Highly sensitive empath burn out

[Keepingscore]

So, this is me and looking for opinions on how to manage this trait, especially at work. I work in the charity sector so whilst being empathic and a degree of sensitivity is good when supporting our users and their families it isn't so good working in a toxic team culture, my team members do not share my sensitivity or empathic approach.

It affects me to the point where I am not able to work in a room where there is a lot of negativity, gossip and narcissim. I find it draining. I appreciate we can't all work in positive environments but how do I get over this? it is getting me down and I am regularly burnt out.

This has always been an issue for me so indeed the less people I work with in a team or office the better i am. However this is not always possible, at least not in my field of work. I have pretty good boundaries and don't take on more work than is necessary, I look after my needs and generally say No when I don't want to do something.

Is there anybody who is also an empath/highly sensitive who can share some nuggets of wisdom?

Being around toxic people drains EVERYONE. Its not special to struggle around bad people. It's normal. And so are you.

And as for- what do you you do? Personally I just leave these jobs. Life's too short to be surrounded by shit people.

Of course, chances are that if one workplace is asshole free, there will be three in the next one to make up for it. Its an unfortunate fact of life.

And it sucks to leave work you enjoy.
But honestly, it's the easiest, least stressful approach. Find some place new and quit.

Also consider the environment of the job. Places where you work alone a lot might might preferable. Or jobs that are so fast paced that no one had much time to gossip.

Being sensitive isn't the same as being an empath.

I'd suggest you can't be that much of an empath if you're incapable of tolerating other people's views or personalities.

Get a job where you are allowed to spend a lot of time working from home. Obviously that means you miss out on coattailing other people’s happiness but if stress and bad temperedness are the dominant moods it’s probably worth it.

(The worst department at a place I’ve worked at for years is the one which does touchy-feely community outreach stuff – incompetent at everything except claiming unearned plaudits and using excruciating jargon)

Are you an 'empath', or a drama llama?

I usually find people who say they are empaths, make everything else all about their own feelings.

Just get another job if it's making you this miserable.

I work in a toxic, misogynistic, nepotistic, horrid environment, where there is lots of shouting and unpleasantness every day.

Will I leave - no because the wages, pension and holidays are too good.

I've changed my mindset. It used to upset me. Now I kind of don't care anymore.

It's a wage. Keeps a roof over my head and allows us to live a very pleasant outside of working hours.

my team members do not share my sensitivity or empathic approach

Interested to know what this looks like exactly. Any examples?

I’d look for a remote role at a different company, perhaps a different industry. I’ve worked for several charities and they can be bear pits.

Deanna?

I think you need to distinguish empathy from the high degree of sensitivity you have for others' feelings. Otherwise you are in danger of presenting your emotional needs as a kind of talisman for a sense of superiority that you seem to need to articulate.
Empathy is a wonderful trait which almost all of us have to some extent. Being more empathic than average doesn't make you a special kind of person with a special set of needs, any more than being taller than average. Being overly sensitive to other people, on the other hand, does create difficulties and can be the result of many different personality characteristics (including, ironically, the narcissism with which you lable others).
I am hideously oversensitive to others as a result of anxiety, low self-esteem and PTSD. I think that my oversensitivity actually has the effect of inhibiting my empathy: I am empathic in general but I can get so eaten up by the chaos, anger and fear produced in me by other people's feelings that my ability to perceive them compassionately and realistically is compromised.
By framing your difficulties with colleagues in terms of your self-perception as empathic, you, too, seem to be a bit caught up in yourself, a bit compromised in your perception of others.

If I were you I would focus on finding strategies to deal with the toxic work culture that you have to operate in (speak to a line manager, or HR, or whatever) rather than viewing this as some kind of battleground between different 'types' of people.

Perhaps worth noting that a lot of people who come from abusive childhoods or relationships, have unhealthy trauma due to being conditioned to be extra sensitive to their abusers need in order to avoid more abuse from them.

