Empathy Is Diverse And Complicated

How does one decipher their own feelings from another's? I have always had this problem in relationships. It is very difficult for me to break up with people in person because I feel their affection for me.

On one hand, I can be physically near a person or even have had a conversation with that person and I can make an automatic connection, like I just understand them, and they always let me know that they feel like I do get them. When I am not near them, however, the feelings subside and I am able to breathe and actually think and feel my own emotions.

Oftentimes at the beginnings of relationships, I just know it's not going to go very far, but there is the need to make others happy and to be sure that I am there for them, to understand them and feel what they are feeling.

In my experiences, I take on the mood of others. For instance, my brother has a mighty temper. If he has had a bad day or is in a bad mood, I automatically sense and feel it. He is always searching for a fight when he is upset, and therefore it always leads to one. The good thing about this is that having an argument always calms my brother down and makes him feel better.

In romantic experiences, the person I am with can feel great emotions and affection towards me that makes it practically impossible for me to break away unless I separate myself from them physically and mentally, usually in the late hours of the night.

I have broken off relationships with two people in person:

One of them cared for me to the extreme and when I broke it off I felt physically and mentally drained, I cried a lot, and I slept a lot hoping to brush off the feeling of despair.

In the other case, I felt like something was wrong and broke up with him the next day, in person, without any bit of despair. That day, I felt like I had done something wrong, disgraceful, but I was very confused and I almost felt sick. The next day I broke it off with the guy, still unaware of why I was okay with breaking it off, why I didn't cry, and I why I felt that way before I left him. I found out several months later that he had cheated on me the day before I broke up with him, and what's worse, he did it drunk.

Not only do I feel the emotions of living, breathing humans, but I am also able to sense spirits. I don't actually see them, but sometimes I do hear them, and more often than not it's simply the knowledge that they are there. I can feel things, different emotions, but I'm not entirely sure how to connect them.

At one time, I went to Flagstaff, Arizona with several of my friends. It was a lovely one-night stay, so we arrived around 7pm one day and then stayed the night in a simple motel, and then rose early the next day to explore the area. I hadn't been to Flagstaff for several years and had never had the chance to explore it and so the four of us (my friends and I) wandered around the shops.

I was immediately drawn to three specific spots for no apparent reason. The first was the theatre there. It was closed on this day, but I was asking some locals about the theatre, about what they do there, and one of the locals mentioned that some people have seen, heard and felt things inside of that theatre, shadowy figures, voices in the dark, feelings that were not their own.

The second spot I was drawn to was a hotel. It was one of the original hotels I had wanted to stay in because it was apparently haunted, and I walked towards it, immediately after the visit to the theatre, in a direct path. This hotel was called the Hotel Monte Vista. I had heard of it and had heard of its stories but after I found they were booked for that I night I didn't finish any more research on it. My companions wondered how I was able to find it so easily without bothering to check the address or specific directions to it, not knowing the streets of this town.

The last destination was a bit different. It was technically another hotel, but at the same time a restaurant that I was unaware of. I had heard of the Wetherford Hotel, its haunted rooms and ballroom that had been closed down. It didn't pose much interest to me since these rooms had been closed and the four of us had considered staying in a haunted room. I ignored the information about the hotel... Until one of my friends mentioned that they were hungry and we ended up in this hotel, unaware.

It was around lunch time and I had not made a line to this place yet. When my friend said he was starving, we wandered around looking at restaurants. We passed Karma, a sushi place. Now, I love sushi and had been craving it like crazy, and all of my friends thought it was an alright idea, but something was nagging at me and I felt like I wasn't supposed to go there.

We passed an Irish Pub, a diner, and several chain restaurants, but with each of them I felt like they weren't right. I turned a corner and I saw a sign that said "Charlie's" and I walked towards it and into the restaurant without even asking my friends if it was okay with them, or even so much as a backwards glance at them. It was just where I was drawn.

This restaurant happened to be a part of the hotel, not mentioned on the site I used to look for hotels in the area. While inside, I became very depressed. Although I don't drink and am under the legal limit to, I felt the need to order an alcoholic beverage. I fell into tears and ran to the ladies room. While sitting at the table I heard voices on either side of me that did not come from any other person in that place, and it felt like something had happened there that has not been observed properly.

I felt like somebody was trying to tell me something but I was so overtaken with the sudden feeling of despair and depression that I couldn't wait to leave the place. To this day I am still not sure why I chose that place, but since then I have not even visited the town.

Psychic talents are very diverse, I have learned. I have not tried to further mine, mostly due to the lack of good things that seem to happen in relation to them. However, recently I have become more interested in my abilities after I had an interesting experience. I felt a strange wave of terror and texted my sister, of all people I could have texted, to ask her what was wrong, ultimately getting the response that one of her friends was in a car accident and she didn't know how her friend was doing.

I realized that I liked to be in tune with the people around me so I am able to be there to comfort them when they need it. Not everyone is so open with their feelings and sometimes it takes someone with the ability to feel to get them to open up.

If you have any suggestions on how I can further any abilities, I would very much appreciate it. I don't feel that I am very strong, and that I am only as strong as the forces that draw me in such as the strong feelings of despair or anger or affection. I would like to be able to feel more, control the feelings of others in order to sooth them, and it would also be very helpful to decipher feelings and separate my personal feelings from those of others, to be aware of my own feelings in different situations so I am not so easily swayed.

Kaito