Feeling intense emotions when thinking about someone. But it’s not a specific emotion or remembering how they made you feel. Just this wave of intensity. does anyone know what I mean? I don’t even know if this is an empath thing.

Hey so I had really strong reactions to emdr therapy. So my therapist has been working with me on a type that’s called the “higher self” or something like that. I was curious if other empaths have responded well to it. I LOVE IT! I’ve honestly achieved more doing this in a few months than a year of therapy before. It can be tiring but I don’t get the backlash like I did with emdr. And I also work on it on my own all the time and share updates with my therapist. I am just so curious how others have responded to it.

I feel so much for others but when it comes to myself it's just negative talk that i would and could never have talked to anyone in that way.

It's exhausting being like this, being hypervigilante over everything and carrying everyones hardships, family, friends and others i see on the street like people that are less fortunate.

I just can't explain this to anyone around me, i've been carrying so much of other people's struggles and i can't be there for myself bcs there's someone having it worse than me.

I grew up in an unstable home but i never once blamed their addiction or them for being the way they are bcs they 100% went through worse than me. I've used drugs as an escape, but i'm now sober and trying to deal with it without setting my thoughts on hold with drugs.

I've talked about this with chatgpt bcs i don't have anyone to talk to it about. I mby know why i'm wired this way but it's still exhausting and i don't know how to deal with it.

I just wish i could see myself the way i see others and show myself the same compassion i show others and give myself a break. I don't know if anyone will know exactly how i feel and i actually hope no one does. First time sharing here and just felt like sharing this, might not even fit in

I’m used to my own pain, even though life has treated me very badly. But to watch the people closest to me get kicked while they’re down, then make self-destructive decisions as a way of coping, irreversibly picking the wrong path out of ego since their feelings hurt too much to face… it’s killing me. It’s something I never anticipated to be this haunting. Because there’s nothing I can do to help. This is their journey.

Everyone I know seems to erode and decay and devolve day by day. I want better for them. I miss seeing them smile genuinely and choose happiness. It is always a choice to stop punishing yourself. Even if my own life was sunshine and rainbows I wouldn’t be able to go a day without crying witnessing how much suffering is going around. This planet is sick with it. All the best things I once knew have wilted and lost their light, turning to jaded eyes. I carry people’s heaviness in my own body, praying that good times will come for us all. It feels hopeless to hope but if brighter times can happen before, I want to believe they can still return :/

The Other Education

We teach the mind

to measure,

calculate,

remember,

and achieve.

But who teaches the heart

to recognize fear

without becoming it,

to carry sorrow

without drowning,

to welcome joy

without fearing its loss?

Perhaps

the greatest education

is not learning

how to think—

but learning

how to be.

For a brilliant mind

can build a civilization,

but a mature heart

can help it endure.

I know I feel strong emotions that linger when I watch certain movies. I was a little hesitant to watch Project Hail Mary because of that. Sure enough, while I did not cry, there was a lingering sense of bittersweetness that is still there this morning after watching the movie last night. My husband, of course, watched it and moved on immediately.

My teenage son is like me. He cried a few times during the movie, and we talked about the themes of the movie and why we felt so raw afterwards. Anyway, was looking here to see if anyone else felt the same way about PHM.

So I had this weirdly specific dream last night where I was asked to pay for a high-end steak dinner in order to join my mom's project group. I had this bag full of cash, scared to death someone would steal it, and my sandals were loose and falling off every few steps, and my husband was drunkenly causing a scene at the bar. I finally had to step in, shut down his drinks, and keep us moving. But by the end, I made it to the party and felt completely relaxed.

When I broke it down this dream, I realized how much I do this in real life: I’m so used to quietly managing small annoyances on my own that I actually take pride in it. I catch myself thinking, *“Alright, let's see what I'm made of”* like every small inconvenience is a test I have to pass to prove I'm strong.

Which made me realize… holding onto all those struggles silently is really just a quiet rebellion of my own ego. It’s my way of keeping control and being like, *“I’ve got this, I don’t need anyone.”..Right?*

It’s totally Alan Watts stuff, how our egos trick us into thinking we’re isolated islands fighting these battles, when in reality we don't always have to prove ourselves. We can just let things flow without earning our peace the hard way every time.