They leave, but do not heal. They may remain codependent (as it was only in tending to the needs of the abuser in the abusive relationship that they got their self worth validated), just its now towards others in their life around them (why you were drawn to charity work perhaps?).

And they are constantly observing the moods of others- as its what they were trained to do to stay safe. To fixate on the needs, wants and emotions of the abuser.

That's not being an empath. Its having unhealed trauma that needs therapy to heal.And might be what's going on with you. You are extra in tune with the bad people because you've been trained to be.

@Pinkbonbon .Helpful comment as a sufferer of your mentioned. I thought I was coping well but clearly not. Time for support and help

There is no evidence that empathys exist - and opinion is very divided

there are however people who are very suggestible, and very emotional so will be attracted to believing they are empathy - it’s often used as a way of telling people they are ‘nicer’ or ‘better’ or morally superior.

it sounds like OP is struggling to manager her emotions - and like many people works in a gossipy sometimes toxic environment. That’s life. Most people have to work with people they don’t like - being an adult means you learn to deal with it.

Corrr, you sound delightful. Not sure this was the thread for you. Maybe skip to a thread where your nasty vibes can be justified.

OP, I can only imagine how hard it is working with intense emotions each day. It might be really helpful to have some talking therapy. Maybe see it there is anything offered through work or particularly for the charity sector?

Empaths don't think they're better than anyone else....

This is good 👍

Thank you @Nelly91 .There have been some very nasty and unhelpful comments on this thread which I have chosen to ignore. My initial post having completely been misinterpreted or not worded correctly. Either way it demonstrates how awful people can be.

This .

Imo the vast majority of people who identify as empathy are definitely not empaths
Regardless. Your work environment is not serving you well, so find another. You sound as though you don’t cope well with managing the emotional needs of others, so perhaps working in a different field would be better?

You do know, don’t you, that not wanting to work in a nasty gossipy backstabbing office doesn’t make you a “sensitive empath” don’t you?

empath must be the most irritating term ever. Like everyone else is an insensitive arsehole.

This post sounds familiar to me. Have you posted before?

I'm inclined to agree that empaths aren't a thing apart from in Star Trek.
But becoming easily emotionally dysregulated is a real issue, as is being over focused and impacted by the emotions of others.
Do you have any trauma history or any neuro atypicality ?

What are the characteristics that are problematic - just worn out by other people's negativity or something else? If it's genuinely a toxic workplace I would find another job. But people do tend to complain a lot at work, so you probably need to figure out whether it's a normal level of office moaning or there is genuine toxicity with people bitching about others, ostracising them, or other underhand behaviour.

I am also inclined to think the charity sector may not be for you, if you are very affected by the emotions of others.

See herein lies the problem. You've gone straight to 'everyone's being mean to me' rather than engaging with the points being made. Some people have been blunt but nobody's been nasty that I can see.
That's being 'highly sensitive' but not particularly 'empathetic'. They are not the same.
This is a 'you' problem, not a 'them' problem.

i have only come across two people in my life who claim to be empaths. Both claimed they were more sensitive to upset - therefore when something bad happened to a family member they felt it more deeply. It was used as a way to flick the attention to them. I found it insufferable.

I leaned to dread the sentences that started ‘as an empath I ….’. Anything I have read by people claiming to be empaths has a superior air. That is just my experience.

I didn’t say every empath behaved this way - I said ‘often’. It’s a strange thing to claim to be - it’s not a real clinical diagnosis - people just decide they ‘feel things more deeply than others’. How on earth would they know!!

There are some interesting articles that discuss how 'highly sensitive person' is just a euphemism/ more socially acceptable name for autistic.
For several years I identified myself as being highly sensitive, more recently I've been diagnosed as autistic.
Lots of the things you write in your first post would have resonated with me before, the intensity of it is overwhelming at times!

They clearly are not empaths. Sound like narcassists