Have you ever wondered? Well I have, about how when I say, say red; for example there’s no way of knowing if “red” means the same thing in your head as red means in my head when someone says “red”
~ Matilda, the Musical “Quiet”
Explaining to people that there is a difference between being “empathetic” (which can be kind of paralleled to “sympathetic”) or “showing empathy” and being an empath…is sometimes a bit like trying to explain colour to someone who is colour-blind.
How do you explain something that is so intrinsic to yourself and yet nearly impossible to understand, let alone to prove?
Being an empath is kind of like being an…emotional sponge. Put me around an outpouring of happiness – I will feel happy! Put me around a huge overpouring of high level emotion in general and I will kind of go a bit numb. But, put me around a bunch of negativity? I become the worst negative Nellie you’ll ever meet. And I hate getting like that. There are a lot of times when I honestly don’t know if what I’m feeling is mine…or someone else’s. It also has a tendency to make me…approachable? Because I – to a certain extent – feel what other people are feeling – it means that people come to me to tell me what they are feeling; and I have difficulty remembering that it is not my job to fix them. I can listen, but I cannot fix.
And unfortunately, the ship is perhaps not the easiest place to be an emotional sponge. There has been a lot of drama here; none of which has directly to do with me. But the thing is all of it has to do with everyone around me; and negativity tends to be catching. The sensation of pressure can be catching. It spirals in on itself; and it feeds on itself, and before you know it you kind of find yourself teetering on the edge of a very strange and sometimes frightening precipice. You want people to help you, but you also want more than anything for just people to leave you alone – for the overwhelming pressure in your head from all the outside emotion to just stop.
I know, that sounds kind of bizarre, perhaps even insane. As I said, it’s kind of like trying to explain red to someone who has never seen red before. A concept that goes even beyond abstract; right into the completely unexplained.
I guess I’ve just been feeling a little too spongey lately…
And I suppose I’m a little bit sorry that that got to be a bit difficult to understand…but it’s just kind of part of the package of being me. A little odd, a little strange, a little off kilter…a little spongey, but ultimately loveable. Weird, but loveable.