To Empaths.

As always. It’s been a really long time since I last wrote. I have all kinds of excuses as to why that is; my job is increasingly more and more demanding and in my down time I’m usually on the couch unable to form coherent sentences. But if I’m honest, the reason for my lack of writing is not that I’m too busy and I don’t have time. It’s that I haven’t consistently made time for it; mostly because I am attempting to process my emotions on a consistent basis which leads to a proverbial paralysis at times. However, now that I have acknowledged that, I’ll try my best to be more consistent and prioritise putting pen to paper more. 

For today, I really want to delve into something that has been on my mind and consistently making me doubt myself. I spoke earlier to my exhaustion in my downtime. Yes that has been exacerbated by a demanding workload but what contributes more to that is being empathic. I’ve referred to this character trait previously in which I’ve described emotional exhaustion which I can’t explain. There is no other way to describe the sensation of being empathic as feeling what others feel on a deeply emotional level. For those that don’t believe empaths exist, they would say that people that identify as being empaths simply pick up more on social cues and behavioural patterns of people around them. Whatever you believe, this ability means that I am emotionally spent more often than not.

I often tell my husband that the train rides to and from work make me incredibly tired and I go through a wave of emotions that I know are not my own. I pick up on people’s posture, their facial expressions and feel like an emotional sponge all of the time. This probably explains the reasons why I seek out solitude and quiet spaces more often than not. It also explains why I don’t like having socially entertaining people in my own home. For me, my home is the one place that I can retreat to which equates with safety and where I can unwind and unpack my own emotions without being overwhelmed by others.

It also explains the complicated way that I engage in relationships with family and friends. I’ve noticed that I don’t fully let everyone in, I keep my distance and do a bit of, what may appear, as a Houdini act; where I come in and out of people’s lives. Most of my closest family members see me every couple of months or in the times when I have the energy to engage. I know this may appear as being innately selfish and dictated by my own wants and desires; but honestly I operate this way in order to preserve my sanity. It must be incredibly difficult for those on the outside to understand and I acknowledge that. But for me, it represents necessary boundaries that I need to enforce in order to have quality of life and be the best version of me. 

Over the years I have walked away from conversations or interactions feeling the opposite of how I entered into them. I have come away wondering where these negative emotions have come from without understanding that I’ve picked them up from the environment around me. It’s taken me years to figure out which emotions are genuinely mine and which I’ve absorbed from others. Being so deeply emotionally connected to others emotions means that the pendulum swings instantaneously for me from being happy, to sad, to feeling insecure. Over time I have been able to block this out better but that has been dependent on enforcing social and emotional boundaries that usually means I need much more time to rest and restore than others do. It also means that for the most part, I keep my distance in a way that may appear to be flakey or inconsistent. But I do this in order to protect my own psyche and so that I can experience my own emotions towards trying to be a better person, a better friend and a better family member. To those that have misunderstood this survival technique as me being selfish or ungrateful or not prioritising them, I am genuinely sorry.  I hope this piece enables a better understanding of what goes on within me that makes me who I am and I try every day to be better.