How Does It Feel To Be An Empath?

Hellooooo, people.

I've been wanting to bleed my heart out in poetry and as usual, I've been resisting. Because dark poetries and I are a deadly combination that the universe wouldn't be able to grasp. So I resist.

blame it on universe 'cause why not?

Today's write up is important. Not so much for you, unless empathy means something to you. This write-up is an attempt from my side to make you understand what an empath like me feels like.

Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people's emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.

Difference between sympathy and empathy? Google says, "Sympathy involves understanding from your own perspective. Empathy involves putting yourself in the other person's shoes and understanding WHY they may have these particular feelings."

In my words, if someone is telling you about their heart-shattering due to some xyz reason, then if you feel the pain of their heartbreak even when you haven't gone through the experience ever, it's due to the empathy.

When you feel bad for them because you know how it feels, it's sympathy.

Another example: Suppose you see someone nervous in a particular situation and they don't express it to you.

If you see them and can tell they're nervous and want to console them because you might know how they feel, it's because of sympathy.

If you yourself feel nervous even when you've nothing to be nervous about, it's empathy.

Just one more example:

Suppose someone tells you about how badly they want to go home because they've stayed away for so long. If you understand how they're feeling, you're showing sympathy. If you feel how it is they're feeling without ever going through the feeling of being homesick, it's due to?

Empathy, correct.

I've always been an empath. I might have not known the term years ago but knowledge doesn't keep you from feeling. It's possible to feel dominated in the wrong ways by the men or older women in the society, even if you ain't aware of the term patriarchy, right?

I haven't travelled a lot. I've never been homesick. I've neither dated anyone ever nor I've experienced a lot of the things you take for granted. But, I do know how it feels to love, to have a breakup, to be in depression, to miss home, to be drenched in rain, to feel isolated in a group, to spend nights changing positions, to cheat on someone, to be cheated upon, to urge to wish birthday to someone you're not supposed to, to want to un-know a few known things, to watch someone ruining their life, to beg someone to stay and so on.

I have experienced only a few but I know how every single thing feels. Tell me about an experience and I could complete your sentences when you wouldn't be able to find words for how you feel. I've done that for people. 

probably for you too? in person or in blogs maybe?

if you don't know it, lemme tell you i've written stuff which you find very relatable and accurate even when i had never been through it myself

Because I feel exactly how the person in front of me is feeling, I know what they'd like to listen to. A lot of people have thanked me for saying things they never found words for; for telling them things they were dying to listen to. 

Because of this empathy, I've cried on someone else's issues. Because of the same empathy, I've healed hearts. Because of it, I've felt nauseous. Because of it, I've made souls happy.

Why am I telling you this? Isn't it all supposed to be a good thing? Why did I want to write "dark" poetry then? Why did I say I've been resisting bleeding my heart out in a poem?

Because I feel like I'm losing it. I'm losing one of the most important parts of me: Empathy.

not just that; read further

I don't know if it's just a phase or the beginning of something. I don't know if it's good for me or not. But I do know it hurts. It hurts as if someone is cutting an organ out of me. Empathy and intuitions are the vital ingredients of me; I feel I'm losing both of them.

intuitions too, yes

Empathy helps me feel things. Things which I haven't even gone through. People who read my words say I'm experienced. But people who live around me know exactly how inexperienced I am.

It's all because of empathy that I've gained experience from feeling things. When you go through feelings, you learn. Empathy taught me a lot. More than you could imagine.

What did intuitions do in the process of my learning? It told me where to go. My inner self always whispered to my heart that this person might want to talk to me or I should get that person talking about a certain thing because they might need to share.

I've got "How did you know?", "You came at the right moment", "I needed you and you came", "you're a saviour" and so on.

These all because intuitions whispered to me where and whom to go to and empathy instructed me what to do to make them feel better.

I feel I'm losing both of them. I don't know if you understand the issue or not but it feels like a part of me is burying itself inside me. Other parts of me are preparing for a funeral already and I? I'm trying how to save the death of these precious parts of me. I've always been at the places I was needed. I've always been the saviour for the people who were in trouble. 

Listening to people, feeling what they're going through and then doing something for them in any and every possible way have always been what I've done. I don't want to be someone else other than that person. Call me a masochist but I want to feel everything people go through around me. I can't lose my empathy. I just can't-

I know some of you don't really get what is happening with me and I'm sure most of you don't have any idea about what to say to me to console me. I just wanted to tell you that not every pain is external. Few of us are in pain not because someone has hurt us or we've hurt ourselves but because we're losing a part of ourselves which can't be saved even if we clench our fists.

In case you're wondering how did I know I'm losing empathy, let me tell you. 

Whenever I watch a movie or series or read novels, I feel every single feeling; be it any character in the current scene. I feel the pain of losing someone to death when someone's crying there and I also feel the evil satisfaction who brutally murdered and snatched the love of someone's life.

yeah that's what being an extreme empath like me feels like

Lately, I haven't been able to indulge myself in anything. I've watched episodes and read the emotions of a young mother losing her five-year-old without feeling a damn thing! That just does not happen.

Nobody who shares their life with me is currently available because their schedules have got way too hectic. I'm clueless about how my empathy is doing while listening to people's lives, as it's been weeks since someone has really shared something with me.

I can not go on with any story --be it in a movie, series or novel-- if I can't feel what the author has put in there. 

And finally. 

There. I said it all. 

My heart pains. Probably a grave for my empathy and intuitions is being dug up or it might be those skeletons who want to get up from the graves I dig in myself because I've been in escape for a lil' too long?

probably the grave for empathy and intuitions, right? 

right!

~Miss V