In my experience it's usually used in one of two ways.
- 'I'm so super awesome. I'm an empath. People just tell me all their secrets because they know I understand. I can just sense how you are feeling because I'm an empath and you know, it's ok. It will get better. I can feel it. That's just me, can't help but to help people. It's just who I am. There's not many of us about. I'm an empath, did I mention it?' Or
2)' life is so hard. I find it really difficult to make meaningful friendships because as soon as we meet they just tell me their life story and it's all so dramatic and I find it exhausting. I can't cope with all the drama other people choose to have in their lives. It's because I'm an empath and I'm sooo sensitive to everyone's emotions, but people can just sense it and want to tell me everything. It's so hard to be an empath'.
There are people in my life that could probably be describes as empaths, but they wouldn't choose to use the term. The people that I have come across that self-describe themselves as such invariably fall into one of those two groups.
The worst one was at a training programme. We were asked to describe ourselves and her opening was 'well, I'm an empath' and then she proceeded to be disruptive and ride roughshod over the friend that she came with when they were in the spotlight, like she couldn't handle someone else getting the attention.