My Empathy Has Conditons

And it's ok if yours does too

A controversial topic that is hot on the press right now, has led me to some thoughts about empathy.

Most of us are aware of the names circulating the news right now—Brian Thompson and Luigi Mangione. If you aren’t, Brian Thompson was the CEO of United Healthcare, and Luigi Mangione is the 26-year old suspect who is being charged with allegedly shooting and killing him.

The words “delay”, “deny” and possibly “depose” were found on the shell casings that were recovered from the scene of this crime. This appears to lead to this murder being motivated by the fact that the victim was an executive of a health insurance company, and the suspect is perhaps a disgruntled insured member with a lack of their proper and promised coverage. The 3 D’s of insurance (typically coined as delay, deny, and defend), are tactics used by insurance companies to avoid paying out for medical services they should be covering.

Healthcare in the US is a long and hotly debated topic. Because this is my blog and not a professional article, you will be receiving a highly biased essay of my very personal opinions, because that is what I do on here.

If you would have asked 2008/2009 Krista about US Healthcare, I would have taken the side of the business, capitalism, making money, and what has typically become the right/republican/conservative side of that argument. My reasoning was coming from being told that is how it all worked best by a few older, upper middle class white men. Genuinely, I do not know of another reason I thought that. It is just all I heard from most of the people I was around. And any time someone spoke out against it, they were mocked and outnumbered.

The true mockery though, is that the only people this system actually serves well are a few people at the top profiting off of it. The majority of the people who are arguing it is for the best—are people who don’t realize it is hurting them so much more than they know. And, now that I am in the situation I’m in with my chronic illness, the joke is definitely on me.

According to a study from healthdata.org, referenced in an article about Thompson/Mangione, on The Hill (written by Niall Stanage)—the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world. And, as of 2022 the US was ranked #49 in the world in life expectancy. (Ironically, you can’t blame just the healthcare system for our life expectancy though, our gun control plays a big role in that, too according to sources in a NPR article about the same subject.) The same survey stated that 47% of Americans found it “very” or “somewhat difficult” to afford their healthcare costs and that more than 1 in 5 Americans who actually had health insurance had put off getting health care they needed because of the cost.

Stanage’s article went on to say that United Healthcare “was valued at $520 billion as of Tuesday’s closing stock price.” Yet, you have people living in extreme poverty arguing that politicians who are voting against universal and affordable healthcare have the people’s best interest at heart.

When I started writing this, I went off on an eight paragraph tangent about that. I just deleted all of that, to get back to the point of this article. Empathy. I will save the rest for another time. There are so many tangents I want to go on though. One is about how I have completely changed my mind on all of this stuff over the years, my lived experiences that have changed my perspective, and things I am not proud of believing. Another is about all of the reasons I think what happened with this CEO of United Healthcare is completely aligning with Pluto in Aquarius. I may just write those another time…

Essentially, where I currently stand on all of this is: I don’t judge Mangione for what he did. At first, I started typing something different than what I just said. Instead, I stared typing that “I don’t condone violence”. I know that is the really PR thing that everyone is saying right now. Then I deleted it and said I don’t judge him instead. Because, if I am being really, truly, deep down, very, super, honest…I sometimes do condone violence. And, I think if every single person is being honest with themselves, truly honest, I am not sure how many people can genuinely say they never ever condone it. Maybe in this case they don’t. But in some cases, most people probably do.

Did you condone violence when we captured and killed Osama bin Laden? How about when Hitler killed himself? When Ted Bundy was executed? The difference here is Laden and Bundy were government sanctioned and Hitler did it himself. Mangione was a vigilante. But I am not asking if you think it was ok if Mangione did it. I am asking about “condoning violence”.

Now, there are people out there who thought when Kyle Rittenhouse did this that it was justified, and there are people who don’t. Rittenhouse killed two people on his vigilante justice spree and was found not guilty on all counts. Now we are faced with a situation where people feel what Mangione did was justified, and others who don’t. I suspect the sides are flipped, at least from what I see on the news and social media.