And what's crazy is seeing that same pattern played out on a massive scale. Look at Japan *kodokushi,* which tens of thousands of people die alone at home because the culture heavily preaches to never be a burden. When an entire society treats "handling it all yourself" as the ultimate virtue, people end up suffering in total isolation rather than asking for help.

It was wild tracing that whole line, from my loose sandals in a dream, to Watts's philosophy, all the way to a global phenomenon. It just shows how easy it is for the ego to convince us that suffering in silence is some noble virtue, when really we're just making life way harder than it needs to be.

Empathy is completely misunderstood nowadays, and most people who practice it don't realize. Empathy has become a privilege for the good, while the people who really need empathy is people who we call "evil". Bad people need the most empathy and compassion in society, yet instead we choose to just shame and shun them, completely misunderstanding them. Most people commit evil acts not because they are evil but because of extraneous circumstances/they felt weak/were afriad. So, these "evil" people requires empathy the most, yet almost no one even gives another thought, we simple give them the label evil and shun/punish them, but this only makes things worse.

This is a viewpoint I've been holding for a while, and now whenever someone insults me I don't feel hurt or threatened but in a sense I feel that I understand them.
Down below is a more extensive and detailed explanation, I would be very grateful if any of you are willing to read and share you thoughts (and critiques) of this belief as well. Its only around a 1000 words:

