I've been doing some reading lately. Trying to come to a greater understanding of my empathic side, and with this understanding, a greater measure of control. It appears as if I have quite a road ahead of me still. I honestly don't know where this is going as I start, or why I am being "nudged" to write about this now, but I've come to learn that when I have the urge to write out of nowhere and share my words, there is usually a reason behind it for me or for others.
Let me take you on a little trip into the world of an empath as I've experienced it.
I learned a long time ago that too many people = too much sensation. I easily get carried away with the crowd mentality. It sneaks up inside of me before I know what's happening. I'll take on the traits and "personality" if you will of those I am around. I have been known to lose myself completely in the presence of a large crowd of people or even just one person with a powerful energy. This can either be good, or bad - and even when it's good, it's bad, because it's scary and because I do things that are out of my character. Things that I know I should not do logically, but the strength of emotion overpowers any resistance that my brain has to offer up. I have done a few things that I regret out of my inability to distinguish what is ME and what is THEM in the heat of the moment, as it is always after the fact, when I am away from the barrage of foreign emotions, that I realize what has happened and just how badly I have botched things up yet again.
So I tried my best to block it out. Block people out. That's what freaks do anyway, right? Stay hidden from society? I didn't realize this was what I was doing at the time, but looking back, I see it very clearly now. I isolated myself. Limited the number of people that I was around at any given time and developed anxieties that made it easy for me to do so. But I simply love too much to live in isolation. I feel too much, care too much. So I unknowingly sought out a different means of communication, one that seemed less of a barrage on my emotional self and one that I could keep under control much easier. Enter the internet.
It worked for a while. I got the benefits of social interaction without the overpowering sensation of physical closeness. But the problem here is that an empath doesn't need physical closeness to feel others emotions or form a bond. Nor does it restrict the empath's ability to feel when someone needs help, and the irresistible urge to help them. This is something that I failed to realize in my untrained state and that I am just recently coming to understand. For a while I thought I was absolutely insane to feel the way that I do about people who I have never once met. This feeling has confounded me on more than one occasion, and still does today. But I suppose it all makes sense when I take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
Let me lay out the pattern for you. I meet someone. Usually quite randomly. This does not happen with everyone, as I try to block out others at most times, but occasionally, someone will either slip through the cracks or simply have such a powerful energy that I can't ignore its pull. I'll find myself greatly interested in them, but will say nothing. This person is almost always hurting or in some kind of emotional turmoil whether they realize it or not. Occasionally this person is also an empath; usually they do not realize that they are. But I digress; these people are inevitably drawn to me. Some take longer than others. Some have admitted to "watching" me for a while before approaching me. But approach me they always do, and I simply can not turn away. I feel an astounding need to know them. To crawl inside their heads and figure them out, and help them in whatever way they need help.
I become whatever it is that they need. I've recently learned that this behavior is known as Empathic Shapeshifting. If they need a mother, I become their mother. A friend, I become their friend. A lover, I become their lover. And so on. This has been happening to me for years, and I had no idea what it was or why it was happening. I have lost myself numerous times along the way, to the point where sometimes I did not know who I was at all, and there are parts of me that have remained hidden for years that I don't know if I can ever recover. Let me try to explain better.
I woke up one day after being married for nearly five years to a man who I'd bonded with instantly overnight years before then and wondered what the hell had happened to me. Why I was married to someone who I had nothing in common with, and who I really didn't enjoy being with all that much. I realized that I did not want to be with this man, but at the time, did not understand why. I could still feel his emotions, but they no longer defined ME. They affected me greatly, but they no longer ruled me. This is not to say that I did not care for him, because I did. I loved him they way that I love everyone who I allow myself to get close to. The pain that my withdrawal caused him was nearly unbearable and sent me into a deep depression. It was one of the worst times of my life, and one that has affected me til this day.
Around this same time, I started smoking marijuana. I think that was the catalyst to me being able to cut the cord. It is apparently very common for an empath to turn to substances as a means of dulling the barrage of feeling that they experience every day whether they are conscious of doing so or not. It seems as though this is exactly what happened with me; shortly after that I formed another bond of greater strength that overpowered the influx of pain and confusion that I'd been receiving from my ex and replaced it with "love". Without realizing why, I simply no longer cared enough to stay, and I walked away.
