Emotions are ********

Seriously. Every time I think I'm beginning to understand emotions and how they work, I get thrown a curveball and realize I'm very wrong. Or I hear conflicting information from multiple different sources, and I have no idea who I'm supposed to be listening to.

I give up. I don't care anymore. Emotions are ********, and I'm done. I'm just done.

That is all.

Understanding emotions is hard even for those who experience emotions theoretical.

Clearly. But I'm going to let you all figure it out on your own.

@theoretical You're not alone:

I just did a quick search for "**** emotions"
But I can't post the results...

One of the results is from Mark Manson he says "**** your feelings" on Nov. 30, 2017.


The other one is titled "Ignore feelings" (the author is Olga Khazan) and is a review of a book by Michael Bennett and Sarah Bennett- the book is called "**** Feelings". The review was posted on Sept 9, 2015.

Last semester I took a class in which we read a book called "What is an Emotion?" by Robert C. Solomon. It contains 30 different articles each of which describes a different theory of emotions.

Perhaps what you wanted to understand theoretical is "what motivates people". Emotions have a role in that and often if you learn how to understand emotions you can also understand what to do to motivate people and that is often what people who enjoy great successes figure out.

I think I understand that aspect of it rather well. I can, with a good deal of accuracy, identify what emotions someone is feeling, articulate it, and either predict or influence the outcome. It isn't that difficult when it comes to other people.

What I fail to understand is my own emotions. Which of them I have, which I don't, how they compare with others' experiences, how they work, what summons them. The more I try to pay attention to it, to introspect and gain some sense of control over them, the harder it seems to get. It's like trying to catch wind.

Let me use an analogy. It's like I'm a blind kid who aced the art history test. I can identify a Rembrandt, and I can explain to you in excruciating detail what distinguishes Caravaggio from Gentileschi. But it isn't because I've seen the paintings myself. I can only go by what others have told me. So I experience these things and learn about them in a very different way than most people do.

I think this is why I gravitate toward psychopaths. When a psychopath explains emotions, it makes sense because we experience emotions in a similar way. Fear is exciting. Horror is amusing. Boredom is torture. Love is a myth. Empathy is a tool to be used or disregarded as one sees fit.

But I read somewhere,psychopaths and narcissists don't feel emotions.They learn how to mimic true emotions by observing others.Now we need to figure out who are the teachers.

Honestly theoretical, people can be emotionally selfish too. Often people decide that if you don't fit into THEIR box you don't have any value. They genuinely cannot see how another person values what they happen to value and tend to decide that if it's of no value to them, doesn't have any importance to them then it's not important or valueable.

A person can be standing next to a stranger and decide that person isn't very good looking, might not have the kind of clothes on that they feel is a must, may not drive THE best car or be all that social and friendly. So, they can decide that person isn't all that valueable YET little do they know they may very well be standing next to the very person that may someday save their life because they happen to be a heart surgeon and may even be the heart surgeon they end up laying in front of that can repair their failing heart.

Just because a person can experience emotions, doesn't mean they understand emotions or can even know they tend to be emotionally selfish.

To the contrary, narcissists do have emotions, what they lack is empathy and tend to be very emotional and needing to be the center of attention and like to emotionally manipulate others for their own gains. Most narcissists learn how to praise enough to get others to believe they actually care, but they really don't care, they just like to have people around them that they can control and tend to like to keep their flying monkeys to help them get what they want.

A psychopath told me in confidence that they find narcissists very useful and easily manipulated and when they are finished with them, they take extra pleasure in bursting their bubble and casting them aside.

A lot of people get confused about narcissists however because if they see "some" selfishness in a person they automatically think the person must be a narcissist. That is not advisable as there is "some" narcissism in each person and often it's on a spectrum where some may have more but not quite be a person with NPD.

There is also somewhat of a spectrum when it comes to a person having empathy as well. Some can have empathy but also be selfish, and some may have too much empathy where they give too much to others and not enough to themselves.

Thank you for clarifying a few of the differences between someone with a Narcissistic Personality and someone with a Psychopathic Personality. As you state here, there are different levels of feeling different emotions. One who experiences empathy, sorrow and regret, made allow those emotions to impact their lives, or not. Someone with a healthy understanding their emotions, will use those emotions for their own benefit and/or the benefit of others.

All humans are built with emotions and emotional boundaries and those emotions must be unique to each of us in some way. How we display our emotions by acting out, rationally or irrationally, must be easier to see than if we were to resize our emotions and actualize emotions by means of, for instance, manipulation and control. Just because we don’t see emotions, doesn’t mean they are not there.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who have trouble understanding their own emotions, or they simply don't ever try.

I've been trying for a long time, and I've come up empty handed. I think that, on a fundamental level, I understand and process emotions differently than other people. Consequently, when normal people try to explain these things to me, it just sounds like woo and fairy magic.

As for psychopaths and narcissists and their feelings. Like Open Eyes said, narcissists are capable of experiencing all emotions. They're even hypersensitive when it comes to anything that might bruise their ego. They just don't empathize. And they probably have the capacity to empathize if pushed hard enough, but they waste too much energy preserving their own fragile sense of self.

Primary psychopaths do not experience the full spectrum of human emotion. They do experience the basic lizard emotions, like startle response or adrenaline rushes, and the prospect of "winning" to a psychopath can elicit feelings not unlike those felt after doing a line of cocaine. They're also sensitive to frustration, especially while they're in the aforementioned state and the source of frustration is impeding them from whatever goal they're after. They'll react to frustration with intense fits of rage that disappear as quickly as they came. Also, what few emotions they do have are very fleeting. If I recall a memory of an emotional event in my life, there isn't any emotion associated with the memory, even if I know that I was emotional at the time it took place.

Good explanation of the differences between Narcissists and psychopaths imo..

'narcissists waste too much energy preserving their own fragile sense of self'

and they are definitely hypersensitive when it comes to anything that might bruise their ego.

I also agree with Open Eyes' post .. just because a person can experience emotions, even a so called adult, it doesn't mean they can understand emotions or even know they tend to be very emotionally selfish (my parental units and others who projected stuff onto me for example)