 Listen, I know that you have been waiting on the edge of your seat with bated breath for Taboo Tuesday topics to come back, and guess what? Today's your lucky day, guys. We're back! If you are familiar with my channel from a little while ago, we used to talk every Tuesday about taboo subjects, things that we don't normally talk about in society, about disability, and amputation, and mental health, and beyond, and we're back, baby! Bi-popular demand. Actually, it kind of was bi-popular demand. A number of people asked me about this, and then I asked you guys if you'd like to see it again, and there was a resounding yes. So this will not be back every Tuesday, but it will be back the majority of them. And today, we're going to start with, I think, what is probably a fairly controversial question, and one that different people will have different answers to, should you feel sorry for people who are disabled? For people with disabilities? I think it's the right way to say it. I am a person with a disability, so it's okay if I mess the term up. Someone asked me this in a recent video comment, and it really got me thinking. One of the most common comments that I receive is, oh my God, I feel so bad for you. I'm so sorry for you. And I have a few feelings about that, so let's dive in. But before we do that, I would love it if you would consider, at the end of this video, after you've actually, you know, heard some of my content, consider subscribing to this video. I am trying to beat my friend Aaron, life of Paulus, to 200,000 subscribers, before he gets to 250,000 subscribers, so that he has to take Brian and I out to dinner, help me win. I don't want to pay for his dinner. Not that we don't like him, his wife. I just, I mean, I'd rather have, I just want to win. I want to win, guys, so help me get there if you would like to. So let's talk about sympathy, empathy, and feeling sorry or bad for someone. Let me begin by saying, kind of like I said in the beginning, that this is simply my opinion. I think that everyone who is dealt with any kind of disability will have a different answer. Anyone who has ever had someone say to them, I feel, you know, so bad for you, or feel sorry for you, is probably going to have a different response. And this is just mine, from my perspective. What about fluffy cats? Should we feel sorry for fluffy cats who don't want to be held at the moment? So, should you feel sorry for people who are disabled or hurt or different or fill in the blank? First of all, I am not a big fan of the word should. I am not going to tell anyone what they should or should not feel, but oftentimes, to me, the phrase is expressed, I feel so bad for you or I feel so sorry that you're in this situation. And I think that 99% of the time that's meant in an incredibly compassionate and kind way. But I think if we think about it a little further, at least for me, I run into this stumbling block in my mind, right? I don't think it's bad to feel sorry for someone. I don't think it's bad to feel bad for a situation that someone is in. I think oftentimes, being sympathetic is okay, and being empathetic is a million times better, but feeling sorry for someone and feeling bad are used interchangeably. We use those phrases in the same sentences. And when we're talking about someone who's struggling, who is grieving, who is dealing with a disability or something like that, who is different than you in some way, if we link the idea of feeling bad commonly with that, I think it increases the stigma around it. If you look at me missing a leg, if you look at me going through what I'm going through, and feel bad as in you feel negative emotions, if I look up synonyms for feeling sorry for someone, at McMillanDictionary.com, the synonyms for feeling sorry are apologetic, guilty, contrite, regretful, repentant, remorseful, penitent, or rueful. None of those are pleasant feelings, right? None of those are ever something that I want someone to feel looking at me, looking at my life or looking at the fact that I'm missing a leg or, you know, on another wavelength that I deal with some mental health issues. I don't want anyone to feel bad things within themselves. I think empathy is a beautiful thing if you want to understand someone or draw closer to them or sit with them in their pain, but simply feeling sorry or feeling bad for someone as an ending point, I think is maybe a tiny little bit dangerous. And on the scale of danger, I think it's pretty low. But like I said, I think it increases the way that we stigmatize people. I think it increases the way that we think of ourselves as different than someone else because if we're looking at someone in a rough situation and we feel negative things about that situation, we're kind of linking those things in our minds to negative things. If you look at an amputee and you feel bad, you feel apologetic or guilty or remorseful or penitent or anything like that, then at least subconsciously you're going to want to withdraw away from that, right? Like we don't generally want to get closer to those feelings that are uncomfortable for us. I think a secondary issue with just feeling sorry or feeling bad for someone is that there's no action attached to it. Not that there has to be, but there's no greater understanding. There's no conversation. There's no necessarily real compassion. There's just, oh, I feel sorry for what you're going through or I feel bad that you're experiencing that. There's no depth to it. And personally, I'm a big fan of depth in my own life. I'm a big fan of wanting to understand someone's life further if I don't have the same life experiences. If I just sit there and say, I'm sorry for you. That is a statement that distances me from them. And I do think that that's very different than saying, I'm really sorry for what you're going through. I'm sorry that you have to be experiencing this. I think those are good phrases to use because they are different phrases than I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry for who you are. I feel bad for this massive part of who you are. And when you say those things to someone else, I know I definitely have. Let's just get that out front. I've absolutely said, you know, I feel bad for you or I feel sorry for you. I think for me anyways, they're generally meant as something to either fill space in a conversation or to express that I care but I don't know how to say something but at the same time they also do distance me from the person or the situation that I'm talking about. For me, I've noticed a better thing and this is something that you, my community, have done for me is no specific thing. Like, I'll just use my own life as an example when I had to face a second amputation for me. Like, I'm really sorry that you have to go through a second surgery. That sucks. That makes me feel validated because yeah, it sucks that I have to go through a second surgery, right? But if they feel sorry for me and my life and everything as a whole then I just kind of feel like a sad, pathetic piece of crap hanging out over here while everyone else is standing across the river staring at me feeling sad about my life or on the flip side of that pointing out things that you admire in their situation. Like saying it's really impressive that you can fill in the blank or I think it's really neat that you can blank or blank, you know, they're just coming up with things to compliment someone on in their situation that is different to you without being patronizing. The best description of sympathy which is like, you know, I feel sorry for you versus empathy that I've ever heard is the idea of seeing someone down in a pit, right? And sympathy is looking down in that pit and being like, wow, it really sucks that you're down there. I feel sorry for you. And empathy is throwing a rope down, climbing down into that pit with them and sitting with them and then helping them back out maybe. It made a lot of sense for me in my head when I heard it. Empathy is that connection. Sympathy, there's still that distance. So when it comes to the question, is it okay to feel sorry for someone who's disabled or struggling or different than you? Of course, it's okay to feel that way. Whatever you feel is okay. But when it comes to expressing it, I think that there are healthier ways to express what you are feeling about someone's situation than just saying I'm sorry for you or I feel bad for you. There are ways that you can be more specific. There are ways that you can acknowledge the actual struggle that someone is going through or you can ask questions or you can compliment them on specific things, which I think is astronomically more helpful, which actually builds, which actually connects and which I am personally a bigger fan of. Let me know what you guys think of Taboo Tuesday Returning. I am personally very excited about it. If you have any suggestions for upcoming videos on what I should cover, please let me know in the comment section down below. I would love to consider covering them for upcoming videos. You guys always come up with the best questions and I appreciate it. Thank you guys for listening. Make sure that you hit subscribe if you liked this video to help me beat my friend Erin. That's really the only reason why I want you to subscribe. We'll go with that. And a huge thank you to my patrons who made these videos possible. Thank you so much for your patronage and for supporting me. Thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me, listening to me chat. You could be anywhere in the world doing anything. You chose to spend it with me. And I'm honored. Thank you guys. I love you. I'm thinking of you and I will see you in the next video. Bye, guys.