However, many are saying things like, “I don’t condone violence, and I would never do it, but I understand what he did.” They go on to express that Brian Thompson was evil in their eyes, and that is why they understand what happened and don’t feel sorry for him. Then many others are getting quite upset with this and saying “We should feel sorry for him and his family even if we don’t like him and shame on you for having no empathy,” etc etc.

Ok, so I am going to quit speaking in general terms here and start speaking in more specifics so I can get to my opinion. I am leaving out what any conservatives are saying about it because I haven’t seen anything they are saying about it. I am seeing what liberals are saying about it. Mostly I am seeing them post some version of the above two scenarios I mentioned. With the second scenario, I am seeing a lot of them placing shame on other liberals about not feeling empathy for Thompson. I am not in agreement with that.

Specifically, I saw someone on social media chastise their fellow social media friends for having conditions with their empathy. I have been thinking about this statement for several days now and talked about it in therapy. It inspired me to make a TikTok about it and write this post. What I say to the statement that “empathy should be unconditional” is—HARD DISAGREE.

If you are an empath who has been in therapy and been learning about boundaries, you will understand what I mean and will probably feel validated. If not, here’s what I mean. Empath’s are defined as “a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual” and “people who have a higher than usual level of empathy, called hyperempathy.”

Empaths feel empathy all the time, so strongly, that it is draining. We feel other people’s emotions and it is confusing and exhausting. And we have to work really hard to constantly shore up really strong defenses and boundaries to not be completely depleted all the time. In life, it can take a really long time to figure out that this is something you are dealing with, and how to protect yourself from it. In the meantime, you tend to get burned out A LOT. Compassion fatigue is no joke.

When I talked to my therapist about this idea that some people think empathy should have no conditions, she laughed along with me. She joked about what therapists would do if their empathy would have no conditions and boundaries. Empaths and therapists would be shells of a human beings if we put no limits and conditions on it. I’m sure there are other types of people besides empaths and therapists that are up there towards the top of that list, but those are the two that are top of mind right now.

Essentially, it would be extremely unhealthy for empathy to have no limits. And, I am in no way saying this about the person I saw post it, because I do not know them, but in my experience, the people I personally know that have typically said this sort of thing to me in the past (empathy should be unconditional), are energy vampires who were really benefitting from draining me of all my emotional energy and compassion. So, it is always a red flag for me when I hear someone asking for my empathy to be unconditional.

An early memory of my unconditional empathy was attending the wake of someone I didn’t know. I was in high school. Granted, my empath nature goes back to birth, and I exhibited all the signs from the time I could emote. However, being present to and mindful of the unusual nature of this way of being didn’t happen until I was 17.

Since I was able to drive, my parents asked me to drive my brother to his friend’s dad’s wake. It was one of my brother’s good friends, but I didn’t know him or his family. He needed a ride, my parents couldn’t do it. So I had to attend with him.

As I sat in the room with the family and friends of a man I had never met, I looked at his son, my brother’s friend, and all of a sudden my entire body was flooded with all of his emotions. I looked at his face and felt everything he was holding in. He was holding back and putting on a brave face, but I literally felt and saw the pain and grief behind it all. I felt how lost he was. And with zero control over it, I started crying. No one else there was crying. I didn’t know these people. I was so embarrassed. I hated it when this happened. I was completely overcome with all of his emotions and felt them almost as strongly as if they were my own.

I have countless stories of things like this throughout my life. Just the other day I was sitting next to a loved one during a movie and all of a sudden, during a part that had zero emotional significance to me whatsoever, I became flooded with emotion and started crying pretty hard. I thought, “where is this coming from?” Then pretty quickly I realized, “this isn’t mine.” I looked next to me, and this person I am so emotionally connected to was crying because it touched something they were going through. This sort of thing happens to me frequently.

Over the years I have worked really hard at learning different techniques to try to protect myself from letting the emotions of others drain and deplete me. I’ve learned these through books and articles I’ve read, listening to other empaths, and in therapy. And it is very much an ongoing process that isn’t linear. My defenses go up and down. With my chronic illness, my empath defenses are down more often than not, because I rarely have the energy to keep them up.

