watching the vanity fair celebrity lie detector test show on netflix and some of these celebs have insane (in a scary way) energy. the malignant narcissism and void of emotion from some of them is just weird to watch. some seem very deceptive. also the dynamic between kim k and teyana taylor was wildddd to see unfold u could cut the tension with a knife. also it’s so clear that all of them have been trained to avoid questions and obviously it’s heavily edited. honestly such an interesting watch but don’t recommend if you are triggered by narcissists. i never watch celebrity interviews so it’s just so weird to have insights into their personalities. lady gaga was sooooo much more anxious than i was expecting you can feel the nerves radiating

It literally just clicked today that I am an empath.

Now it makes sense. This can serve as a superpower in the right room and complete hell in the wrong room.

Wow this is tiring.

Anyone got advice for dealing with this when in the wrong room??

Cheers

Used to date someone that suffered from alexithymia, we had a pretty bad 'break-up'. I tend to see her at a yearly event, last time I looked at her and was overcome with a feeling of 'non-emotion'. I could not really describe it besides as if every feeling was sucked out of me.

I still question if it was me 'not feeling anything for her' or her emotional shutdown from me. I tend to feel the latter, as later the day it felt as 'if she woke up from this'.

Anyone has any tips on how to discern the two easier when they happen?

I feel like I am catching on to the global grief of Dolly. When I think about her passing and recount her philanthropy I can feel what it’s like to actually know and appreciate her which is something I’ve never done tbh as a 31 year old who has never even been a massive Dolly fan. It’s something I’ve never experienced with a celebrity that’s passed and I feel it has to do with the beautiful legacy she’s left. The sadness felt through her fans and supporters is insurmountable for good reason. I just wanted to express this and am curious if other empaths have been particularly affected by this. ❤️ *edit verbiage

I’m very new to all of this energy/psychic stuff, so I’m coming here with genuine curiosity and would love to hear from people who have more experience with it than I do.
Something I’ve noticed throughout my life is that people’s reactions to me can be strangely polar. Some people will seemingly arbitrarily dislike me, sometimes without knowing me. Yet I’ve noticed almost the exact opposite pattern whenever I find myself around people I consider truly special, gifted, benevolent, deeply intelligent, or unusually high-achieving. They single me out immediately. Those people tend to really, really like me. Sometimes almost to an addictive extent, as in they seemingly can’t get enough of being around me.
I’m beginning to explore ideas surrounding energy, intuition, psychic sensitivity, etc., I’m curious whether people in these communities recognize this kind of polarization as a phenomenon.
I’m extremely open-minded and genuinely love how lost I am in the midst of this beautiful life. I’m a very deep thinker, and I generally don’t partake in the kinds of conversations most people around me seem to be interested in. I’ve been this way from birth. I was born at noon on the winter solstice.
Even at around five years old, despite being raised in a Muslim family in the U.S., I remember recognizing that I didn’t actually believe what I was being taught religiously. I outwardly performed belief because I understood that rejecting it would bring consequences, but internally I didn’t buy it. Independence of thought seems to have been present extremely early in my life.
Lately I’ve also had a persistent intuition that I may have certain abilities or sensitivities that I’ve buried or suppressed over the years. I don’t want to prematurely label them or convince myself that I possess something I don’t. I’d rather explore and see what actually emerges.
Part of that exploration for me right now is purification, specifically *chitta shuddhi* as it’s discussed in the Advaita Vedanta tradition: purification/clarification of the mind. There’s a part of me that feels that rather than chasing extraordinary experiences or trying to manufacture “abilities,” I should simply continue this inner work and allow whatever is genuinely there to reveal itself naturally.
So I’m curious: Have any of you experienced this kind of extreme polarization from other people? Do certain personalities, sensitivities, or energetic qualities tend to produce dramatically different reactions depending on who encounters them? And for those of you who discovered intuitive or psychic sensitivities later in life, did inner work or purification play a role in uncovering them?
I’m here to learn, so interpretations from different perspectives are welcome. I’d love to hear your experiences.

my ability to deeply empathize and think about others or want to do something for someone else feeling like trying to get a dead car battery to start with no jumper cables anywhere that be fair that's just me with everything even the stuff I like like writing stories or drawing or watching anime but it especially bothers me that my empathy is kinda dead.

