This is my first time really talking about this sort of thing to please bear with me and my lack of knowledge.
I'm not sure why but I've always been able to sense other people emotions. Usually the extreme ones like Fear, Sadness, and Hate stick out the most. I can feel who these emotions are coming from and who or what it is directed at. Sometimes it's not associated with anyone living or someone I can see. Like a sort of old emotion that's been sitting there for years or maybe even from a conscious spirit. A lot of the time these emotions coming from nowhere are directed at me in the form of anger.
I've been very good with people all my life because of this ability but I'm always quick to tire from it and I need to sleep a LOT to get my energy back. Some people are worse than others in the sense that it feels like they are projecting their emotions strongly. Others are more subdued or quiet and it takes me a little bit longer to feel their emotions. I would like to figure out if there's a way to help me turn off this ability or even just quiet it down a bit.
I've come here mainly because I've recently had an increase in activity and it's causing me to not want to leave my house at all because I know I'll be dragging myself home exhausted in a matter of a few hours. I've also had a lot of dreams of death. Not my own death. I'm always someone different. And I feel their emotions as they are dying and it's always from their perspective. It's not a very pleasant experience.
If anyone could please offer some tips on how to deal with this properly please please please let me know. Thank you.
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You see I have the opposite problem at the moment.
Last year I moved away from home to start university, and I moved into uni accommodation which houses at least a couple hundred people. To say the least it became a little overwhelming at times, but I was largely able to deal with the emotions coming on, though I didn't know what was going on, I just endured them.
However, around October last year I was overloaded with a lot of different conflicting emotions that were saturating me, I was pretty confused because some of them were conflicting. I was certain they couldn't all be mine, because if they were I'd had to have lost my mind.
It was like all my emotions were little floating strings, and all the other people I walked by or talked to had these little strings too that would tangle up with mine, and rather than untangling them I'd just keep them, and it was getting heavier and heavier.
If I got away from people it did get better, but I live in the middle of a city, and I couldn't just stop uni, and life itself, just because I could feel a chunk of it.
After I couldn't stand it anymore- in the middle of a bout five assignments, and I think so was the rest of the building- I googled to figure what the hell was going on, and thought that it may be something psychicish since I used to get weird dreams of the future- not anything largely interesting mind you.
I eventually I found a forum like this that pretty much said I was likely an empath, at the time however I was frustrated with myself and all these emotions that were coming in and rather than trying to do what the site said and centering myself, or trying to sort the emotions out I just got more frustrated with the emotions and they all blew up. It was like I blew my emotions fuse. It wasn't a physical thing where I like threw something or anything- that probably would have been healthier- they just stopped, it was like I was empty after that.
At the time I thought it was brilliant, all the distractions were gone, I could focus on my studies and I could sleep and actually feel recuperated afterwards. It was like I had no care in the world.
However, I soon realised there was problem. I went to hang out with a friend who I had feeling for - though I never told her- but I was talking to her and there was nothing, my feelings were also gone. I lost not just the connection to others, but myself as well. I don't know maybe my subconscious locked them up and threw away the key. I did a little bit of psychology just Psych 101, and after learning a bit of that I think maybe I dissociated myself from emotions since they were the cause of my problem.
I still feel physical pain, and cold and all that stuff, it didn't turn off my nervous system, but you know happiness, love, sadness, guilt, pretty much everything like that is gone. I have felt anxiety once or twice, but that's likely because that was always the strongest feeling that I keyed in on... And the one that was frustrating me the most when I blew my fuse.
Now I suggest you don't do what I did and get frustrated with the emotions, don't let them overwhelm you, it can certainly be difficult, but try acknowledging them one at a time and asking yourself is this your emotion or someone else's. Then if it isn't yours dismiss it. I tried denying all the emotions rather than working them out. I've never been good at letting go of feelings, so that's why I think my brain ended them, it saw them as a problem.
If you can learn to let go of them as they come, it should I think give you some control.
I only sort of understood what it was I had after my brain ran away form it.
Though this happened to me, don't feel that it will necessarily happen to you too. Now I'm no professor or anything but I'm fairly sure my empathic abilities and personality traits were volatile when mixed together.
I was able to take a basic personality test which cover the big five traits and my three highest personality traits were openness- so I was open to other people and new experiences, agreeableness - so I was willing to put others before and above myself including their feelings it seems, and then neuroticism- so basically my thoughts and emotions would exacerbate each other, I'd feel emotions and then freak out about them even more.
I'd had weird feelings that didn't make since since I was about 14 and they only got stronger the older I got, but I never acknowledged that the ability was anything and tried ignoring all the feeling. You have already come here to try and gain control over your ability, whereas I tried denying it completely. So I think you're on the right track, I hope that you are able to figure your ability out, and learn to control it.
I am slowly getting some feeling back, but it's minimal, it'll take a long while I think to be able to feel properly again, but once my emotions are back up and running, and if my ability turns up again I'll be able to control it I think.
I hope my experience helps you out, you may get something from it.