Empathy Is A Choice, Not A Feeling
True empathy is something you actively choose to show, especially when it's hardest to give.
Abbat | Unsplash Last week, the new HBO Max medical drama, The Pitt, wrapped its first 15-episode season. If you aren’t familiar, this show features former E.R. star Noah Wyle as Robby Robinavitch, the head emergency room (E.R.) physician at a busy Pittsburgh hospital.
After seeing dozens of reviews and claims that it may be the most medically accurate show ever seen, I finally caved and started watching. Not only did the show do a great job depicting procedures and patient interactions, but it also focused heavily on the social and political environment of the E.R., as well as the complicated identities of the people working there.
One character in particular, a physician named Frank Langdon, quickly became a popular subject. About two-thirds of the way through the season, Frank is discovered to have an addiction to benzodiazepines.
This is revealed by a medical student who suspects him of tampering with vials and stealing medications from patients. The way the show handles Frank’s addiction is an interesting topic of discussion, but it isn’t nearly as interesting as the way viewers reacted to this storyline.
For the last several weeks, I’ve been sifting through hundreds of conversations on social media discussing Frank’s behaviors since being caught, and what I’ve found is that we have an incredibly long way to go in how we talk about addiction. Some of the first conversations regarding the discovery of his addiction discussed Frank as the bad guy.
People felt that because they had liked him, and he turned out to be imperfect, that meant he had to be recast from “good” to “bad.” Without outright saying it, so many people made it clear that learning about addiction will fundamentally change their opinion of a person.
The last few rounds of conversations surrounded empathy for addicts and these conversations may have fundamentally changed the way I view people’s capacity for empathy.
Many conversations online started with “I have empathy for addicts until…” and you can fill in the blank with whatever you want, until they steal drugs from a hospital or patient.
...Until they endanger someone else’s life. ...Until they’re ungodly mean to someone who’s been nothing but good to them. What people are saying is, “I have empathy for addicts until they start acting too much like an addict.”
After many of these conversations, I realized our definition of empathy is shallow and our practice of it is cheap.
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Empathy is more than understanding how someone might come to be addicted.
It’s more than understanding that addiction is a disease. Empathy is a noun that turns into a verb the moment we put it into practice. It’s a choice, and it’s often a hard one. If empathy comes so easily to you that you’ve never struggled to find it, your version of it is probably shallow.
Without outright saying it, so many people made it clear that learning about addiction will fundamentally change their opinion of a person. Empathy comes calling in the toughest moments you could imagine. It challenges you. It forces you to step outside of yourself and consider realities you can’t imagine.
In the show, Frank doesn’t do anything an addict wouldn’t do. He’s snippy, shifty, and arrogant. He steals medications from patients. He lets patients suffer longer than necessary to tamper with vials.
When he’s caught, he deflects, makes excuses, and outright lies. When he realizes he can’t make the situation go away, he becomes reactive. He bites back at the person trying to help him and says the exact things you would expect an addict to say.
This is addiction. You can’t empathize with addicts, but then draw the line when they behave like one.
You’d be better off saying you have empathy for people who used to be addicts. Addicts who are in active use are some of the hardest people in the world to empathize with because they do things that are incredibly difficult to understand.
The choice to empathize in these situations doesn’t mean you’re condoning, enabling, supporting, or excusing their behavior. It means choosing to see through a person’s words or actions and realize they are struggling and need help. Part of that help will be taking accountability for the damage they’ve done and the hurt they’ve caused.
In my work as a paramedic, I have revived a pregnant woman with Narcan. I have responded to a car that was inches from smashing into a building to find parents overdosed in the front with their toddler in the backseat. I’ve done CPR on a girl who could have lived had her friends called 911 even 10 minutes earlier. This is addiction.
If empathy comes so easily to you that you’ve never struggled to find it, your version of it is probably shallow. No one condones these things. We all feel our blood start to boil, especially when children are involved.
And every single time I encounter these situations, I have to actively choose to extend empathy. Because the reality is, if I want an addict to get clean, the next thing I say, do, or think can’t be rooted in shame.
We can’t claim to empathize with someone in addiction and then revoke that empathy the second they behave like someone in addiction.
I can’t claim empathy and then operate in shame. The consequences of their actions are already in place. My job is to look beyond whatever is happening and see the person who is still deserving of help and support.
The Pitt left viewers hanging, much like real life would. Our last interaction with Dr. Langdon didn’t bring resolution or any sense that things would be okay. His desperate attempts to avoid the consequences of his actions and his cruel words aimed at Dr. Robby provided one last glance at how deep in addiction he is.
Dr. Robby serves as a good example of what dealing with an addict is like. So far, he hasn’t been able to step back and see Dr. Langdon through his addiction. This is a good reminder that we’re never going to get it right 100% of the time.
It’s my hope that in the next season, we’ll see Dr. Langdon choose recovery, and we’ll see Dr. Robby choose empathy even when he isn’t ready to, because we have to choose empathy in the moments when it feels the most impossible. We have to try to understand even when we don’t.
Anyone who’s ever known an addict knows they push your empathy to its limits. But behind the bad decisions is a person desperately in need of someone to remind them that this does not have to be their story.
If you or someone you know is suffering from addiction, there are resources to get help.
The process of recovery is not linear, but the first step to getting better is asking for help. For more information, referrals to local treatment facilities and support groups, and relevant links, visit SAMHSA’s website. If you’d like to join a recovery support group, you can locate the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings near you. Or you can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-799-7233, which is a free 24/7 confidential information service in both English and Spanish. For TTY, or if you’re unable to speak safely, call 1-800-487-4889.
Tiffani Haught is a full-time paramedic by trade and a writer by genes handed down from her grandfather. Her writings on healthcare, women's issues, and mental health are infused with the world she encounters every day in the field of pre-hospital emergency medicine.