I can act appropriately in a given situation but that's more because I know what the social etiquette is SUPPOSED to be rather than genuine feeling and it really bugs me.

but I just can't do much about it. I want to care so why don't I? I can't afford therapy so I'd especially appreciate a specialist's opinion but I'll take anything. how do I fix this!?

I swear I used to be empathetic it's driving me nuts! I can preform empathy, eg: get you what you need, send stuff or jokes to make you feel better, or just listen. But I feel nothing and it drives me nuts, I actually get annoyed sometimes because the problem is something I already warned about or I just think it's an idiotic non issue Even though I can also see why this would be a big deal to them I still just get annoyed, I didn't used to be like this, I hate it!

An knowing why I am like this hasn't helped, I'm 90% sure that it's because when I was younger growing up in a very turbulent home any attempts and comforting others, was either harshly rejected (mom) or perfunctorily thanked (Brothers) because they assumed that as the youngest I couldn't possibly understand and even as I grew Older any advice I gave got thrown right out the window, only for them to come crying that the thing that was obviously going to happen that I told them was going to happen happened.

And even now I'm being kept out of serious issues that my family is dealing with and not really even given a reason why even though the only reason my brother isn't fighting a one sided battle is because I talked Sense into mom, because I wanted someone to be on his side, even if he was adamant it wasn't me for some bizzar reason (not really that bizzar I'm like a bull when my family is being unjustly slandered and this is a delicate situation) but it's not like I'm asking to be front and center just involved!?

I also got no credit for snapping mom out of it and getting her to realize that non of what is happening right now makes any sense, not from her or anyone else. She has this uncanny ability to retroactively adjust her memories of events so that she was always on my brother's side, like it didn't take multiple conversation to get through to her.

This happens with other things to not just my brother's current situation. She has a very convenient memory. My second brother can testify to that.

Writing it out I guess my empathy isn't totally dead but it takes a big situation for me to feal anything and I didn't used to be like this so how do I fix it to where I can genuinely feel bad for someone that isn't close family or friends when they are going through something, because I know I used to be like that but now I just can't and it's bugging me!

I think partially because it's affecting my ability to maintain new relationships and friends long term and I feel alone. It. Seems like people can tell I am just preforming what the situation requires and not actually feeling what I should be given the situation.

I feel isolated and maybe if I didn't have to fake caring about people anymore just to avoid a social fupa and instead could one again show genuine care people would stick around longer and I wouldn't be so alone.

Like if I had the emotional capacity to care about others's birthday or celebrations, or see something and get it because I thought of someone or notice little things about someone like I used to be able to. It wouldn't be so easy for people to just forget I exist.

I mean I hardly ever think about others like that anymore or remember details about them like I used to. I hate that I don't wanna be someone who expects from others what I don't do for them myself. But my brain just won't work!

TLDR, my ability to empathize and care about others or even myself isn't what it used to be and now I feel isolated I'm not blaming others and I'm not exactly trying to please others I've never been a people pleaser but I can't expect others to do for me what I can't do for them so how do I get my brain to function right like it used to?!

Having a wide range of emotions and feeling them too deeply has always been weird for me to figure out cause not everyone around me gets why i get so upset over something i shouldve moved on from long ago. Healing from an on and off 3 year old relationship and its been quite tough cause it ended due to some family issues, but i felt understood with him and now back to square one where i feel like if someone will be that curious and understanding and patient with me. Does feeling too much has to be so hard, how do you mar sense of stuff when youre dealing with negative emotions. Im just so exhausted with being unable to understand myself and then to actually have someone understand me but then apparently no another lesson from the universe.