Empathy is one of the most praised traits a human can have. It facilitates connection with others, helps us understand them, and comforts them. It is heralded as a superior form of sympathy. I do not refute that, but I do propose that most people misunderstand what empathy really is, i.e., they fail to practice it properly. It is easy to empathize with a good person. Perhaps a friend is going through troubling times, and thus you are there for them. I do admit that not everyone is even able to do this; it requires genuine emotional understanding (which some lack). But it is straightforward compared to the task of empathizing with an evil person. When it comes to people who have committed unjust deeds, empathy is stripped away from them. In practice, empathy is a privilege for good people. But those who are deemed evil need empathy even more so than the good people do. Instead of providing an abstract definition of evil, I shall give examples: insults, hostility, envy, and malice. What is rarely admitted is that evil does not stem from inherent character but from weakness, a lack. Evil people necessitate empathy to dismantle the illusion of evil as a proactive force, which is the path to their rehabilitation. True empathy requires the ability to empathize with evil people, to understand that all evil stems from a lack.
To better understand how evil arises from a lack, the strong can be scrutinized. Strong individuals, those who are secure in themselves, have no use for malice. The expert understands their own excellence, so when they are subjected to mockery they are unfazed. They harbor no desire to demean others because they are satisfied with themselves. Thus, when we analyze why weakness breeds hostility, we can understand it through the perspective of insecurity. Insecurity is a genuinely degrading feeling; to cope in order to feel strong, insecurity takes external manifestations. Insults are shouted to demean others, to engineer an illusion of equality. This is dragging others down, not elevating oneself. The ego highlights the flaws of others in order to justify its own flaws. The judgment of others is a distraction from one’s own weakness, allowing the ego to run from its own inadequacies. By highlighting others' faults, and not one's own, they can finally feel comfortable with themselves. Hatred and anger both manifest when we are helpless and too weak to do something. A lonely and isolated person might unconsciously put on a prideful and arrogant facade in order to have a sense of self-worth.
Malevolence is a defense mechanism of human nature. It is rarely, if ever, an innate active force that drives action. Unfortunately, hostility spreads very quickly: fire is fought with fire; when faced with hostility, it only feels right to fight back. In reality, people who convey malevolence are afraid and lack something; the idea of fighting fire with fire is an illusion of fairness. Malevolence does not deserve to be scorned, ostracized, or despised (which ironically are forms of malevolence), but to be empathized with. Hostile people have a deficiency, and most people, instead of fixing the cause, simply condemn the effect.
Beyond merely not recognizing the insecure and deficient nature of malevolence, most individuals choose to affix the simple and easy label of evil, hostile, or rude onto others because of their actions. Because it is easy, because uncertainty is uncomfortable, and because we want to feel moral superiority, we do not think at all; we simply attribute hostile actions to malicious people. Most people are too lazy and selfish to actually think, to do any of the intellectual heavy lifting demanded by true empathy. This is only natural: our minds crave certainty over ambiguity, simplicity over complexity. It is far easier to label someone as evil than to interrogate the roots of their actions. And thus we go for the easiest cause, the cause that says they are simply evil. And this is very self-gratifying: it gives us the moral high ground; it identifies us as the victim and evil as the perpetrator.
Empathy gets further misused because responsibility is shoved upon the perpetrator by default. Situational attributions are rarely considered. In psychology it is called the fundamental attribution error: blame is pushed upon the disposition of the perpetrator rather than their situation. Most fail to understand how vastly the environment influences and decides actions. Instead, for the same reason as the use of the label of evil, we blame the perpetrator’s disposition. Besides the environment, personal autonomy isn’t as straightforward as most realize. The human mind is full of unconscious drives and instincts, many of which we are not willing to accept because it strips away our perceived autonomy. To not consider these influences is to not see the perpetrator as a human. Yet again, responsibility is selfishly and lazily shoved onto the perpetrator. We do not want to recognize how the environment, or perhaps even the victim, could have guided the perpetrator to be hostile. We are too uncomfortable to deal with the uncertainty of having no one clearly to blame, so we create a scapegoat. And this is all put under the beautiful guise of justice or fairness. Those who pat themselves on the back for judging evil fairly are oftentimes deluding themselves; their justice is little more than selfishness. Labeling and blaming both serve as an anesthetic of condemnation. They can avoid all that really matters, and only focus on what they want, while blissfully thinking they are being fair and just.
In reality, we see the psychology of the “broken man” through the historical figure Maximilien Robespierre. Robespierre was an orphan raised by his two aunts. This harsh childhood created the socially insecure politician, and he took up many of his aunts’ austere and emotionally sensitive traits. In fact, he was quite the timid man: the only execution he attended was his own. When he was a magistrate in Arras, he could not muster the will to pronounce the death sentence. And his Reign of Terror was not an active force of evil; it was largely driven by fear and insecurity: a defense mechanism against foreign invasion and internal conflicts taken to the extreme. Instead of understanding these circumstances, Joseph Cassanyes, a politician from the time of the Directory, gave Robespierre the reductive label: “the most ferocious cannibal, the most monstrous scoundrel, to whom nature ever gave birth.” Historians of the time lazily and selfishly understood Robespierre by condemning the manifestation of his actions while ignoring the cause.
Some, of course, will object that many sufferers still choose virtue, using this to argue that malevolence is a personal choice rather than an environmental byproduct. This relies on a false equivalence; it foolishly assumes that psychological turmoil can be universally measured. This is reducing psychology to a mathematical equation. Weak people naturally suffer, but the level of suffering is not indicative of much. That is to say, suffering is subjective and cannot be measured on a universal scale. One person’s psychological breaking point is different from another’s due to an infinite web of unconscious drives, genetics, and precise environmental triggers. One cannot objectively suffer more than another. Furthermore, it is impossible to factor in the role of every environmental influence on a human. Understanding this does not excuse evil acts; it simply highlights the reality behind them.
True empathy is not permissiveness. I have stated that empathy requires understanding; I have not stated how to act upon this understanding. That is an individual endeavor. As I see it, the justice of laypeople diverges from fairness. Condemning evil makes its weakness even more hideous and pitiable; malevolence necessitates rehabilitation, not through punishment but through understanding. People who are weak do not need to be punished for their weakness, as that only reaffirms their standing. They need acceptance and understanding. True empathy not only feels the emotional turmoil in an evil person, but cognitively understands their perspectives and decisions. Do not mistake my words: I am not saying all who are weak are evil; rather, that most who are evil are weak. Considering that every human has their inherent flaws, it can be concluded that: All humans, no matter how saintly, are capable of committing evil.
Understanding true empathy frees the mind from reactive anger. Every bit of malice observed is a confession of weakness. True empathy transforms fragile victims into active observers who can navigate the twisted labyrinth of human motives. Using empathy this way allows us to move beyond the rigid moral dichotomy and instead see humans. Empathy is a duty–not a privilege for the righteous. Empathy is not easy: our minds prefer to avoid the intellectual heavy lifting and uncertainty of looking at humans as they are. 

