words near to the heart

in·com·pas·sion·at·ed
adv. Rendered unable to show sympathy.

I was wallowing around trying to sort out my emotional state today when I struck upon the notion of the inability to expression compassion. I knew that uncompassionate, which my online Rogets defines as "not sympathetic," was in fact too harsh. I wanted instead to express the idea of someone who might want to show compassion but for whatever reason is incapable of doing so. "Incapacitate," with its definition of "To render powerless or motionless, as by inflicting severe injury," came closer to the idea of outside agency and not an innate lack of feeling. By blending incapacitated and compassion you end up with incompassionated. Voilà!

Truth told, it wasn't so much compassion that I first thought to address as sympathy: "the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, esp. in sorrow or trouble," which the definition then goes on to gloss as "fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration." [source] (Oh how I love the archaic and alliterative sound of "fellow feeling"!) But sympathy is complicated by a host of other less apt connotations.

I have a good and sympathetic friend to thank for capturing why this was all spinning around in my head in the first place. Explaining my mood in a chat, I put forward the following:

 me: true

5:45 PM i'm not one to ask for sympathy, and then when i don't get it i get pissed off

 [Friend]: lol

 talk about unspoken expectations

"Talk about unspoken expectations." Brilliant. And in only four words.

But here's the crux: If you've accustomed those around you to avoid lavishing unwanted (and to your mind, unwarranted) emotional attention on you, how can you fault them for being consistent when maybe a little emotional engagement might be welcome? Solve that and you can figure out how to correct the imbalance.

There are certainly those with little experience of expressing sympathy nor any inclination to do so, facing the prospect with fear and trepidation. Emotions are, after all, so messy. For these people it would be hard for me to insist upon it. Spurning their emotional engagement serves only to justify their distance.

Maybe incompassionate can be a transitive verb too: "to discourage others into concealing their sympathies." And apply to the object as well as the subject: "to render unreceptive to shows of sympathy."