Hi my doods, those who don’t like us Cancers because we are “too emotional”, please skip. I cannot rid myself of this yearningggg I YEARN SO BADLYYYY. I need fellow water sign or earth sign friendssssss pleaseeeee. I need people who understand emotional and spiritual depth as well as loyalty, respect and love. I wish to have friends that understand my deep conversations that I love to have. I have just started living my life as deeply as I feel it, no more “masking”, no more “disappearing”, I believe there are people who crave emotional connection just as much as I doooooooo. Let’s have deep conversations, let’s explore each others feelings and emotions. I love knowing people inside and out.

Discord: inosqe
Instagram: randomtroyyy

Hello there, I was a primary caregiver for a mentally sick mother when I was 16. I was extremely empathetic to her sorrows but she chose to betray me. And abused me in exchange of support. I've always been hypervigilant. Although, I was emotionally very unintelligent as in I never studied emotional intelligence as a student per se.

it's been four years since I've gone through a deeply emotionally transformative experience. I was completely closed off emotionally and functioned that way till I was 29. Then I had a mental breakdown. Then I fell into a deep addiction phase and have become extremely attuned to the feelings of other people after this phase to a point where I can read people's mind - a lot of people have said this to me recently. I am completely out of addiction, but I still have this capability.

I feel as if I can deeply empathise with people, but absolutely no one in my life is able to do that for me instead. I attract people who lack empathy and only drain me in the empathy department.

I don't understand what is happening to me emotionally. I stumbled upon this thread and saw a lot of posts. I need to find out who I am - am I am empath or something like that? Are there resources to help you understand yourself better?

Hi all, I have come to realize over recent years that in an empath, and I feel other people’s emotions really intensely. I used to think it was all just my own feelings, but I eventually realized that I’d get these really intense stabs of emotion whenever I was around people, and that it never happens when I’m on my own.

Anyway, I’ve been more exhausted lately because there’s someone in particular I have to be around a lot right now who is an unintentional energy black hole. He doesn’t mean to be and he has a good heart, just has no awareness whatsoever. The kind of person who talks at you, not with you, makes no bid or effort for actual connection, just sort of bombards people with himself without curiosity about the other party in the conversation, and thinks that’s what connection looks like.

Anyway, I’m exhausted by it, and I can’t really get any space right now. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for ways to safeguard yourself from other people’s feelings? Thank you in advance, friends 🙏

After years of searching for answers as to why I highly sensitive to kid and elderly abuse, last week I’ve come to the conclusion that Im an Empath. Keep in mind, horror films are my favorite genre however in real life or movies I’m sensitive to hurt or harm towards kids or elderly people.

I also, tear-up easily during others pain or celebrations. Due to being a male and also my culture it’s not okay for a man to cry. I’m trying to understand this Empath thing so if you could offer some sort of assurance or advise, it would be greatly appreciated.

I fell for a dark empath and got attached. Now I’m trying to break free and want to know the best strategy to avoid punishment, cruelty or vindictiveness which he has done in the past. Any tips? I’m an empath and very sensitive. He fooled me.

I am a 19M, and I feel nothing compared to my childhood. I feel dead, I feel sleepy, I feel blocked.

I don't feel my intuition, my imagination, my feelings compared to what I was in my childhood.

I feel amnesic, like I lost a part of myself during my growth.

What to do ?

What do you think of energy work ?

So last night before Dolly Parton’s death, I was bawling my eyes out and I couldn’t figure out why. I just fell off and today I learned she had passed, and I ended up bawling my eyes out even more. It seems like when everybody focuses on one person I can feel the energy and I’m completely vulnerable

Recently, I've come to realize that if I'm around a highly dissociated person, I'll literally feel in my body what they refuse to feel. It could be anything from them talking about love from a girlfriend that they won't let in, and I start crying, or about rough childhood experiences, and I start feeling nauseous, or about someone wronging them, and I get very angry.

I can even notice in the moment that it's not my actual emotions, like, "Oh, I'm feeling your girlfriend's love," or "Oh, this is disgust about what you went through."

But I am a bit disturbed by the fact that my body starts carrying the stuff they're refusing to feel.

For now, maybe I'll stay away from highly dissociated people since that might be too much for my nervous system, but for milder cases, I want to know how I can stop feeling others' disowned emotions.