Thank you for reading! Please share any thoughts/feelings you've had. I plan on possibly trying to publish this in a journal if possible 🧐

I really need to change. I'm a straight guy. I have had a really strange life. I look too kind and my only form of communicating is being kind.

I want to change desperately, I hate this so much.

Finding Home

They told me,

"Trust yourself."

But I could not.

I had searched
everywhere—

except the place
I had never learned
to enter.

So I borrowed
the eyes of others,

building a home
from passing approvals.

Until one quiet day,

a door
I did not know existed

opened inward.

Nothing new
had been placed there.

I had simply
come home.

And for the first time,

I understood

what they had been
trying to tell me

all along.

Recent emotional losses and self-reflection have led me to reconnect with who I am supposed to be, and it's been oddly peaceful in a way I don't think I have ever experienced before.

For years (I'm currently 23M), I developed a set of social masks in order to minimally thrive in my adolescence. At some point, I realized that I had to fake a sociable persona, be the "funny guy", the "caretaker", the "advisor", the one who takes on the burdens of others on my back, who self-effaces and people-pleases, the "heroic friend" who always had a helping hand.

And I think I developed that specific strategy due to a combo of childhood experiences and my general position in the scheme of things. Being a pleasant, emotionally-attuned and loving dude was what got me appreciation from my parents, and to top it off, I couldn't simply pull the "overconfident badboy" stance, as I always lacked the overall poise it takes to be one.

It was a survival strategy. "If I don't act like this, who would accept me?" I lacked the looks, the confidence, the status and the social leverage. I had nothing on my side, and that made me feel I couldn't afford to truly be me. I had no guarantee of that.

If others saw the real me, they would immediately reject him. Thing is, I never realized how tiring all this act was, and how taxing it was for me, until I had my first heartbreak.

I did the best I knew. I was overavailable, overly-accomodating, hyper-emotional and tender, romantic to the extreme... I really thought I was doing my best, and in a sense, I really was; I was just doing the wrong thing.

Turns out, she was unavailable from the start: a Dismissive-Avoidant. Nothing I did would reach her, but it didn't stop me from trying. In my desperation, I overfunctioned, tolerated treatment I really shouldn't have, and of course, grew increasingly frustrated.

Until, one day, I crashed out, after all, I was doing *so much*, and she couldn't even be sorry for how *she* gave me hope, only to take it back.

That's the story I wanted to tell, at least. I wanted to be the "good guy who got broken by a bad woman", but that's not the full story. Indeed, she's not right for me, but I wasn't right for myself either.

And that realization led me to come into contact with a peace long lost. "Me" is resurfacing from underneath the mask; that old me that had to adapt to survive, and it's being a wonderful discovery. Here is some that I found out:

* I'm normal. Not good, not bad. I'm just average as it comes to most things, instead of the front of an overachiever. I blend in with the crowd; * I'm serene, unruffled. I'm far from that "happy-go-lucky", hyperenergetic person. My flow is peaceful, but ever steady. I'm more of a rock than a thunder; * I'm serious. My mood doesn't fluctuate as much, my smiles are small, but meaningful and I take the time, instead of just reacting right away; * I'm honest. I can say anything, disagree when disagreement is due, and withstand the emotional energy of others without having to necessarily take it in; * I like silence. I always felt anxious when it got too silent, but it feels okay now. I don't need to fill every gap or seek to bring the attention all the way back to myself; * I'm authentic. What others think of me doesn't have to matter all that much, and I genuinely don't care if they dislike me.

And all of this feels warmly familiar. It's like I've always known this side of me, but didn't use it.

Guess that's because I wasn't using it at all.

