It is almost - but not really - funny reading a thread…
Sceptics: “this is just a thing humans do”
Empaths: “but I, as an empath, do it more & better - with twiddly bits”
Sceptics: “how do you KNOW that? how can you possibly know the relative depth of feelings & responses to others’ emotions… and what is with empaths claiming to be special?!”
Empaths: “we just know, ok - & REAL empaths never claim to be special, despite literally claiming to have a special skill that makes us stand out; & indeed we never ever talk about it someone in fact has a gun to all of our heads forcing us to contribute to this thread ”
Sceptics: “you literally cannot know this”
Empaths: “you are so meeeeaaaan! why don’t you believe in the powers we have decided we definitely have because some quizzes on the internet told us so?!”
Like some other posters, I can get a bit overwhelmed by other people’s emotions - but it’s part of my ASD, not something that belongs in D&D. Even before it was explained to me that was what it was I didn’t assume I was somehow Doing Feeling Better - indeed I thought I must be getting it wrong, & found it quite distressing I couldn’t work out how to fix it/me. (I was working on the basis that I find, for example, [noisy, brightly-lit,] crowded shops actively distressing to the point I would like to run away from them - & when I was younger sometimes deliberately harmed myself in order to cope with being in such environments. Thus, a me!failure in need of fixing.
Also, since I was very wee I’ve had a rooted objection to the idea that anyone could truly know how another person is feeling, even if they know them really well. Humans are much too complicated & their thoughts & feelings too tangly for one person to simply slide into another’s headspace & make any kind of sense of how it works. Of course we can know in a basic way how other people are feeling; & if you’ve experienced something similar it MIGHT give you a greater insight (but absolutely no guarantees; & that’s still not the same as actual knowledge of another’s feelings). For example, to think the person weeping after the death of their parent is grieving is not a huge leap. To assume knowledge of the weight, shape & complexity of that grief, however, is insanely arrogant. Even those who know the grieving individual best will only know some parts of what they feel.
I do wonder what would happen were they to find an easy way to accurately measure how “empathic” people are 
@100problems @PriamFarrl @BeyondOurReef
To which I say: break, smash, let loose the leeches, burn the mallow-paste, pickle the gherkins in the window jars, tear up the bandages!
(But not as in original sense, rather intended as stirring Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war sort of call to arms. No need to get into stenches of any kind, though 
Not. Envy. )