Terminally Empathetic

I used to think the it was good that I felt so much empathy for other people. It wasnt until well into my 20's that I noticed the empathy I felt was much more intense than that of those around me. I used to think it kept me grounded, it made me think twice about doing things I shouldn't. I would think about how my actions would affect others, and act accordingly.

It wasn't until a few weeks ago that I realized just how deep my well of empathy runs. I was cleaning up the house and found a towel I had missed on my earlier sweep of the main level and seeing how I had already taken the rest of the dirty laundry downstairs, I went to drop it from the half-wall that lines up with the bottom of the stairs. I often toss random stragglers the same way, what I hadn't done before this particular time was look down and watch the decent. As I leaned over to make sure the wet towel didnt land on the carpeted stairs, I gasped as I lost my stomach. It was as if I had experienced the same drop as the towel had. WTF?

A memory was triggered and I thought back to when my kids were little and would beg me to play video games with them. I have never been one to really game all that much, but I do have a few games I can't seem to turn down. Tekken, Street Fighter, GTA, Burnout, and Skate2 making that list. The game of choice for this particular night was Skate2. I dominated that game, I loved being something of a hero to my kids, even if it was just for beating Dad in a game. I hadn't thought of it in years but, even then I would lose my tummy when my player would get big air on jumps. My son would laugh so hard he'd cry. He was 5 or 6 then, he is 18 now, which tells me I've had this "terminal empathy" far longer than I previously believed.

The towel incident triggering the memory got my thinker up and thinking. Just how much empathy is too much empathy? So far the answer is about 30% less than I personally possess. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much my empathy has been something of a disability at times. I often feel condemned to a life of experiencing other peoples feelings as if they were my own. That can be such an exhausting experience, especially when the feelings are deeply sad. The only emotion I dont process naturally is anger, anytime I've absorbed angry emotions they translated into sadness for me. I've never been very good at being angry, and even when I could manage to get worked up to the point of expressing anger, it was a flash in the pan. While I am no doubt bad at getting angry, I'm a total failure at staying mad. Which has been taken advantage of by many of those around me at one point or another.

I have yet to meet anyone who experiences empathy quite as intensly as I do, but I would be a fool to believe that I am the only one. I have often felt as if it could almost be considered a terminal affliction, especially when the sadness of others is so intense it becomes hard to reconcile as being a non organic emotion. A sudden depressive state with no personal experience to justify its presence. If you don't know why you are sad how do you make yourself happy again? That is the often overlooked downfall of the entire idea of empathy.

That's the thing about being so empathetic, it doesn't really matter how right or wrong someone is, or how good or bad they treat others, none of the things you naturally think would determine just how much someone should feel for the plight of another. They could be horrible, awful people, they may have even done something monsterous to you personally, yet somehow your brain starts flooding with all of the ways you holding them accountable will negatively effect them or their loved ones. Before you know it you are now the one making excuses for the person who's actions were unexcusable. The truly odd thing to me is, if I were listening to the same story from someone other than myself, I would be telling them the same as anyone. F them, f that, you dont deserve such treatment...... the whole gambit. Yet for whatever reason when I am the one to who should be condemning others, I suddenly feel like their defense attorney.

I have to remind myself to look at it like this, if you constantly take on the feelings of others to buffer the blow for them, you ultimatley are training them to project any feelings they dont want to deal with for themselves onto you. You have to retrain them to respect your emotional boundaries, and leave them to deal with their own problems themselves. Afterall most of the time they are struggling with situations they knowingly created for themselves. Why should I be taking on the guilt they earned for themselves?

As an empath it can be hard to separate your feelings from those of others, but the difficulty doesn't outweigh the necessity to do so. If you dont, you are allowing the emotional baggage of those around you eat you alive.

If you are a parent, you have a double duty to be aware of the example you are setting for the little ones. You don't want your kids growing up thinking it is their responsibility to shoulder the weight of the world for others. Even if it is not an organic charachteristic to them, they are likely to absorb it from observance, like the little sponges they are.

There are many opinions out there in the world, this one is mine.

Peace Love and Legos