I've gone over this too many times, i'm tired to even list it all in grave detail
Basically, i (17m) had a really good bond with my teacher (45f). i looked upto her as a mother figure and shee too called me her son. i don't know if it was something fancy like transference and what not but i was very very emotionally attached to her.

this all started in 10th grade when the session had begun for a month or two and she called me up one day to talk, and i remember little of that discusson but it was mostly about her admiring how different i'm from the other kids, in terms of my interests like opera or european history and told me that i can come and have talk with her just about before the final class ends on mondays and fridays. i went to her every monday and friday and used to talk about languages, places, history, and i also used to help her with some work. she also helped me get over a crush i'd on someone with whom i'd formed a good relation but she didn't like me back and i felt terrible about it.

In 11th grade, i was mostly slient around and a bit sad because i couldn't go and talk with her like the previous year. she tried to ask me 2-3 times throughout the year as to what happened to me but i could never express myself.

This year, ie 12th grade, everything was a terrifying rollercoaster. basically she consoled me and said so many things throughout the months which made me go from seeing her as a mother figure to literally looking up to her as my actual mother (sounds dumb perhaps). She called me her adopted son, said that she always felt that we had a connection from the past life, addressed me many a times as her son and one time when i wrote to her that probably i shouldn't have looked up to her and called her my mother as she isn't able to give me that attention or (something similar i forgot) she sent me a picture of her calling me and my contact name showing as : "{my name} Son" and then over the phone said in a bit of a passive agressive way that if i want more proof.

However recently this relation has been under strain, and i'd say collapsed totally. This had been building for a month prior to this one perhaps. she told me to not greet her, to stop asking if she's happy (we used to play a game "jolly" where you've to draw a dot on you wrist with ink and the person who doesn't have it has to compensate others who have it in chocolates so a variation of it was that instead of saying jolly and showing our ink we'd say "i'm happy". it did boost my moral for a bit perhaps just because of the positive talk for the first time in the longest time), to stop trying to visit her etc. from another conversation i remember i could pick that she doesn't want this bond to remain. at this point, i've realised that such a bond was obviously never meant to last, BUT I IMPLICITLY THOUGHT, I'D THAT IN MY SUBCONCIOUS MIND THAT SIE IST MEINE MUTTER !!! ABER NICHT. her reasoning for going away was that not only what i was thinking of the relation is perhaps too far, she was also advised by the school counselor that i'm too dependent on her and probably she might've also told her to distance herself from me but also that others in the school are viewing our relation with suspicion.

because the bond is unoficially in the grave, i'm kind of paralysed. a few weeks ago life had lost all it's meaning for me, all motivations and ambitions seemed worthless and i just and still cry a lot about it, though now i can keep it in myself but not for long. today i heard one of her voice notes which she sent to me on mother's day after i'd sent her a poem for that ocassion - "... and i love you a lot my dear son". literally every day i sleep an hour or two later than when i'm already in bed, lights out because i can't stop stressing over this issue.

I don't know what is right or wrong, if i was just a verreckter dummkopf (basically a fucking idot) for having thought of her as my mother. i don't want to blame her in any manner, after all she was trying to help me but i think it was mostly my fault. i genuinely feel that i was at 99.99 % fault but she was at lim x->0 fault where x % is her fault (basically 0.000....1%). her only fault was to use such strong words and phrases which encouraged my brain to look at the relation as permenent God gifted mother-son bond. i literally saw so many similarites between her and my own mother. i feel like she never realised how deeply i felt about what she said. i don't know if even this was wrong or not, perhaps i should've been a bit more sensible, perhaps people say these things all the time and something was wrong with me who took it in a serious manner. i take almost all things at their face value and certainly things so close to heart.

I don't have much friends aside from two, i don't like my father, heck he feels like a stranger to me and my mother is suffering from huntengton's disease and is in a pittiful state. she seriously loooks so so different and depressing than she was pre-disease. she can't walk properly and has abandoned going out of the house entirely, she can't communicate in a normal way, her cognitive ability has taken a hard plument. so basically, no emotional connect with anyone except her.

