in case of Emergency, put on your own Oxygen mask First & then help others.
Introspection
You can solve a problem only when you first accept it. Hence, Self – analysis is very important to understand your strengths & weaknesses. This is easier said than done because the oversympathiser rarely realizes on his own that his overhelpful nature is actually harmful for him.
Here, feedback from family & friends can be useful in identifying & assessing the problem.
One needs to realize the difference between who really needs help & who is a fraudster in order to avoid being exploited. Similarly, setting the limits of helping others can help avoid Guilt pangs.
Admit your mistakes & learn from them
History repeats itself for those who fail to learn from it & the same holds true here as well. So, if you have faced problems because of your overhelpful nature, you need to accept that you made a mistake by helping a wrong person & try to avoid repeating it. Else, the oversympathiser will suffer at the hands of different exploiters time and again.
Diary
Writing down an unpleasant experience is often painful because we usually want to forget it asap. But writing down both what we have done & what we should have done with reasons, helps us understand the difference in the outcomes & gives a better idea of how to deal with similar situations in the future. Write down the questions you were asked & also think about the possible questions you will be asked in the future when you refuse to help so that you can prepare your answers accordingly. All this will help you identify the tricks that most exploiters use to emotionally blackmail you.
Learn to say ‘No’
‘No’ is a Negative word & means ‘Refusal’ but when used rightly, can save the oversympathiser from a lot of trouble. Hence, practise saying ‘No’ in front of the mirror at least 10 times for different situations where you wanted to say ‘No’ but were unable to do so.
The 5 Ws to Set Limits
If anyone asks you to help, remember the 5 Ws:
Who is asking you for help?
What kind of help does he want?
Why is he asking YOU for help & not anybody else?
When is he asking you for help?
Where is he asking you for help?
The answers to all the questions are completely dependent on the situation you are facing but if you know the person asking for help is unreliable, is asking for money which you feel he is going to waste, comes to you only in trouble & forgets you later, then you should know by now, whether to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
Also, when you are confused whether you should say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to help, pause for a while to analyze as to what will happen if you say ‘No’ rather than if you say ‘Yes’. If there is more harm in saying ‘Yes’ than saying ‘No’ then you should say ‘No’.
Even when you decide to help, set limits about the extent to which you want to help. This limit can be with respect to time, money or quantity of resource you are being asked to provide. Once you have set the limit, try to stay firm on it so that you save yourself from suffering because of own your acts of kindness.
Look before you leap
Most fraudsters create false tragic stories or false sense of urgency to convince the oversympathiser to help them. So, before you help, think twice.
If you find something fishy or you surely don’t want to help but cannot say ‘No’ easily, then you can try the following tricks:
Make an excuse that you need to phone your parents or friends & go away from that person.
Actually call up someone at that very moment & ask their opinion if you are confused. You can talk & walk away at the same time, if they advise you not to help.
Breathe deeply for a while & then say you are not feeling well, so as to go away from that person.
Say you want to help but don’t have the money or resource asked for & again walk away from that person.
In the above tricks, I have repeatedly advised you to walk away as far as you can, so that the other person cannot persuade you. Else if you stand there, then the exploiter will try every trick he knows to prolong an avoidable conversation & to see it to it that you agree to help him.
Professional help
If everything fails & the problem persists, then you need to seek Professional medical help from a doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist.
Lastly, remember every human emotion is important & so, is being Sympathetic. If we become Unsympathetic & Hard – hearted, then that too will be bad for humanity. But everything in life has to be like salt. If put in the right amount, it makes the food tasty but an excess makes the food terribly unpalatable. So, be it Fear, Anger, Sadness, Guilt, Envy or any other human emotion, it needs to be understood & channelized correctly else it will have a detrimental effect on oneself & the society.
The information provided here is for Educational Purposes Only.
It is NOT intended to & hence should NOT be used as a substitute for the advice of a Qualified Medical Professional.
The author is Not Responsible for any Action taken by Any Individual after reading the article.