Sounds kind of heartless, doesn't it? I know I beat myself up over it for quite some time. But dig deeper. Imagine completely losing yourself to someone, becoming what they want and need, and having no conscious recognition of doing so. It's like the feeling of new love times 10; you know, the one where people can tell you the reality of things, but your reality is simply something different in your clouded state of mind. Now imagine waking up and realizing this has happened, but not understanding why. Imagine not caring anymore about someone who you thought you would be with for the rest of your life. Questioning why you have been with them for so long and looking back in dismay at the years you have lost along the way. And beyond all of that, the undeniable truth that your time with that person is done, and there is no good way to walk away that they will understand.
Up until this point, I always believed there was something seriously wrong with me. Some kind of deep seated deviance that caused me to be capable of such strong love and turn around and have it turn into an equally strong indifference or even resentment. But as I learn more about what it is to be an empath, I see that there is nothing "wrong" with me at all, that it is just the way I was born and that I am not alone in the world. And that I still have a long way to go before I have a handle on it.
If this had happened just once, it would be one thing. But the formation of such an empathic bond with another has happened on several occasions now, with people of varied background, age, interests, etc. There is no set variable to it, we are either drawn together or not. Oftentimes this happens in situations that are not at all appropriate by society's standards which makes it even more difficult to deal with and causes a great deal of shame and confusion to be added to the pot of already conflicted emotions. It doesn't always happen to such an extreme as it did with my ex husband, but I would be lying if I did not say that my present situation is similar and a mess that I do not know how to crawl out of without causing more harm than good. That, however, is a story for another time.
My heart has been fractured more often than I'd care to admit because of this ability to love too much and the "curse" that causes me to become whatever it is that a person needs at the time, regardless of what I need. I am working on having a better measure of control over this, but it is difficult without a guide to show me the way of things and the daily distractions that I live with. Although people are drawn to me, they almost always leave me when they are "finished" with me or when I unknowingly push them away. Most people simply do not understand the intensity of my emotion or theirs in return. How I can be a stranger to them, never met them before a day in their life, and sill have such a reaction to them or they to me after little or no direct conversation. It's too much for them to comprehend, and so they turn away from it rather than embrace or understand it. And just because I draw people to me, does not mean that I draw good people do me. I have formed a bond with several people in the past who recognized the "power" they held over me and abused it, causing me quite a bit of harm. The problem here, at least for me, is once a bond is formed, good or bad, it still exists when the other person walks away unless I am able to sever it which can be very difficult to do and traumatic either way. I am consistently left feeling very lonely and broken and as if my only role in life is to sustain others while I myself decline into a world of depression and an unfulfilled dreams. And I isolate myself from others all the more as a means to protect myself from it happening again, but inevitably it does, and I am back to square one.
Some will think I am insane, but perhaps you will see something of yourself in my words, either out of similar experiences or because you are one who I have bonded with. If you aren't sure if I have bonded with you, know this. I know who you are, and you probably know it too whether you have allowed yourself to admit it or not. You are able to feel the pull just as much as I am, you just may not recognize it as such. Also know that I care for you deeply, and your happiness is greatly important to me. And while I am driven to be there for you, I find it very difficult to open up to you if you do not open up to me. If you shut down, I shut down. Open up, and I open up. I often do not know what to say beyond the casual comment or joke yet I feel a great need to ease your suffering that borders upon heartbreaking obsession at times. I wish I could say that this was an entirely selfless endeavor, but it's not. Remember, I feel what you feel...so if you are happy, then I am happy. If you are sad, I am sad. And so on. This is but one price I pay as an empath and one that I pay willingly for a select few if it brings them happiness. I am a flawed human being, and my reactions are not always rational, especially when I am inundated with the emotions of others. It is very difficult to deal sometimes when what you feel defies everything that you have been taught about how things should be and quite often, the two collide. The ramifications of such collisions are also a price I must pay when I open myself up to others. This is a also a price that I am willing to pay for certain people...but not when it is paid with nothing in return. For far too long that has been the way of things, and it has been much to my detriment. And if there is one thing I have learned in my studies, it's that I deserve more than that and that I can't help anyone if I am constantly hurting myself.
There is more to it, so much more, but I will end here for now and pick up at a later date. The muse has left me for the time being and I am beginning to ramble at this point. Much love to you if you have made it this far and do not think I have completely lost it. I've have lost it in some ways, I'll admit that, but not when it comes to this.