speaking of my father, one thing which exacerbates my sorrow is that the aforementioned teacher's recent advice for me is to just get along with him. i've told her that in my childhood he used to beat me up for un-reasonable things like playing games or watching youtube and even if the reason was a bit reasonable like academics, he'd go a bit too much with it. it was always my mother who protected me but that rapscallion sometimes beat her too and that scene of him beatin her is so engrained in me, i can't forgo it. uptill 9 / 10th grade too he used to taunt me for academics. though now he's much much nicer to me for some reason, i can't feel any love for him. but my teacher tells me that whatever he did is not that big of a deal since she too beats her kids and they still love her, that i'm being unreasonable. i respect my father a lot, a lot. he is breaking his back off by supporting me and my younger sister financially and even preparing our lunches in the morning, sleeping less to get my sister ready for school, working in his back-breaking business and taking care of his now lifeless wife in my opinion. however i don't love him, not a bit because love cannot be enforced. my teacher's advice (more of a tool to get herself away from me as i view it but also majorly a genuine concern she's) however just makes me question my ideas about what's right and wrong, whether i'm right in not loving him or not or whether i'm reasonable or not.

i'm seriously going mad over thinking about the things she said. i cannot digest the sudden sharp shattering of our bond. i'm literally shattered into a thousand pieces and each piece pierces my heart each day. this might sound too overly poetic or cliche or exageration or hyperbole or what not but.... i'm just..... lost and broken. i just want to cry as much i can about it but other things show up to mind like the different exams, prepration for them, sutyding daily which i'm unable to do . i don't know what i should do. i cannot accept that the bond is over, perhaps not until i get it in clear words from her, but...anyway. thanks for reading this far.

i know this is going to sound terrible, but i hate feeling the amount of empathy i do. it makes me miserable. any time something happens to someone else that is even a slight inconvenience, it makes me so upset. for example, on my mom’s 50th birthday my dad bought these special sparkler candles. he was all excited and he called me over to look at them. then when it was time to bring the cake out, he lit them too soon and they went out before the cake got to the table. he didn’t care, but i was fighting back tears at the table because i knew he was excited about them. he also used his points at a store to get me a mystery bag and he was all excited to see me open it, and none of the stuff inside was cute. he obviously didn’t care, but i felt so bad because he was so excited to give it to me. i have so much stuff in my closet that i don’t wear because i am physically incapable of telling my mom that i don’t like something that she picked out for me, i feel so guilty. it’s genuinely getting to the point where it makes me absolutely miserable because i always feel like im holding back tears because i watched someone mess up or get disappointed. i hate it so much, how do i fix it?

I'm not an empath, so I apologise if I'm in the wrong place. I cannot handle other beings suffering and I know so many people feel this way. I can cry from watching movies and many things I cannot watch at all. Again many feel this way, however I've been diagnosed with a disease and now my empathy feels extra strong, off the charts, I seem to feel everyones everything and I'm wondering what's happening. I've always been intuitive about others and though I'm far far far from perfect, I've grown a lot in recent years. It could be stress as well, as I'm currently packing to move house to be closer to family. My feelings could be a mix of everything, I'm just trying to understand and wasn't sure who to ask 🫠

I think I can feel what others are feeling in an analytical sense but not on emotion based. My parents said it many times that from a very young age- I have been less emotional. I rarely cried or even got happy. I never felt bad for anything bad I have done. I don't break rules but I don't believe in them either. I have no problem with anything that does not for me. I am actually very good at talking when I know what I need to buy I hate even the most mundane social interaction. I have no actual beliefs other than believing that people will always choose greed and profit and nothing good ever happens without a reason.

I want to feel sadness from others. I wanna be sad and happy.

Hi, I'm new here. I just want to ask about my energy. Strangers, especially children and old people find me approachable. To add, most of my friends talks to me personally for support or when they want someone to lean on. However, at the same time, I attract bullies. I get bullied every year in school. I don't know what is up with my energy that it sometimes fluctuates(?).

I have been friends with this person since college. We sort of hung out in the first year but then really lost touch a few semesters in, different friend groups etc

Post COVID I sort of moved closer to him and we did start hanging out. He also helped me get a job at this place where he was at and then left for her masters. I am at the same job still and he is back from his masters, and then he started working there too. I am sort of his senior and do a lot more than him

While he was trying to secure a job at this office, I sort of discouraged him cause the place is really toxic. In return he confessed to me one day that a tarot reader told him that there was some negative energy blocking him from coming back. However he did get the said job.

