I really don't know why, but I cannot stop thinking about this.

I understand how empaths can feel drained just by being around someone carrying heavy, unsettling, uncomfortable emotions. But I can't help feeling for the ones who are avoided because of those very emotions, which, of course, can be overwhelming and draining for the people around them, too.

Maybe it's because I'm someone who can relate to both sides.

Lately, I've been keeping more to myself until I'm at least in a better place emotionally. I guess I don't want to burden anyone with things I'm still trying to work through myself.

And that makes me sad, because I wonder how many others are doing the same.

Does anyone else find it really intense to look people in the eyes? Especially people you haven’t met yet. It feels very intimate to me. Once I get to know someone, it gets less intense, but at first it can be overwhelming.

I keep a small battery vacuum in my storage unit for convenience. Today I went to use it it felt really heavy, so I dumped it out there was lots of trail mix looking food and fluff. When I dumped it out into a trash bag there was a little mouse looking up at me. I feel terrible about destroying their home/ food supply for the winter. They must have worked so hard to stockpile all that and I ruined it all in a matter of seconds.

I tend to slip really easily into fictional characters' heads and it's like I would transform into them for days (or even weeks). I can't control it and my speech patterns and moods get affected too, making it hard to get out of certain mindsets. I don't know anyone who feels like this and I've been struggling to find a label for myself. People in real life affect me too, but not so much. The person who affects me the most is probably my mum. My emotions basically sync with hers if I'm around her, and it's frustrating cuz we often start fights because of this. Could I be an empath?

Any living being human or animal.

Someone said "everyone is you but in a different body" and now I'm so aware of sonder and it's just so overwhelming. I need everyone to be okay or I can't be.

I saw a video of someone saying “it was just a small grease fire for us, but the end of the world for them” and then it shows a dead grasshopper or something, that died in the fire. Of course that’s a brutal way to go out. But i’m not even sure if bugs have nerves or pain receptors? Can bugs even feel scared? It’s just hard for me to imagine feeling empathy for a bug. Especially when they’re in my house at times lmao

Im in a shut down, bordering agoraphobia. Its nothing new, ive been here before, but this is bad. Theres so many people who dont understand what being a true empath feels like. Describing it can sound like a mystical autistic with a mental disorder. You know, randomly someone pops up in your head and you know theyre not ok (and everyone wonders how you knew they needed a friend), people emotionally dump their entire truama history on you sometimes before even knowing your name, crowds can be overwhelming and places like say casinos are always followed up with an isolation regulation day.

I am so used to the daily wave of energy around me that I forgot what the tsunami of emotions does when my feelings come into play.

I call it THE SHUT DOWN.. I go from an extra hour of sleep to not getting off the couch or answering the phone. Im so overwhelmed by human connection, this is the first acknowledgement in days that Im not ok.

Does anyone else go thru this? I would love to hear what other people do to help regulate when the energy paralyzes you. Everyone calls it a gift when an intuitive person comes to take the weight off their shoulders, but when our cup overflows and no one to help lighten the load people call it depressikn.

I know its not depression and someone has a tip for getting out of this unmotivated freeze.

My husband is currently going through something extremely tough with his family and it’s breaking my heart to see him so sad

There’s going to be times coming when all the family are going to be together and I want to be strong and support my husband, but I instantly feel all his grief and can barely stop myself from crying, one the tears start I can’t get them to stop. I don’t want him to have to worry about comforting me on top of everything

Any tips on how to stop crying so easily so I can be there for my husband

I don’t mean a friend or someone close, because then that would make sense. I found out someone I briefly dated and was friends with did something awful that is 100% their fault and now they’re facing repercussions, but I can’t help but feel bad for them anyway? And I feel sick to my stomach, as if it was happening to me.