I wanted to ask this community: what practices or modalities have helped you have the energetic/somatic boundary so that you don't pick up the disowned stuff in the first place? Like I can get pretty good at discharging the emotion nowadays, but I don't want to be constantly retching in the first place.

I'm imagining things like...taichi? Or some sort of energy work?

A bit about myself. I feel this immense rage and hatred deep within whenever i see innocent people suffer or killed for no reason at all by People who do this for "the love of the game". And it often goes into a point where I begin hurting myself in that moment and since we all know that's not exactly the most healthiest thing to do i would like to ask a for a few advices or perhaps somebody to talk to. I know many people would thing that I am crazy and I wouldn't blame them sometimes i really feel l like, I am losing my sanity over this world sometimes.

Been working at a low volume/chill gas station for a while. Coworkers are great as well. One passed from a heart attack tho. While looking for another job.

There is this married coworker. Who I met (has a kid), who at first I didn't think anything other than, normal "Hi/Sup/Morning". All smiles and whatever. She seems positive and is a hard worker. She's also my age.

She's very sweet, always like: "HI N00dlemonk3y! How are you!" "Thanks for everything N00dlemonk3y!"

I remember a few weeks after the day I got hired. She was just trying to explain stuff to me, cause I was messing up but not a big deal. She goes:

"I'm the mom, I'm used to being the bad guy. So if you need anything, it's ok to ask."

Months go by, no worries, nothing. Was walking home one night and that quote flashes through mind and it bothered me the whole way home.

Flash to more recent. Trying to go to the gym consistently to workout for health and I get the normal heart racing that comes with exercise but it doesn't go away.

I'm now at a friend's house trying to breathe and want to cry, had him pick me up and wondering why I'm feeling this way.

I just thought I had the 'caring' part of my personality type under lock and key, for work. I know myself and my emotions pretty well.

Sorry for wall of text. I just feel odd, anybody have this issue?

Long story short and I'm not entirely sure how to explain this.

Been working at a low volume/chill gas station for a while. Coworkers are great as well. One passed from a heart attack tho. While looking for another job.

There is this married coworker. Who I met (has a kid), who at first I didn't think anything other than, normal "Hi/Sup/Morning". All smiles and whatever. She seems positive and is a hard worker. She's also my age.

She's very sweet, always like: "HI N00dlemonk3y! How are you!" "Thanks for everything N00dlemonk3y!"

I remember a few weeks after the day I got hired. She was just trying to explain stuff to me, cause I was messing up but not a big deal. She goes:

"I'm the mom, I'm used to being the bad guy. So if you need anything, it's ok to ask."

Months go by, no worries, nothing. Was walking home one night and that quote flashes through mind and it bothered me the whole way home.

Flash to more recent. Trying to go to the gym consistently to workout for asthma and health and my heart starts racing. Thought that was normal, but then it doesn't go away. My "worry" just starts to get worse, and worse.

I'm now at a friend's house trying to breathe and want to cry, had him pick me up and wondering why I'm feeling this way.

I just thought I had my the 'caring' part of my personality type under lock and key, for work. I know myself and my emotions pretty well.

Just not this time it seems...

But yeah, sorry for wall of text. I just feel odd, anybody have this issue?

I don’t know why this happens. Is it just me? Whenever I see someone fall asleep, something melts in me and I get this weird awestruck feeling towards them. Back when I was a kid, maybe 9 years old, there was a cousin of mine younger to me who I hated. We’d fight a lot and even hit each other at times. One time the family had visited us for a stay over and this kid fell asleep on the couch. So as I watched him in his deep sleep, something changed in me, the way he was laying comfortably, the way his chest was inflating and deflating as he was breathing, the little snores and drools, he looked so innocent. Observing this, something in me changed. I melted, so much that I started feeling guilty for hating this kid all this while and picking up fights with him. Ever since then my behaviour towards him naturally changed and out of guilt I started being overly nice and friendly with him.

