I Know How You Feel?

[Katongo]

I thought i will give the question a scenario rather than just posing the question, So you see were am coming from but i couldn't come up with a good one. So i tried to keep it simple

Philip lost his mother 5 years ago

Mary Philip's friends lost her mother a few days ago, so to comfort her he says, "I know how you feel" hearing that Mary losses it burst out, you have no idea how i feel... no idea at all and run's away crying.

Was he wrong to say that or was he right? Who would be a right person to express such words? Is there any situation were you can use the worlds l know how you feel?

Argument Goes

Wrong - Maybe Philip was not attached has much has Mary was to her Mother

- It was not suited to use the words unless if it something like the same jobs and duties

Right - it is possible that Mary just over-reacted = some person can react differently to the same situation

- one who has passed through is the best person to use the word than one who hasn't

Is there any situation were you can use the worlds l know how you feel?

No, of course one does not know how one really feels no matter how you look at it, even though you have passed through a similar or the same thing. It just doesn't work, Your take on the same thing will always be different i.e more passionate, means a lot, more special..... name it, it will be different.

But its a BIG BUT

One who has passed through it may at least to some extent understand but never should say I know how you feel.

What do you guy's think

[† Talena Mae]

Each persons experiance at loss is different to anothers, while someone can sympithise with another person, they truely dont know how one feels.

That is my opinion on it anyway =S

[lemmingllama]

"I know how you feel" doesnt mean that they need to have experienced the exact same loss, it simply states that the speaker has empathy rather than sympathy for the listener. So in this case it just means that Mary understand that it is tough on Phillip and can understand how he feels, so she comforts him. Empathy does not need actual experience to understand how someone feels because true empathy means that you understand how they feel.

[ZeroPenguins]

I suppose what Mae and lemming said has some truth to it, but those words are just used to make the person in pain don't feel as they were the only one that suffered, makes them feel better in a sense (humans are weird they feel better knowing that others have suffered the same thing, I suppose no one wants to be the first to suffer).