this will probably be long as I'm a rather wordy writer. So try to bear with me.
As a kid I was very shy and quiet and I kept to myself unless others invited me to join them. I was almost what most mothers would call"their dream kid" because I was super obedient and took everything literally to the point of extremes. If my mother told me not to do something you can guarantee I did not do it. So anyway this correlates to the fact that it always seemed the other kids were drawn to me in some kind of way, because as quiet and shy as I was, I was still quite popular. The kids always wanted to talk to me and this continued throughout elementary, middle and high schools as well. In 6th grade my teacher told my mother that "i seemed to be highly sensitive to the needs and feelings of my fellow peers and that I'd be very good as a social worker or therapist as an adult" I think he said this because even at that young age, the kids came to me for advice and I was always the one trying to solve other kids disputes and problems. Anyway this continued throughout high school I was like the matchmaker/counselor of my friends, they all came to me for advice to the point where I would start feeling drained. I began to be extremely tired starting in 9th grade and going on until I graduated. The doctors never knew why because I was slightly low-iron but not to any extremes. I just felt like I needed to sleep about double what I was actually getting every night. I would come home from a day at school and feel literally drained as if my batteries were low and I'd sleep until the next morning sometimes if I was allowed.
My friends used to make fun of me and say I was airheaded, because I would often go into a daze and kind of go away for a minute in my head and then come back out and miss what had been said, so they took that as me being an airhead but in reality I was often just lost in thought. I was very kind and sensitive of others feelings but the kindness was often not returned to me. My friends never knew of my empathy because it wasn't until much later that I realized what I had. I always knew that I was highly sensitive to others feelings, that I could sense emotions that were not shown, etc. But I was unaware that it was some kind of ability. I hadn't yet heard of an empath.
A few examples of things that I've done:
I've had dreams that come true many times, I often have deja vu, with me I like to think I'm just very good at reading people meaning that I pay such close attention to the details that I can read into what's really going on below the surface. For example, when I was first working in this one office and just getting to know a few of my co-workers, I saw one very simple gesture shared between this girl and a guy and I knew instantly in that moment that they were having some kind of secret relationship. All I had seen was a look in the woman's eye... She just looked at the guy from a few feet away and it was something about the glint in her eye that I just knew they were secretly sleeping together. Nobody else in the office ever caught on and I never mentioned it to either of them until a year later after I'd become close friends with them both and still neither of them had told me they were secretly dating. I told them both I had known since the first week I met them and they made me keep it a secret until they eventually broke up. But little things like that happen to me constantly, I can always tell when somebody likes or dislikes someone else way before anybody else catches on, that's why I often played the matchmaker in high school. With me it's not so much I feel their emotions, it's more like I can just pick up on them very easily if I try.
I once had a dream about my husband and daughter before either of them owned that title. I was dating this guy that I fell head over heels in love with after the first 30 seconds of knowing him and that right there was probably the most heightened emotion I'd ever felt. It was like when the two of us met there was this extreme connection. I just felt instant love. Love at first sight and I've always wondered if that was me feeling his emotions or if I too felt love for him and I will never really know. So that's part of the problem I second guess myself all the time because I'm not sure if I'm feeling somebody else's pain or happiness or if it's my own. Anyway getting back to the dream, when me and him were first dating I had a dream that me and him had a baby girl together and when she was 2 years old I had to go to Florida to find her because me and him were separated and she was living with him there. Well in reality, we did have a daughter together 8 years after I had the dream after me and him had re-connected after about 6 years of not being together and he did run away to Florida and leave me for awhile before she was 2...but un-like the dream she stayed with me. Anyway perhaps the strangest thing that happens to me, I can get high off of other people's high. I myself, do not do drugs. I also don't drink a lot, but if I am around others who are intoxicated or high, I often start to feel the same, I even slur my words. It's like it transfers to me through osmosis, I don't know how to explain it really. If my husband is feeling particularly achy or in pain, so will I, usually in the same places as him.
Usually it seems that I have to know the person to pick up on most of their emotions but sometimes I can get a lot out of strangers just by watching them. I don't necessarily even have to talk to them, I can just watch their body language and the things they do and sense what they are feeling. A few days before my 69 year old grandmother had a stroke and died I was shopping in a forever21 store and as I came to a section with black dresses this exact thought popped into my head "i should get a black dress because I'm going to be going to a funeral soon." at the time, I had no idea my grandmother was going to have a stroke and nobody I knew was dying so for that thought to happen was very strange. It was maybe 2 days later that she died. I never knew exactly why I had that premonition or whatever it was, but was that even a form of empathy? What was it?
Now, here is where I have problems... I CANNOT WATCH THE NEWS OR A MOVIE WITHOUT MY EYES INSTANTLY WELLING UP IN TEARS. Especially when something happens to a kid and they show the parents crying on the news talking about their kid... I have to change the channel because I cannot deal with so much sadness. I stay away from hospitals, sick people and funerals because I can't deal with the depression that comes from these places or events. I did not even go to my grandmothers funeral. One day I stumbled onto this blog on the internet. It started out being a happy family of 3. Mom, dad and baby cora. As I read through the blog cora gets some kind of cancer and dies like a month or so later at around 1 years old. Something about that particular blog nearly killed me. My eyes well up in tears right now just thinking about it. At the time I was reading the blog, my daughter was about the same age as the little girl so I related to it in such a way that it made me so sad and upset that I could not get the picture of that little girls face out of my head for months. I cried in the shower over that little baby that I didn't even know for days. It wasn't normal empathy, everyone that hears that story would feel sad but I felt just as though I was the mother losing my child. I felt the woman who wrote the blogs pain.
Other things, I can literally read between the lines of a letter. I can see what's written, but I can also sense the emotion behind the words. Like I could pick up on sarcasm or anger even if the words themselves are friendly.
So these are some of my experiences and examples of what I've put up with in my life being an empath. Now here is where I really struggle:
In my relationship with my husband it causes a lot of problems because of the fact that I pick up on every little lie or feeling that others would not it causes me to accuse him of things all the time. The saying ignorance is bliss is true. Sometimes I'd rather turn a blind eye and not know when he is lying to me or not notice a tiny detail that suggests he is cheating on me that most woman would not notice. And it does not help that he doesn't even believe emotions come from the heart and that feelings are real. He thinks that everything comes from your brain and there is no such thing as a feeling or that love comes from the heart. He tries to argue this with me and I can't even deal with it, I change the subject. Nobody around me really knows of my empathy, I've tried explaining it to him but he thinks I'm crazy. So anyway, I want to know how to turn my empathy off. Can anyone suggest a way to help me?
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