Freaking out in sympathy because someone else is suffering is not compassion. It's self-absorption: the hijacking of another's suffering, making it one's own, and of course thereby blocking any real feeling for what is going on. It literally blocks compassion.
Have you ever had a problem, told a friend, and the friend immediately starts reacting and running through a whole series of emotions like it's happening to them. And you're like: I'm the person this is actually happening to! And you end up comforting them and helping them with their process. And all the while they've now become completely blind to what you're going through.
It's not helping, Gavin.
Instead: to be compassionate, one has to be detached, and to be detached, one has to have dealt with one's own stuff. If not, at the first vibration from the outside, all of the person's undealt-with stuff starts vibrating and jangling as well, like porcelain cups in a rucksack. And with all that jangling, you're immediately cut off from the external world. All you can hear is the jangling.
Detachment is also necessary for right perception, and right perception is necessary to be able to be truly helpful.
The world does not need me freaking out on top of everything else that is happening.
So my job is to stay perfectly calm.