I think I will focus on empathy right now. I had an IM conversation with my birth-mom(BM) yesterday. Without going into too many details concerning our relationship and how it got started, I’ll preface all of this with a “we haven’t met in person but occasionally talk on the phone and IM quite frequently” statement.
I am a highly sensitive person in many areas, but mostly have gifts in terms of extreme empathy and profiling people. The conversation yesterday centered around my gifts vs. my BM’s gifts as well as if any have extended into my younger half-sisters. Turns out, my BM and I have many of the same abilities. She has, however, also tapped into the art of healing via Reiki. Anyway, we both physically feel what others are feeling and can also tap into other’s minds if we are in close proximity, they are dwelling, or sometimes remotely if the other person has some of the same mental gifts.
It wasn’t until I started working through my eating disorder two years ago and going through all of the aspects of my life that led to abusing myself for so many years, that I discovered one of my blessings and curses was my pre-occupation with everyone else’s feelings and emotional states. I had no idea I was taking on other’s feelings and often could not distinguish their feelings from mine. For example, if a person around me was depressed, I would start feeling depressed with no catalyst in my own life. I was wearing other’s emotions.
Now that I know more about what goes on within me, I can now better separate what’s mine and what is someone else’s. The tricky part then comes with dealing. I still have not been able to truly separate myself from feeling other’s pain, joy, hurt, depression, anxiety, etc… I know it is not stemming from within me, but I can’t quite shield myself from experiencing others.
My BM directed me to an empathy quotient test. I scored a 70 out of a possible 80. 70 is extremely high. Average score for a woman is 47. No wonder being around others can sometimes drive me crazy. The next step up from experiencing feelings is sometimes receiving thoughts behind those feelings. If someone is dwelling on a particular subject and there are strong emotions behind it, I will pick up on the thought. It isn’t exactly mind-reading, but close. It is like a window shade that gets drawn back briefly so an outsider gets a glimpse of a room inside a house.
Anyway, I’m not entirely sure how to cope with this at times. Life events, poor decisions, causing others pain, feeling other’s pain and depression, etc… drives me nuts. At times I feel blessed to feel so much and have the ability to help and share in another’s life. Other times it pulls me back into a place that I’ve worked my way out of for two-years .
Dear readers, if anyone has anything thoughts, please feel free to post.
