lack of empathy
Hi,
I am only 15 years old so I am positive that this could be some hormonal thing and is subject to change in the future, I am just concerned for now, or maybe I'm just immature.
I do not feel a lot of empathy and lack the ability to put myself in other people's shoes. The main reason I worry about this is because of my girlfriend. We have been together for about a year 1 ½ now and I really see us lasting because communication is a big thing for us.
The only issue is that every time I do something wrong and I upset her, I am just never sorry and I feel like it makes it difficult for her sometimes. Sometimes I take a joke too far or I accidentally hurt her. I never feel guilty unless it's something I did involving my mom, or animals, or when my girlfriend cries, but even then it's seldom. Sometimes I keep secrets from my girlfriend, or don't talk about things much. Nothing serious, but I don't really talk about any of my feelings or I don't tell her things that go on in my life. She is the exact opposite and tells me everything. She wants me to tell her more about myself and told me to put myself in her shoes but I just can't do that. I don't know how to and I can't emphasize with her. I told her that and she said it caught her off guard and I was wondering if that was too blunt.
My entire life it has been like this. I was a pretty bad kid and whenever I would wrong other people in my life and an adult would ask me, "How would you feel if they did this to you?" My answer was always i wouldn't care, because I just couldn't imagine how I would feel or imagine caring about what I did. I had a friend a little bit ago and I was very mean to him. He would always tell me how he wishes I was nicer to him and as much as I liked him I just didn't feel bad, and didn't care that he felt that way. I would just apologize and keep doing it. I cannot force myself to be sorry, I don't know how. I am kind of an asshole because of it.
Aside this I dont really feel a lot of positive emotions 😅 i get happy or excited sometimes but it is kind of short lived. otherwise I'm just sad or neutral. I dont really care about most things either and things dont usually facilitate any kind of emotional reaction in me, anytime something happens and I have some kind of opinion or reaction, I act that way because I feel like that's how I'm supposed to feel, when really I just don't care. I dont really care about most of my friends either.
I almost never mean it when I say sorry about anything. I promise I am not trying to be edgy or this isn't some kind of ego centered thing, I just want this to change for the sake of my girlfriend 😓 I don't think it bothers her since she is kind of a huge pushover but I would like to improve this regardless.
What can I do? Why might this be? My mom doesnt really listen to me anytime i bring it up.