I'm not sure why, but I've noticed over the years that I'm not very empathetic towards other people. When friends, family, or classmates are feeling bad, or are sad I try to act like I care, and try to comfort them (like most people would do I suppose?). My problem, however is that I feel that these actions are fake, and are in fact very unsympathetic and because of this, I'm a bad person. Maybe even psychotic. Is this just an irrational fear, or is there a possibility there's some truth to this?

Sounds normal to me... what ISN'T normal is someone internalizing someone else's problems. Normal people don't obess over unrelated peoples issues.

Having empathy means yeah... you can understand haow they feel and you might even care... but the fact is unless its your family or spouse... and sometimes your absolute best friend that's been their your entire life... it stops at that. Because most people have enough dealing with their own issues and responsibilities.

If you obsess over othe peoples bad fortune... that isn't empathy that is more indicative of a mental illness.

Because it all boils down to this... its their life and not yours... and it's their problem and not yours... YOU can say you truly feel bad for them... and mean it... you can even offer them some temporary help... as long as it doesn't detract from the important things in your own life... And you WILL offer less help as you find more and more people that you helped when asked that will not do it when YOU need help of any sort. Trust me... been there, done that.

A true Narcissistic person really wouldn't give a hoot at all... and try to steer the topic back to them. You don't appear to be like that at all.

Its all about balance... too much either way and you have problems.

It's normal to sometimes have an emotional response to other people's upset and hurt, but not always. For example, at my uncle's funeral, I was sad to loose him but not particularly close with him so did not feel like crying. When I saw my father crying though, who I never see cry, I got choked up which really had to do with how much I love my dad, and how close it is to me when he is hurting.

When my close friends have lost parents (we're all in our forties and fifties so this is happening more and more), it is important to me to attend the wake and funeral because I know they are hurting and I am genuinely sorry for their loss. However, when I go to the wake or funeral, I do not feel like crying over the death, but I might get a little choked up or teary eyed if I see my friend crying, for example.

On the other hand, I don't get at all emotional over more minor things that friends experience. I care enough to be there as a friend and offer what help and support I can, but I don't take it on as my own crisis or loss. That's empathy - not feeling what they feel, but being able to imagine what I might feel in their situation.

A lot has to do with how close you are to the sad or upsetting event or situation. We had such a situation over the past couple of days in my home. My son was in a horrible car accident - he got away from it with only minor injuries but it was really a devastating accident - the car is obliterated. His best friend witnessed the accident and was the first person on the scene to help. Both boys were personally very impacted by this, as was I. Though I did not see the accident happen, I arrived at the scene to see my absolutely unrecognizeable car wrapped around a tree, my son in a stretcher on an ambulance with shards of glass sticking out of his hands, face and neck, emergency vehicles everywhere. I knew my son was OK and I frankly didn't care about anything but that my son and his friend "Joe" were OK. But I had these personal connections to this scene. I had been in the room when Joe made the decision to take his own car that evening, instead of riding with my son in my car. Had Joe been in the car, he would have been killed. It was my car - that I've driven for 6 years. To see it obliterated, where the only thing recognizeable were my license plates - that was a reality check. To see my son and know that this could have ended differently - man, it was just jarring and it took me two full days just to wind down from the adrenalyn rush of the trauma. My son and his friend, too. The boys were at the house all weekend, and I had to be near them. I just kept feeding them and so on. But when other people came over, they had no sense of what we were feeling. They saw the pictures and were shocked, and they wanted to hear every detail of what happened and who did what when after it happened. But their shock quickly disapated after initially seeing the pictures, and while they somewhat understood what the boys were feeling, they didn't completely and didn't feel it themselves. To the two boys it was a life-changing experience. To their friends it was the "exciting thing that happened Friday night in this boring town". If the other kids started shaking and crying and feeling all the anxiety the two involved boys had felt, it would be kind of odd and probably fake.

There's a maturity to NOT being all fake in the face of someone else's trauma. Some people try to make it about them to redirect the attention to themselves, instead of recognizing their role on the sidelines of just being a friend and support. You may just be more mature than some of the people around you.