Energy is a key word here. For empaths, empathy = energy. It takes A LOT of energy to feel things so deeply. To experience empathy so intensely and frequently. To constantly use the techniques to guard against being empathetically drained.

Additionally, we are prime targets for people known as “energy vampires”. These are a variety of different types of people—frequently people with narcissistic behaviors—who seek empaths out because these are people they can latch onto and leech off of. They tend to be very emotionally immature and selfish people (whether knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, in an evil sense or just a misguided sense) who just have nothing positive to give and really need someone who is endlessly empathetic to take on all of their negative emotions for them. They don’t know how to cope with their issues in a healthy way, and empaths are a perfect dumping ground for them. They suck empaths dry.

Between everything going on in the world, feeling the energy of all the strangers around you, feeling the emotions of all of your loved ones around you, combatting energy vampires, using a ton of energy to try to keep your defenses in place and just trying to survive day to day life, you become keenly aware of just how much energy all of this takes on a daily basis as an empath. And in my case, or that of anyone with a chronic illness, we have very little energy to begin with because of the illness, and none to spare whatsoever because of it. As such, I have to be thinking about my energy and how I ration it every single minute of every single day. It takes energy just to think about how I am going to use my energy. So I truly have zero empathy/energy to spare.

So, frankly, I am not interested in listening to anyone telling me my empathy should be unconditional. Because my energy isn’t unconditional. And if you are an empath who is reading this and feeling guilty about not having empathy for everyone all the time, I want to give you permission to stop feeling guilty. To understand that your empathy is a gift that you can choose who you give it to. Just because you don’t have empathy for someone doesn’t mean you are celebrating their misfortune. For an empath, it just means you aren’t leaking emotional energy for people who drain you and don’t refill you.

If you aren’t an empath, feel free to feel empathy for whoever you like. If it doesn’t deplete and drain you, then please do with it as you like. I am all for a more empathetic world. I do believe the world needs more empathy. I truly truly do. I just think the world needs to stop asking the very small percentage of empaths to continue being the only ones to do all of the empathetic heavy lifting so that others don’t have to. I think everyone else needs to try caring more and take some of this burden off our backs. Because it doesn’t affect non-empaths like it does empaths.

My guess is that anyone telling people their empathy should be unconditional is either an unhealed, “undiagnosed”, empath with super unhealthy and leaky boundaries who doesn’t realize how much harm they are doing themselves. Or they are not an empath who probably isn’t experiencing enough true empathy themselves. But, there may be other scenarios I am not considering. Those are just the two that jump out at me as I have been thinking about it for the past few days.

I am certainly not saying anyone who isn’t an empath is some heartless jerk. I know plenty of people who experience a healthy amount of empathy. I hope those people who are reading this have a better understanding of empaths, if they didn’t have one before. I hope they can understand why we have to choose our emotional battles in order to stay whole and healthy. And I would love to ask them to step in with any extra empathetic energy work in situations where it is needed and they have some to spare, and take over some of the heavy lifting for us. We could use a break.

If anyone is reading this who experiences less than a healthy amount of empathy, or none at all, I actually have empathy for you. I mean that sincerely. I recently read a book about sociopaths and am trying to better understand the mental health condition. I would much rather be on the opposite end of that spectrum as an empath, no matter how hard it has been to feel things the way I have. I can’t imagine the challenges of having an anti-social personality disorder. I would be curious to know how any of what I have said in this piece resonates for anyone in this camp.

All of that being said, I am not going to concern myself with having unconditional empathy. And I don’t feel compelled to expend empathy for Brian Thompson, personally, at this point in time. I am not celebrating his death, or happy about it. I am just not using emotional energy for it right now. If I learn any new facts in the case that change my mind, then so be it.

