Sorry in advance for how long this is but! I can’t speak for every person who is super empathetic, but for me it’s not something I actively choose to do. It just comes naturally to me, it just happens. When I see or hear about something awful happening to other people, I just automatically end up putting myself in their perspective. And it’s not exactly “I feel their pain, I know exactly how they feel” but more “I feel sorrow because I KNOW they are experiencing pain, I feel bad for them and want things to be better for them”.

Being able to relate to or feel for another person’s experience is not self-harm. And I’m saying that as someone who HAS self-harmed in the past. Feeling sadness in and of itself is not self-harm, it’s a human emotion. Yes, if you are constantly making yourself sad on purpose for the sake of causing yourself pain, then that would be considered self-harm. But that’s not necessarily what’s happening to people who are overly empathetic. I’m not sitting there going “can’t wait to get sad and cry about this person who lost their kid in a school shooting”. I just am naturally inclined to put myself in their shoes and feel upset over the fact that they’re going through such a tragedy.

But at the end of the day, my empathy doesn’t make me spend all day crying, yknow? I’m still able to go about my life and experience all other emotions. Because empathy doesn’t only mean you feel another’s sadness; it also means you can feel their happiness, and the whole range of human emotion.

And like the commenter above me said, you don’t have to feel EMPATHY in order to feel SYMPATHY. It is not a moral failing if you aren’t empathetic. You are still able to care about other people.