Apathy: a Defense Against Pain

Recently, I have been considering the emotion of apathy. It is possibly the only emotion that can best be described as "an absence of emotion." It has occurred to me of late that apathy can have a deceptive appearance. One often thinks of an apathetic person as one who is cold, analytical, disinterested, or uninvolved. While this may be true on the surface, I have found that apathy is often the guise chosen, not by those who do not feel, but rather by those who feel too much. These individuals decide that a lack of feeling is better than having to deal with the onslaught of emotions that can often prove to be exhausting, disturbing, and discouraging. In other words, apathy is most often (and arguably always) a defense mechanism. When one is in the midst of something painful or stressful, especially for an extended period of time, it is understandable that somewhere along the line, they choose to just give up caring entirely. In these cases, apathy is a direct reaction to an overdose of feeling. Rather than trying to handle trials and stress in a moderate and calm manner, some get overburdened with it - worrying and fretting until they are exhausted and worn down. It is often after this cycle is repeated for a certain length of time that people throw their hands up in defeat and say, "I don't even care anymore." How many of us have heard someone say this? How many of us have even said it ourselves? I would be willing to bet that every person, and particularly every student, has heard this and perhaps said it at least once.

It is also probable that apathy is commonly used amongst people who grew up in households in which they or someone in their family experienced regular verbal or physical abuse. Growing up in this type of environment - filled with pain and guilt and turmoil - it is often easiest to become apathetic. In the fog of this emptiness, at least there will be no more pain, no more noise. When one is presented with a choice between a state of numbness and a state of agony, which do you think they will choose?

Apathy, then, is not a rock; it is a shield.