Brian Thompson was at the helm of a lot of the policies at United Healthcare that led to the worst rate of denying patient claims in the industry, that led to record profit for himself and other UHC executives. In 2023, Thompson earned $10.2 million, according to a disclosure by UnitedHealth Group. And, UHC turned down 32% of all claims, twice the industry average of 16%.‌

According to NPR, UHC had a lawsuit filed against them. "UnitedHealthcare was sued last November for allegedly using AI to process prior authorizations in Medicare Advantage plans. (Other insurers face similar lawsuits, filed last year.) ‘One of the things that the [UnitedHealthcare] lawsuit points out is that 90% of the denied claims were reversed upon appeal,’ said Yaver, citing an allegation from the complaint. ‘That is just a wild figure because this really suggests that there is a high error rate.’”

I am unable to find, and I am unsure if they actually exist, calculations of how many people died due to being denied medically necessary procedures. How many people had irreversible damage to their health due to having to wait on appeals. How many people put off procedures they knew they needed because of cost (like the figures I stated earlier in the article). Because they didn’t have the time or energy to deal with the stress and headache of appeals and phone calls. Or any number of other possible scenarios that came up when people were needlessly denied the medical help they needed because a former accountant was hired to be a CEO and make more money for a company in a system that is supposed to help people, but is designed to exploit them.

Osama bin Laden instructed his people to come over to the US and they ending up killing almost 3,000 innocent people. We tirelessly hunted him down and murdered him for that. When we did, many of us celebrated and were so happy he was caught and reprimanded. Even though he didn’t actually get in the planes and do it himself, he was responsible.

Brian Thompson instructed his employees on policies to deny medical claims and make record breaking profits. This ends up leading to who knows how many innocent people dying because their claims are denied, and they do not receive the medical care they need. Then, we tirelessly hunted down the man that is believed to have shot Thompson for doing this. Even though Brian Thompson isn’t directly responsible for any of these patients, we have seen countless news reports and social media posts of people sharing stories of family members who died while waiting for insurance approval that they never got.

And, I do have some personal experience here. My first job in Chicago, in 2009, was working for a medical billing company. I worked specifically in denied claims. It was my job to go through a document that started out at 500 pages, with about 15 claims to a page, that grew every day, of denied medical insurance claims.

Insurance had denied all of these claims and I had to call and find out why, submit appeals, and basically get it off the doctor’s responsibility. It either needed to be corrected to go back to the insurance to pay, or it needed to be corrected so that it was denied but under the patient’s responsibility and then billed to the patient.

I spent half my day on the phone with insurance companies listening to the reasons they denied a claim (almost all of them were super bogus things they did just to put off paying them), and the other half of my day on the phone with patients who had been billed and couldn’t afford the surprise bill they thought was supposed to be covered. Most of them were completely impoverished, desperate, and devastated.

About 300 of the 500 pages were United Healthcare claims out of ALL the different insurance providers there are. Over half the pages were ONE insurance company—and it was UHC. And they were by far the hardest to work with when I called.

Yes, I am aware Brian Thompson worked at UHC at this time, but was not yet the CEO or making these policies. He is not solely to blame for the entirety of the US healthcare industry’s problems. He was a cog in the wheel. Same as I was a cog in the wheel.

I lasted about 3 months in that position before I couldn’t take it anymore. And actually that job was the beginning of my transition into a different way of thinking about all of this. Whereas, Mr. Thompson chose a different path. He worked his way up the ranks there for 20 years to a CEO, and worked to champion more policies that could lead to more record-breaking profits.

At that level, with that privilege, making that amount of money, you have a choice. He may not have been able to overhaul the entire industry (maybe he could have, maybe not), but he could have walked away and done something else. He chose to continue on that path.

Even at my level, I was able to make that choice. My husband and I were pretty broke and brand new to an expensive city and we worked it out that I was able to leave. I actually didn’t work for a couple of months while I looked for another job and we just lived off his salary. It was hard, but I could not live with myself in that place another day with how that job crushed my soul. So, we made it work. Brian Thompson could have made it work if he wanted to leave, too. 10 million bucks would have been a fine cushion.