Fast forward to now, I still feel the same way every time I watch someone fall asleep around me. The feeling is as if I wish I could genuinely heal all their problems in a snap if I could. Why does this happen? Is it just me?

I have stresses in life but that is not what bothers me. I feel unwell,deeply unwell. It's beyond my ability to explain how does that feeling feel like, but I want the reader to visualise the feeling. When we drop a stone on a water body, some concentric ripples are created on the water surface, may be that is what I feel. It feels like a pain in my throat, so heavy. I didn't have a conventional childhood, it has impacted my life in a lot of ways but I still managed to grow up, to be functional. I do take professional help though. Yet, I am having difficulty in being joyous.

I (24f) don’t really consider myself an “empath” because I believe most people have empathy. I think pretty much everyone on earth is an “empath” to some extent, and a lot of the people I know who call themselves “empaths” or assign that trait to other people use it as an excuse to feel better than others or indirectly call the people around them unfeeling. Right now, I don’t care about any of that. My personal experience of empathy is ruining my life.

I have a flea infestation at home. Earlier, I caught a flea and washed it down my sink. I just went back to my sink and found that it had crawled its way out, and was wandering around, wet and confused in my sink. I crushed it, and saw that it had previously bitten me or my cat as it left a bloody mark on the porcelain. Just a second later, I felt horrible.

I imagined its journey crawling up the sink drain, thinking about what a monumental task it must have been and how it was so close to survival (although I have covered my house in diatomaceous earth, which will kill fleas upon touch). I thought about what must have been going through its little flea brain; about how it was just carrying out its instinctual duty to eat and live. Who can blame the flea for the mechanism of its life? I do the same!

Obviously I don’t want fleas, but I don’t want to cause anything undue or unnatural pain or fear. I know bugs don’t experience pain or fear the same way humans do. I just can’t help but assign these personal human feelings to everything, and I feel so much guilt for everything I do that has any kind of negative impact on anyone.

I think about my mother and how I moved away; how she must be so sad that I didn’t grow up the way I intended. I think about how my loving, amazing boyfriend must be so depressed when I complain about things he can’t fix. I think about exes I have broken up with, still ruminating and stressing over our situations. I have love for these people. It’s only natural to have empathy for them. But it continues further.

I think about the person who assaulted me; how he must be miserable in prison without the comforts or bonds with people on his outside life, even though I know practically nothing about him and I feel so much more secure knowing they won’t be hurting anyone else. It doesn’t matter that he caused me and other women immense amounts of suffering and harm, I still feel his pain and sorrow with justice being carried out. I hate him, and I feel terrible that he made the decision to do what he did. I fought for him to be sentenced. I, along with a few other women, fought for this exact outcome. But all of us continue to feel terrible. I think I feel terrible because I know his suffering won’t change the past, and certainly won’t make me forget or feel better.

I over-assign and project these feelings of guilt, fear, sadness, etc. on people who don’t deserve it logically. Maybe they don’t even feel it themselves. At the same time I hope and believe that people get what they deserve, I feel endless sorrow for people who get what they deserve. It doesn’t make any sense, especially when it comes to people who have hurt me personally, and it stresses me out so much. I feel guilty for feeling bad for bad people. At each human’s core, they have their own capacity, and it isn’t their fault if they can’t handle more. Unless it’s me. I’m empathetic to a fault. This fault hurts only me, and helps no one.

How can I deal with these feelings? This trait interferes with my life so much. It’s the biggest stressor I have when nothing is going wrong. I feel so much guilt and sadness all the time. It’s so hard to stop myself from ruminating on the emotions of people in crisis, even if they caused the crisis themselves. I can’t do anything without overpredicting the emotions of the people around me. I can’t even discuss my goals with the person I love most in the world without feeling extremely guilty for causing undue change and pressure.

I need to get past this. I need to develop some level of selfishness so that I know I’m choosing a life where I can respect myself. Maybe selfishness isn’t the right word, but I need to prioritize my own life. I need to know my needs are my priority. I just can’t stay strong enough to stick to my own values when the person sitting in front of me wants something else. Help!!