I was incapable of the compassion you're talking about until I had a bad shroom trip and felt some horrible, hard-to-describe anxiety the next morning. It was some of the worst hours of my life until my serotonin system rebalanced itself.

I'm not saying it's the same thing as depression or regular anxiety, but it gave me tremendous perspective on how bad these conditions can be and you just don't have the ability to "shake it off" when things are unbalanced.

Maybe that's how my wife feels when she's off the meds. Shit. Now imagine having a douchebag by your side second-guessing your pain. Never again.

> Maybe that’s how my wife feels

The good thing is it isn’t necessary to know how someone else feels to have compassion.:)

It’s enough to accept you don’t understand the other person‘s thought process and stop trying to tell them what they are thinking. You don’t need to fix things, you just need to listen and not make them justify or explain themselves to you.

Doing nothing is better than doing the wrong thing.

This comes from my own personal experience. I can’t relate to people on an emotional level. Every relationship is processed with deliberate, logical action. If I love a friend, I need to figure out what would change their internal state so they can experience that love.

From the outside, this looks like I can relate on an emotional level.