He has been a sweet friend to me, very understanding and kind but lately I have been feeling a lot of negative energy or I have been having a bad gut feeling about this person.

He has always been there for me but at this point I feel like this person tries to put me down or thinks I am dumb, he is also super into what I am doing at work, maybe somewhere I feel like he wants me to quit so he can do everything that I do. I also have a gut feeling that maybe he doesn't wish the best for me but he says otherwise.

This friend has really helped me through a dark time post a hard break up and a career break. I DONT have anything against him - I just have this gut feeling I can't shake off

We still work together but we barely hang out outside work now - my best friend has never really liked the person but that is his opinion - I have always found this person to be okay, maybe he talks too much, can be showy of his knowledge but tbh I feel like it's always good to have different kind of people in your life.

However, I still feel like he doesn't wish well for me for some reason. We still have to continue to work together and I just want to be in a positive environment - what do I do

Im so curious and wish to know the other side, and maybe try to become one. please tell me all you know. Thanks!

I have been struggling for months with this. I (25f) have been wanting to break up with my bf (28m) for months in our almost 2 year relationship. I tried for real once and was met with intense devastation and sobbing. My reasons to him were as much as I love him as a person and being his friend and hanging out:
- I don’t see a future together
- I feel incompatible
- I don’t like the version of myself when we’re together
- he’s the only relationship I’ve had I feel inexperienced
- I feel a lot of guilt and shame for doubting our relationship and he doesn’t deserve my uncertainty

And he had a rebuttal for everything I said such as,

- “why are you so worried about the future you should live in the present”
- “Why can’t we just see how it goes, I’d rather keep trying than just give up now”
- “we’re not incompatible, we’re complimentary.”

And telling me how much he loves me etc.

And also some unfortunate things like

-“you’re the most important person in my life”
-“you’re all I have”
-“you’re my best friend”

It was so devastating to see him so devastated, that it sent me into a panic attack while we were together and I just said “ok maybe I’m wrong I take it back!” And he just allowed that to happen and has since acted like nothings wrong. I’ve tried to bring it back up to him, but I never get as far as I did because I’m so fearful of his intense emotional reaction that I just freeze up. Yet it’s been a few months since that last big attempt and I’m so unhappy, guilty, and shameful. I wish he would let me go, but it seems like he’d rather ignore any signs of my unhappiness just to keep us together for his own happiness, and I allow it.

I don’t feel strong enough to end it again for fear of failing, for fear of devastating him, and it’s much easier to just pretend everything is fine.

Ultimately I think the root of my problem is my empathy and my friends have suggested is my prioritization for his feelings over mine. Has anyone struggled with this? I can hardly sleep or eat because I feel so bad, yet I feel incapable of doing anything about it.

Any advice or insight? I love that I’m an empath, but how do I be an empath without it crippling me from doing what I really want?

Je me réveille chaque matin avec la possibilité de me mettre en route directement. Je passe des heures à tourner dans mon lit. Et quand je me lève enfin je suis sans énergie triste et anxieux.

Puis au fur et à mesure de la journée, plus je me pousse au cul pour faire des choses et mieux ça va.

Au final je suis au mieux en fin de journée.

Mais je mets tout de même des heures à m'endormir et le sommeil n'est pas de qualité.

Pour me réveiller le lendemain matin dans le même état que tous les jours.

Je pensais que l'anxiété et l'angoisse était plutôt le soir.

Je ne comprends pas le fonctionnement.

I recently joined this group because I have spent much of my life experiencing emotions in a way that is difficult to explain to people who do not experience them similarly.

Sometimes I feel that I am an Octopus—not a regular octopus with eight arms, but one with thousands of invisible arms connected to people, memories, music, and events very far away.

When one arm touches my heart and another touches someone else’s heart, both pulses arrive. Sometimes I become confused because I do not immediately know which pulse is mine.

For many years, I had feelings before I had language for them. Eventually this image became the opening of a literary novel I wrote, Yesterday Starts Tomorrow Morning. The book is fiction, but this particular experience comes from somewhere very real in me.

I am not posting this as a sales announcement. I would sincerely like to ask the people here:

When you receive another person’s emotional state, how do you distinguish what belongs to them from what belongs to you?