empath
A person feeling empathy vs. a person who is an empath
This one is a pretty heavy psychology discussion, just a heads up. I don’t pander to my readers, I know you’re smart people who are capable of critical thinking. So if you’re interested in this one, put yourself in a psychology lecture hall.
The reason I wanted to talk about this is because there’s a difference between feeling the emotion of empathy for someone, and being an empath. My psychiatrist believes I was born in the category of the latter.
The reason I say my psychiatrist believes this, is because I’m experiencing a lot of shame about this. It feels like one of these fringe-theory, understudied medical phenomenon that people like to blame for their natural trauma responses to assert themselves above “the truly sick people.”
Before I lose you, here’s what I’m talking about: “An empath is a person who has the ability to feel what others are feeling and understand what others are feeling. They’re also known to feel feelings on a deeper level and take on the feelings of others.” - Dr. Chivonna Childs, PhD
“While we can’t say for sure if empaths truly exist, research shows that we do have what scientists call ’mirror neurons,’ which allows us to mirror others’ emotions, and we believe those who are empaths have more mirror neurons,” explains Dr. Childs.
Please enjoy the following visual that will help me explain what it feels like:
Everyone alive has what’s called an “energy field”. And notice I’m not saying this is a theory, you all for a fact have an energy field. Cause being an empath means I can sense yours using my own.
When you’re in a pissy mood or late, or having a hard few weeks, I can tell without speaking to you.
This is not telepathy, and that’s not the arena I want to step into. I’m not suggesting I can read your thoughts, no one can do that. But I can tell by your eye movements, your posture, and sometimes by your leg positions how you’re doing.
And sometimes we just fall into what I call “hurricane mode” where everything has us so wound up it’s comparable to Looney Tunes’ Tasmanian Devil. To be completely fair, most people’s presence does not overwhelm my senses.
The best way I can describe the physicality of it is a gentle feeling of cool AC on your back. Subtle, but your senses are engaged to notice it.
Now let’s take a break here. If you need to read back through this again or even put it down for a few days that’s fine.
But finding this out changed a lot for me. I had never felt such validation of my experiences.
So many experiences I had as a child (who didn’t understand what she was experiencing) were finally validated and understood. It was incredibly helpful to my growth.
Some frequently asked questions about the phenomena of empaths:
Can you read my mind? If you mean “can I read your thoughts?”, the answer is no.
Whether or not you know it, your thoughts affect your mood and your mood affects your energy field. So if you’re screaming at everyone in your head and listening to harsh music and feeling like you’ll punch the next person to bump you, that violence becomes your energy field, you embody those thoughts now. You now read to me like a poison sea urchin. (Thank you SpongeBob for the daily marine biology lessons in school.)
This is you when you’re in a bad mood:
So you’ll forgive me if I step away.
A big dangerous, spiky ball; I need physical proximity when you become irritated. So for my own clarity, you’ll understand if I step back away from your sharp edges. As an empath, I need more physical space from people who are in a bad mood because I get pulled down into your bad moods with you unless I’m careful. Then we’re both down there.
And living in Manhattan, this is a difficult thing for me.
Here’s how this started: I could sense everyone’s energy field from a very young age, like, elementary school. But I, obviously, had no idea what this was. Neither would my parents or teachers or doctors, in the early 2000s it was not discussed widely, definitely not in children.
So I’d sit at the dinner table and observe my siblings and my parents. My parents tried not to fight in front of us, so they often sent each other messages with their eyes, with their facial expressions. As if we were stupid, not young.
It was uncomfortable and scary when my parents were mad at each other. So I sat at the dinner table and watched their eyes. Watched their blinking. Watched how they used their eyebrows and how their face ever so slightly twisted when their buttons got pushed.
I was learning how to read their expressions, their moods. I was doing it because if I could tell they were upset, maybe I could just crack a joke and shatter that uncomfortable tension.
It worked a lot, too. So that process of deep, acute observation of someone’s position and behaviors coupled with a sense of humor was constantly validated in me.
So I kept doing it. And I learned to do it to everyone. I could see when someone pushed my teacher’s buttons in elementary school, and when a fight was going to break out even later that day.
Anyone arguing would start feeling like a spiky sea urchin. Someone turned the AC on too high, it just got too cold in here! I ran from confrontation because it was so deeply uncomfortable. And I could always see it coming from a mile away.
When you poke fun at someone, you plant seeds of hate in their garden. What do you think will happen if you keep dropping these seeds of hate? They grow into deep-rooted trees and bloom into a physical altercation, almost every time.
So not only did I grow up literally running away from confrontation, I learned to shapeshift to escape. And here’s what I mean by that.
Sometimes crappy moods in people can’t be avoided, sometimes it just happens. (As I grew up, I learned to stopped feeling scared of people who were seeking connection.)
When there was no way out, when the mood soured and there was no going back, instead of maintaining my boundaries on what I could realistically add, I shape-shifted into whatever this kid needed that moment.
Normally, it was validation. So I would listen. Got great at it too, learned to act very interested and heard a lot of really interesting perspectives. And I found adults can plant seeds of hate in children without even realizing.
Just as I did at the dinner table to shatter the tension, (and fucking escape), I would either crack a joke, or just say “totally. You’re so right to feel that way.” And then get the fuck outta there.
I became a professional shapeshifter and would mold and make different personalities and sides of myself for specific people. I would lean into certain areas and try to make myself like things so I could hang around everyone, and then technically no one could “not like me.” Fool proof.
I did this with my first boyfriend. I took up nearly everything he liked because I liked the feeling of him laughing. My therapist later called that codependency.
I’m just now realizing I forgot to explain how amazing it feels when someone is happy around me.
God you guys, it feels like the first day of summer vacation. Fun, light, hopeful, warm, exciting. When you are splitting at the seams of joy, I get to feel it too. And I wish that feeling upon everyone.
There’s really nothing better to me than being there when you get incredible news; those first screams of joy heal me. Which is ironic because I hate noise.
A perfect world to me would metaphorically resemble everyone walking around in their own little perfectly-ventilated gerbil balls. I would love that.
But then I wouldn’t get to enjoy your joy.
In the real world, we are imperfect beings and sone days walking around New York City to me just feels like being scraped and tangled up into giant scratchy orbs of steel wool. I get home sometimes with pieces of me missing and falling off.
The reason I wanted to discuss this is because lately it feels worse. Everyone feels really sad and scared. I’m currently reading people walking around New York City so I guess there are various reasons to be scared - getting stuck in between stops on the subway, getting run over by a speeding delivery driver.
But the fear I feel from the collective when I go outside feels like a fear not only of the future, but of the present.
It feels like a shoe is about to drop, like a 10 month pregnant mother to be. And I think you all know it, way back in your subconscious. I feel it on all of you, it brushes off on me like the pollen off fresh lilies.
I wish us all less worry.