I reached this same conclusion. Self described "empaths" aren't more empathetic, they're more sympathetic.
Empathy as emotional simulation - feeling the emotions of another human.
Sympathy as pity - feeling your own emotions in relation to another subject.
One clear sign is that you can't have empathy with groups, you can only have sympathy for them, and 99% of the time when someone is telling about how empathetic they are it's about some group.
Empathy isn't selectively felt, it's a blanket. It can be selectively repressed though, through ideology. A mark of ideologues is selective empathy, which ironically is another trait that all "empaths" seem to share, the strange absence of empathy for the out group.
The Empathetic Ones don't mirror another's internal state. In fact, ask them to empathize with something positive, like a man who just won a tennis match, and they're completely unable. Their read of others is almost always wrong.
Instead they project unto others the misery they're addicted to feeling, and then indulge in ascetic suffering fantasies. They're negative emotion addicts. Overactive sympathy is a narcissistic trait.
I reached this same conclusion. Self described "empaths" aren't more empathetic, they're more sympathetic.
Empathy as emotional simulation - feeling the emotions of another human.
Sympathy as pity - feeling your own emotions in relation to another subject.
One clear sign is that you can't have empathy with groups, you can only have sympathy for them, and 99% of the time when someone is telling about how empathetic they are it's about some group.
Empathy isn't selectively felt, it's a blanket. It can be selectively repressed though, through ideology. A mark of ideologues is selective empathy, which ironically is another trait that all "empaths" seem to share, the strange absence of empathy for the out group.
The Empathetic Ones don't mirror another's internal state. In fact, ask them to empathize with something positive, like a man who just won a tennis match, and they're completely unable. Their read of others is almost always wrong.
Instead they project unto others the misery they're addicted to feeling, and then indulge in ascetic suffering fantasies. They're negative emotion addicts. Overactive sympathy is a narcissistic trait.