"Maybe if I share the path I walk then a little more of your pain will vanish. I want you to heal, whoever you are. I don't care what pain you've brought the world, I just want yours to subside. No matter what, your path is yours. Don't follow misery or worry. Devote every moment of your life to improving your dreams. Love your world. Cherish the good you do. Let go of hatred. Dream of love." - Unknown
© Lady Jennith
Let me take you on a little trip into the world of an empath as I've experienced it.
I learned a long time ago that too many people = too much sensation. I easily get carried away with the crowd mentality. It sneaks up inside of me before I know what's happening. I'll take on the traits and "personality" if you will of those I am around. I have been known to lose myself completely in the presence of a large crowd of people or even just one person with a powerful energy. This can either be good, or bad - and even when it's good, it's bad, because it's scary and because I do things that are out of my character. Things that I know I should not do logically, but the strength of emotion overpowers any resistance that my brain has to offer up. I have done a few things that I regret out of my inability to distinguish what is ME and what is THEM in the heat of the moment, as it is always after the fact, when I am away from the barrage of foreign emotions, that I realize what has happened and just how badly I have botched things up yet again.
So I tried my best to block it out. Block people out. That's what freaks do anyway, right? Stay hidden from society? I didn't realize this was what I was doing at the time, but looking back, I see it very clearly now. I isolated myself. Limited the number of people that I was around at any given time and developed anxieties that made it easy for me to do so. But I simply love too much to live in isolation. I feel too much, care too much. So I unknowingly sought out a different means of communication, one that seemed less of a barrage on my emotional self and one that I could keep under control much easier. Enter the internet.
It worked for a while. I got the benefits of social interaction without the overpowering sensation of physical closeness. But the problem here is that an empath doesn't need physical closeness to feel others emotions or form a bond. Nor does it restrict the empath's ability to feel when someone needs help, and the irresistible urge to help them. This is something that I failed to realize in my untrained state and that I am just recently coming to understand. For a while I thought I was absolutely insane to feel the way that I do about people who I have never once met. This feeling has confounded me on more than one occasion, and still does today. But I suppose it all makes sense when I take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
Let me lay out the pattern for you. I meet someone. Usually quite randomly. This does not happen with everyone, as I try to block out others at most times, but occasionally, someone will either slip through the cracks or simply have such a powerful energy that I can't ignore its pull. I'll find myself greatly interested in them, but will say nothing. This person is almost always hurting or in some kind of emotional turmoil whether they realize it or not. Occasionally this person is also an empath; usually they do not realize that they are. But I digress; these people are inevitably drawn to me. Some take longer than others. Some have admitted to "watching" me for a while before approaching me. But approach me they always do, and I simply can not turn away. I feel an astounding need to know them. To crawl inside their heads and figure them out, and help them in whatever way they need help.
I become whatever it is that they need. I've recently learned that this behavior is known as Empathic Shapeshifting. If they need a mother, I become their mother. A friend, I become their friend. A lover, I become their lover. And so on. This has been happening to me for years, and I had no idea what it was or why it was happening. I have lost myself numerous times along the way, to the point where sometimes I did not know who I was at all, and there are parts of me that have remained hidden for years that I don't know if I can ever recover. Let me try to explain better.
I woke up one day after being married for nearly five years to a man who I'd bonded with instantly overnight years before then and wondered what the hell had happened to me. Why I was married to someone who I had nothing in common with, and who I really didn't enjoy being with all that much. I realized that I did not want to be with this man, but at the time, did not understand why. I could still feel his emotions, but they no longer defined ME. They affected me greatly, but they no longer ruled me. This is not to say that I did not care for him, because I did. I loved him they way that I love everyone who I allow myself to get close to. The pain that my withdrawal caused him was nearly unbearable and sent me into a deep depression. It was one of the worst times of my life, and one that has affected me til this day.
Around this same time, I started smoking marijuana. I think that was the catalyst to me being able to cut the cord. It is apparently very common for an empath to turn to substances as a means of dulling the barrage of feeling that they experience every day whether they are conscious of doing so or not. It seems as though this is exactly what happened with me; shortly after that I formed another bond of greater strength that overpowered the influx of pain and confusion that I'd been receiving from my ex and replaced it with "love". Without realizing why, I simply no longer cared enough to stay, and I walked away.
Sounds kind of heartless, doesn't it? I know I beat myself up over it for quite some time. But dig deeper. Imagine completely losing yourself to someone, becoming what they want and need, and having no conscious recognition of doing so. It's like the feeling of new love times 10; you know, the one where people can tell you the reality of things, but your reality is simply something different in your clouded state of mind. Now imagine waking up and realizing this has happened, but not understanding why. Imagine not caring anymore about someone who you thought you would be with for the rest of your life. Questioning why you have been with them for so long and looking back in dismay at the years you have lost along the way. And beyond all of that, the undeniable truth that your time with that person is done, and there is no good way to walk away that they will understand.
