Empathy Irregularities

I’m almost 3 years into my C-PTSD journey, and I’m trying to come to terms with a major empathy problem I have that I just can’t figure out how to get past.

I’m usually a very empathetic person, I swear I am. Psychoanalyzing fictional characters is literally one of my favorite hobbies, I find the study of human behavior unbelievably interesting.

I care so much about people. The way everyone hurts, how no one is ever truly alone, not even the worst of us.

But for whatever reason I just cannot seem to apply it to my personal life.

My roommate is my best friend, we’ve been living together for two years now, starting from freshman year of college. She has depression and a pretty bad anxiety disorder. She’s also crazy book smart, her memory’s amazing, so she does decent in school without trying too hard.

I love her. But she’s driving me crazy and it’s completely my fault.

Her (now ex) boyfriend cheated on her two weeks ago, and she’s kind of been struggling with it on and off. She’s been skipping class, not doing her work, yk the usual. I’ve been trying to be supportive, but I’m getting to the point I always get to with her.

She’s depressed because she has a lot of self-image issues. She just can’t fathom that she’s not ugly, and she has a lot of anxiety about that too, she says she always feels like people are talking badly about her all of the time.

I should probably clarify at this point that I have C-PTSD due to my (physically/emotionally) abusive parents. My roommate knows this, but I don’t think she really understands what it means. I struggle with it a lot. All of the time, I’m struggling.

We saw her ex today at our go-to lunch spot, and it shook her since it’s the first time seeing him since the break up.

She came back from class today talking about how shaken up she was about it and she couldn’t focus near the end, and she just feels suddenly sad.

It just makes me so angry. She’s crying over some dumbass she dated for barely a month, and broke up with two weeks ago.

But my parents abused me- for YEARS. I will NEVER recover from what they did to me. Nothing will ever make it better, and yet here I am. I pick myself up. I get my ass into class. I move on.

A therapist once asked me if I was mad at everyone else in my life, my peers, my friends, for having good childhoods. For being healthy. For not being abused.

You know what? I am. I am FURIOUS that I had to suffer, and everyone else is fine. Because that’s NOT fair.

TLDR: I’m an unempathetic asshole, a bad friend, and probably a shitty person, because I find my roommate annoying for not getting over her boyfriend immediately.