I don't feel like I'm looking for answers or confirmation. I just want to talk to people who might think somewhat like myself.
My family is very old, and rather large.
My mother's side of the family has always had "that sixth sense," for lack of a better term at the moment. They always have been. When I was a kid, I suppose I had that, too, but in a different way. As a child, I always observed. In everything I did, I analyzed it, and spent a lot of time sitting and watching. My mom, when we get on the topic, often tells me that my dad would worry that I was sad and ask how I was, and I would respond, "I'm only looking."
I felt how others around me felt. I could be happier than a pioneer with a big harvest one moment, and then someone would do something, like skin their knee and I always remembered my chest tightening at the sight. Their afflicted area would be warm on me, and I would always reach for it to see if I had injured myself. I would feel some degree of pain, and my mood would match theirs. Sometimes it was instant and complete, sometimes it was just a watered-down version of their mood. Either way, I would feel how they did.
Other times, my mood was contagious. If I felt a particularly strong emotion like elation or rage, the people around me would end up the same way. Usually I was the favourite in my circle of friends. People gravitated towards me, but as I got older, that changed.
In middle school, I was well-known. People would always come up to me and make friends without provocation, even if I'd previously observed them to be rude or not very social. I could almost invariably tell if someone was wearing a facade, and I was in-tune with how they felt despite their expression. Sooner or later, I realized that if I touched someone, we would have something of an exchange. If I was upset or feeling negative, they would become that way. If their current emotional state was stronger than mine, (my placidity and their discontent, for example) I would adopt theirs. People began to become uncomfortable with me and my uncanny knowledge of their states, and my group of friends were reduced to a select few.
Under the near-constant ridicule of my peers, I turned inward, and questioned myself.
Throughout middle school, I took advantage of my isolation and tried to learn more about myself, and found more peculiarities. I was often keen to things that others were not--presences, temperature shifts, stares. When I was in a place with some kind of history, I could feel it. I would feel the emotion, and I would get vague impressions of people in the house and when I came in contact with certain things, I could feel surges of emotion.
When I would visit my great-grandmother's old shop that had fallen into disuse, I would often feel a sudden welling of pride, which I always questioned when my dad recounted her deep love for the store and her habitual cleaning of its exterior.
I never mentioned what I felt to my parents. When I entered high school, I couldn't ignore that I was different, especially when y aunt on my mother's side pulled me aside and told me that I was empathetic, which only made me feel further secluded: I knew how everyone else felt, but no one knew how I did.
I couldn't--and still can't--relate with anyone my age. I wanted to talk about history, the world, science, the past. My tastes were old-fashioned, and I found myself more accustomed using "outdated" terms to express myself or name things. My best friends are over the age of twenty-two, and I find it a lot easier to bond with adults who have experienced a lot, or the elderly. When they recount their lives, I feel as if I know what they've been through, almost like I was there.
But highschoolers aren't receptive to that kind of thinking. All they talk about is now and their feelings, when I want to talk about something on a larger scale. I have always hungered for knowledge. Teachers are my best friends. It's gotten to the point that I'm usually avoided, because people feel strange being around me. "I don't like how you make me feel." is the most common thing I get. Even my close friends are skittish around me at times. They deliberately avoid the topic of sex because they're "worried how I'll feel about it." but they always come to me for relationship advice because I "always know what to do because I'm so mature." Even adults ask me for help on certain topics that involve handling emotions.
The most recent and startling development is that I've become (more) aware of something else in my home. I have seen him once, and the one time I responded to it out of anger seems to have caused it to pester me more. It bothers me in my sleep, and my cat is normally prone to glare where I feel it's standing, but I never look at it (my mom says acknowledging it will not help you be rid of it if it's malevolent).
My grandmother always calls me an old soul, but is also keenly aware of the loneliness that I feel burdened with.
Sorry for the 5000+ character count--it wasn't intended, I promise.
I'm home sick from school today, so I have a lot of time on my hands.
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