Up until this point, I always believed there was something seriously wrong with me. Some kind of deep seated deviance that caused me to be capable of such strong love and turn around and have it turn into an equally strong indifference or even resentment. But as I learn more about what it is to be an empath, I see that there is nothing "wrong" with me at all, that it is just the way I was born and that I am not alone in the world. And that I still have a long way to go before I have a handle on it.
If this had happened just once, it would be one thing. But the formation of such an empathic bond with another has happened on several occasions now, with people of varied background, age, interests, etc. There is no set variable to it, we are either drawn together or not. Oftentimes this happens in situations that are not at all appropriate by society's standards which makes it even more difficult to deal with and causes a great deal of shame and confusion to be added to the pot of already conflicted emotions. It doesn't always happen to such an extreme as it did with my ex husband, but I would be lying if I did not say that my present situation is similar and a mess that I do not know how to crawl out of without causing more harm than good. That, however, is a story for another time.
My heart has been fractured more often than I'd care to admit because of this ability to love too much and the "curse" that causes me to become whatever it is that a person needs at the time, regardless of what I need. I am working on having a better measure of control over this, but it is difficult without a guide to show me the way of things and the daily distractions that I live with. Although people are drawn to me, they almost always leave me when they are "finished" with me or when I unknowingly push them away. Most people simply do not understand the intensity of my emotion or theirs in return. How I can be a stranger to them, never met them before a day in their life, and sill have such a reaction to them or they to me after little or no direct conversation. It's too much for them to comprehend, and so they turn away from it rather than embrace or understand it. And just because I draw people to me, does not mean that I draw good people do me. I have formed a bond with several people in the past who recognized the "power" they held over me and abused it, causing me quite a bit of harm. The problem here, at least for me, is once a bond is formed, good or bad, it still exists when the other person walks away unless I am able to sever it which can be very difficult to do and traumatic either way. I am consistently left feeling very lonely and broken and as if my only role in life is to sustain others while I myself decline into a world of depression and an unfulfilled dreams. And I isolate myself from others all the more as a means to protect myself from it happening again, but inevitably it does, and I am back to square one.
Some will think I am insane, but perhaps you will see something of yourself in my words, either out of similar experiences or because you are one who I have bonded with. If you aren't sure if I have bonded with you, know this. I know who you are, and you probably know it too whether you have allowed yourself to admit it or not. You are able to feel the pull just as much as I am, you just may not recognize it as such. Also know that I care for you deeply, and your happiness is greatly important to me. And while I am driven to be there for you, I find it very difficult to open up to you if you do not open up to me. If you shut down, I shut down. Open up, and I open up. I often do not know what to say beyond the casual comment or joke yet I feel a great need to ease your suffering that borders upon heartbreaking obsession at times. I wish I could say that this was an entirely selfless endeavor, but it's not. Remember, I feel what you feel...so if you are happy, then I am happy. If you are sad, I am sad. And so on. This is but one price I pay as an empath and one that I pay willingly for a select few if it brings them happiness. I am a flawed human being, and my reactions are not always rational, especially when I am inundated with the emotions of others. It is very difficult to deal sometimes when what you feel defies everything that you have been taught about how things should be and quite often, the two collide. The ramifications of such collisions are also a price I must pay when I open myself up to others. This is a also a price that I am willing to pay for certain people...but not when it is paid with nothing in return. For far too long that has been the way of things, and it has been much to my detriment. And if there is one thing I have learned in my studies, it's that I deserve more than that and that I can't help anyone if I am constantly hurting myself.
There is more to it, so much more, but I will end here for now and pick up at a later date. The muse has left me for the time being and I am beginning to ramble at this point. Much love to you if you have made it this far and do not think I have completely lost it. I've have lost it in some ways, I'll admit that, but not when it comes to this.
"Maybe if I share the path I walk then a little more of your pain will vanish. I want you to heal, whoever you are. I don't care what pain you've brought the world, I just want yours to subside. No matter what, your path is yours. Don't follow misery or worry. Devote every moment of your life to improving your dreams. Love your world. Cherish the good you do. Let go of hatred. Dream of love." - Unknown
© Lady Jennith
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