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Have you ever personally experienced or had a family member experience decreased empathy after taking too much aspirin on a daily basis?

Asked by rockfan (14627points) January 30th, 2019 from iPhone

I’ve heard this is the side effect for taking too much. Unfortunately, my dad takes it nearly every day and I’m afraid he’s lost the ability to empathize in particular ways, even though he actually is quite a sentimental person.

For example, I watched The Iron Giant with him this weekend and although he chuckled a few times, he barely reacted during some of the most emotionally intense scenes of the movie, it felt like he was just waiting for it to be over. Even though he’d see it when it originally came out and loved it.

I also feel like he couldn’t grasp the drama between the characters or the subtext. Even worse, he had a difficult time explaining why he disliked it, he only said “I just like movies with real people in them about situations that can actually happen.”

Am I completely off base thinking that someone has less empathy if they can’t connect to animated/fantasy fiction?

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