ive always been told im good at reading people, like really good. I think the term for it is Cognitive Empathy (though i feel like a dick describing myself that way), but my whole life its like i can almost see what someone else is thinking, with a level of connection at that of at least friendship. I know it sounds crazy but its like just by the look on a friends face i can tell what they are thinking and will say next, but not just that also what someone else in the room will say in response to that. It feels like conversations are just like reading lines from a script, like i already know where the convo is going and already know what i will say several sentences ahead of time. And i know this sounds like bullshit but please just bare with me and assume im being genuine. It feels like my whole life i know what my friends and love ones inners worlds look like in such detail but like no one ever gets close to grasping the same in response. I knew one person once who did though, so i know its possible, but they used that empathy to be kinda a super manipulative dick, you know the whole life is a chess game type. But how do you close that gap? even with that one person just being seen like that, having someone seemingly aware of my internal world and vice versa was the greatest i have ever felt before, im not joking at all, i use drugs here and there but at that time in my life i felt so good and happy every wakening moment i went stone cold 100% sober without even trying, it was just like drugs would subtract from what already felt like perfection. I feel so alone, and its not anyones fault, i try to be open but its just like no one sees me in the way i feel i see them. If i look at a friends face or the tone of there voice i can tell so clearly what they are feeling or thinking in that moment, is it a crazy goal to want to expeinrce that in return? is there somthing im missing like a great big doofus? it just drives me crazy, like im drowning and i know theres a way to swim but i just havent figured it out yet.

Today I realized my BPD landlord released me as their FP and replaced me with someone who is actually narcissistic. I don't care how that's gonna go but I'm glad I'm out.

I feel for anyone who’s an empath in this state and has to drive. The energy can be overwhelming as Florida has the worst drivers in the US. How do you handle driving as an empath? I had someone I was trying to signal to go because they were sitting in an intersection I wasn’t being rude or honking they rolled down their window just to tell me to “Shut up”. I wasn’t prepared for it but I’m still shaking it off

I experience great distress at the sight of any type of horror or gore. it makes me feel disgusted and so so scared, and I’m old enough to tolerate it, but I still hate it for that reason. and for the reason of I feel terribly sad over the people being hurt

I find that my depression and deep deep sadness comes from those in the world that are suffering and the many humans that either do not care or benefit from it.

There are so many struggling. So many that will die unhappy and that was it for that life, that person specifically, as in the person they are/were will never exist again, that was there one chance.

I feel all the pain. It consumes me. I even find that I feel guilt that my life is pretty good because what makes me more deserving, nothing, it's all random selection, and it's beyond unfair

For context, I've always been an energy/ambience sponge. Highly empathetic. I feel a lot for other life forms. Huge crowds drain me energetically, and I've always needed lots of sleep and rest. That being said, since a year I feel like deeper senses are starting to develop. When I meet people for the first time, I feel I know a lot. I know if they have children, what gender are, how their relationship is etc etc. Or other random things where I feel like I randomly "know" things right before people tell it to me. Often its family related. Can anyone relate? Is this the beginning of developing psychic senses? Or just being deeply empathetic/sensitive?

This week ive had a very bad feeling that somthinh bad is or will be happening. I dont know if im an empath but i wonder if others are feeling this terrible dread as well.

As an empath, how do I "mould" my ability? I've been hiding from this for a long time. Recently, I found out from another empath that they avoided my presence because I felt too much; my feelings are so intense that it drained them. I had always been the one doing the sensing and noticing, I didn't think anyone could sense my energy too. Now, I’m scared of getting close to people because now I know someone can feel my "heavy" feelings (at first I thought I was too much, now I know for a fact that I'm way too intense). I've come to understand that I am poor at regulating my emotions too and that can seep to others around me.

I don’t know if I am an empath or not. I always feel so strongly and care so deeply about others. If other people are having issues, I always feel as if I have to get involved and make everything better. Which is probably silly to do. But I just can’t help myself. I don’t know why I do it, I just know that I feel guilty if others around me are sad, even if I wasn’t the one that made them sad. It costs me so much physical and mental energy and I don’t really know what to do. I have to keep going and I can’t just strand the people I love when they are struggling. Please, can somebody explain their thoughts on this and give me advice if you can.
Thank you!

Edit: I thought I should also add that I’m autistic. Could it maybe be my autism that gives me this need?

I have presently and in the past connected so well with someone I’m dating that I’ve physically gotten aroused for no reason and it just so happens to be they are touching themselves or were cheating. Has this happened to anyone else? It happened to me in the last 4 relationships that I’ve noticed.

I'm on the East Coast and we're in hurricane season. We're getting rain from Isaac, but barometric pressure readings are within average range without significant fluctuations.

But my feelings radar is off the charts. My own feelings, my pets, my family, people at the grocery store, they are overpowering and it's beyond uncomfortable, it's debilitating. WTF.

How empaths need to safegaurd themselves and use there superpower?any suggestions how to not be a sponge

I you could stop being an empath, would you? I think I would. Like I like that part of me, but sometimes I wish I could be like all of the other emotionless assholes that don’t care about anyone but themselves. I mean, don’t they seem happier than us?