I’m not saying he deserved to die. I am not saying I’m happy he died. I’m just saying I don’t have an endless supply of energy and I have to pick and choose who I feel empathy for, and he didn’t make the cut. I don’t know for sure how many deaths he is responsible for with his policies for denying healthcare claims to bring in more money, but I venture to guess it’s probably more than the 3,000 that Osama bin Laden was indirectly responsible for. I didn’t experience any empathy for him, either.

Again, if new information is brought to this case that puts it all under a whole new light, I am open to changing my mind and feeling empathy. I’m just currently neutral. Happy to move over to empathy if something new comes forward that warrants it.

Meanwhile, many publications and sources have reported on the suspect, Luigi Mangione. In reading articles on The Washington Post, CBS, and NPR, I learned the following information. It is said that he was known to have a spinal defect that caused him crippling, excruciating pain. This was later exacerbated by an injury that made surgery necessary. It is reported that he supposedly struggled to get this surgery covered. He spent a long time in a lot of pain and experiencing a poor quality of life in many ways as a result.

Allegedly, he was reported to have advised people on reddit that he found the best way to get this surgery covered was to say it was prohibiting you from working, as opposed to discussing the unbearable pain or how it impacted your quality of life. His experience was that it would only be covered if you weren’t able to earn money for the system, not because it was causing you so much pain and harm. He did eventually get this surgery covered, and reportedly was doing much better. So it is unclear at this time what his continued outrage at UHC would be that would lead to the motive of allegedly shooting Thompson.

It is also reported that on a reddit group focused on brain fog, he wrote, “the people around you won’t understand your symptoms—they certainly don’t for me.” These words resonate very deeply for me, as I have many symptoms with my illness that are not understood by most—especially a lot of medical professionals. Being in chronic pain, with very few people who understand, and a lack of necessary medical intervention takes its toll on people after awhile. They become versions of themselves they don’t recognize. That, I can empathize with.

In many of the reports I read, everyone who knew him that was contacted for comment was in total shock that he was being accused of this crime. They all had the same things to say about him. That he was incredibly kind, sweet, polite, and empathetic. They were surprised that something could have driven him to this, if it was in fact him that had done it.

It’s very shocking to see what happens when you push kind, gentle, empathetic people to their edge. When they don’t feel they are receiving the empathy they need.

I don’t know Brian Thompson. I don’t know much about him. I do know that as new facts are brought to light, I will continue to be open to changing my mind. Currently, I do not feel bad about not expending empathy. And I encourage other empath’s who feel the same, to not let people try to guilt and shame you into having endless unconditional empathy in this, or any, circumstance that you do not want to. You only have so much emotional money to spend in your wallet. Don’t go into debt.

I don’t know Luigi Mangione. I don’t know if he is the one who actually did it. I do know that I empathize with people who are dealing with chronic pain and are struggling to get the medical help they need. I empathize with how much it fucks with your head. I know I personally can’t imagine myself enacting this violence. I also know that as more information comes to light, I will continue to be open to allowing myself to experience more or less empathy.

I don’t know if I pissed a lot of people off with this essay. Pluto in Aquarius, on a global level, is about a HUGE upheaval, excavation, and transformation where there will be a big shift from moving the power from the wealthy, corporate, 1%—back to the the people, the 99%, and supporting community activism. For me personally, it is in the part of my chart that governs my career, reputation, and public persona. I am meant to cause upheaval in how people view and see me.

Believe it or not, I actually have been keeping A LOT of opinions that will piss people off to myself for a long time. But, I am working on not doing that as much and giving less fucks. If you can imagine what that even looks like? I can’t. Because I am pretty sure I already do piss a lot of people off a lot. So, I guess it’s only going to get worse. But, I gotta write my shit. I gotta be authentic. This is where I am at right now. If I change my mind about any of it, I will let you know. If I find out any new info, I will let you know. In the meantime, I will not be experiencing unconditional empathy for the foreseeable future. And I support anyone who needs to protect their energy and boundaries by doing the same.

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Thank you!