Not caring for other human beings?

[crackdown]

Hi everybody,

I'm not sure if this is necessarly an anxiety related symptom, but I do notice that I could not care less about other human beings, except maybe CLOSE family (eg. mother, brothers and sister) then on the other hand I get emotional (feel guilty etc..) if I kill a mouse in a mouse trap.

For example, when my uncle, my best friend or two of my aunties have passed away (all within the last 5 years), I did not shed a single tear, I did not even care, but as I killed the mouse couple of days ago I did feel so guilty and emotional that I could have cried. Same as when I had to give away my dog, I was so sad and down for a couple of weeks. I'm not an animal lover, like I could care less what happens with chicken or pigs before I eat them etc.. but at times I seem to get so emotional about animals as if they were humans, but when something happens to humans I'm cold as ice.

When I see a documentary on how some countries treat their dogs, e.g. kill them by hitting a stick on their heads etc.. I get really mad, if I see some news on starving children or some disasters or wars which killed hundreds of people, I just switch channels as I couldnt care less and don't even think about it anymore. After I saw the dog documentary I was pi**ed of for couple of days.

I was wondering if anybody has the same problems as I do, maybe its related to depression or something??

[cattttt]

It sounds like in some way,you have learned to suppress your feelings about people, maybe in the way you were brought up. I think this is quite common, we are taught as children that it is not good to show our feelings and this leads to all sorts of problems. It could well be related to anxiety/depression. On the other hand, these feelings need an outlet somewhere, so it comes out in relation to animals.
I have had similar feelings, when Mum died a few years ago, I was not upset at all and I can only put it down to the way she held her feelings in, never expressed her love for us in a positive way. The only time I ever saw her upset was when our cat died!
Since I realised this, I've been able to rationalise about all the other things that have gone on in my life.
So have a think about the way your mum expressed her feelings (or not),there isn't necessarily anything wrong with you.