I’m an Empath

[ArtfulRubyKoala]

AIBU to think that people who use the word ‘empath’ to describe themself actually tend to be incredibly self absorbed?
I have only met 2 people who have used this word to describe themselves and it was noticeable with both how much time they spent talking about themselves during the time I was with them. I also found it odd that both told me they were empaths the first time I met them.

Obviously my sample size of 2 makes this fact(!) but am interested to hear other people’s experiences.

Thats happened to me too. I ended up comforting them about MY bloody tragedy!!
Then came the vaguebook posts.

They are exhausting.

I was with you until this comment because that's not empathy. That's catastrophising as a pp said. Disproportionate reaction is not empathy, is more on a par with what op said about drama llamas making things about themselves.

My own mum did this a lot - everything was either 0 or 100. She never understood what mild issue was actually going on with us, because she got so relieved when it wasn't the worse case scenario that it was then all fine. There was no nuance.

Every illness was either an ambulance (I didn't realise it wasn't normal to have been in an ambulance approximately once a year in childhood) or ignored.

Everything was either a desperate crisis or "ugh, what do you expect me to do?! Are you saying it's my fault??!"

Constant reassurance from us required by her. The empathy mostly went the other way (accompanied by eye rolls)

"it’s not a stretch to understand that there are people with more empathy than is normal"

Nobody is disputing that.

But the self-proclaimed empath, in my experience, often shows little to no empathy for others, instead making the situation all about themselves. It's attention seeking behaviour.

Knowing something is wrong isn't unusual, and it isn't 'I'm an empath' behaviour.

I would be surprised if your kids weren't aware of your catastrophising. If they're ever quieter than usual, you pop in with tea or check in with memes - they know you're fishing for reassurance.

Absolutely! (in reply to OP)
Everyone seems to say they're an empath and that their ex is a narc! 😊

💯

See also the "I am really good at communicating" crowd. If you really were, you'd give other people space in a conversation!

I agree, mainly because I’ve never heard anyone seriously describe themselves as one, but only heard people do it mockingly for comedy purposes.

@DreamyJade You need a good psychologist to help you to work through your issues.

100% agree with anyone who claims to be an empath being a self absorbed, pain in the arse, who loves to make everything about themselves.

I've sadly met quite a few. Two, I was in touch with for quite a long time for various reasons.

The first (and worst) swings between aggressively attacking and bullying people in an exceptionally cruel way (maybe she considers knowing exactly which button to push to really hurt someone evidence of her supposedly high EQ?) and talking incessantly about herself.

Every now and then, she'll notice something extremely obvious, like that you are quite stressed whilst holding the baby in one arm and cooking dinner with the other whilst the dishes pile up in the sink and she stands there talking AT you about herself and say, "You are stressed. I can tell, because I am an empath."

If you dare to bring up something about yourself, she'll usually cry and then later attack you again and say that it's not her fault, but because she was so upset about whatever it was you told her.

The second is not as bad, but she's naturally faded out of my life after our other friend's husband died. She promised at the funeral that she was going to be there for her every step of the way, and for a few weeks she occasionally checked in to say that she was so very devastated by his death and was struggling to cope. Then she stopped communicating altogether and didn't even bother to RSVP to the last invite to the youngest child's birthday. She will be claiming to others that she's too empathic to be around such a sad situation.

Both dreadful people.

No it’s true , they seem to have some sort of narcissistic personality disorder. I’ve meet one recently , never spoke either her before and she told me a bunch of personal stuff i didn’t want to know about her and her kids . I feel a lot of empathy for those kids as are us clearly crazy

Honestly they didn’t know the extent of it. The subject came up quite recently and I spoke to them about my previous struggles. They were really surprised and said “So when you used to send us all those memes it’s because you thought we were dead??? You massive crank!” and fell about laughing. They thought it was hysterical!

In reply to pps saying noticing something is wrong isn’t empathy. It is when that noticing comes from feeling someone’s suffering, even when they’ve not said anything or there’s nothing unusual about their body language or behaviour.

If you saw a picture of someone with a really bad leg break it would make you wince. You feel an immediate intense discomfort from it. It’s exactly the same feeling as that.

I’ve had staff members that I’ve picked up something from, who’ve then opened up about big problems they’ve been having. They’ve all been really shocked that I’d noticed there was something wrong when those closest to them hadn’t. I was just their manager who’d they call about work issues a couple of times a week and see for a 121 each month. I only knew because it hurts to be around them (though obviously I’d never say that to them).

It might all sound a bit woo, but I’m convinced there’s a scientific, biological explanation for it.

From reading these posts, I’d conclude that falsely believing yourself to be an empath is a classic trait of narcs. But that doesn’t mean actual empaths don’t exist.

Similarly, most narcs believe they are very kind, and they aren’t, they’re twats - but that doesn’t mean actual kind people don’t exist without being narcs. Difference is, they wouldn’t go around announcing their status as a kind person.

It’s interesting that several people here (including me) have said they consider themselves to be empaths, but a) wouldn’t share it in irl conversation and b) find it a burden. That’s entirely different from the arseholery being described in the OP and other posts.

IMO denying someone their experience of being an empath is a bit like telling someone they can’t be autistic, as everyone finds some sensory stimuli overwhelming. Because you haven’t experienced it, it’s easy to dismiss it. I do believe it’s a type of ND and wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes accepted in years to come.

People tend to misuse it to mean either they're a bit woo and can sense feelings, or that they're a particularly caring person. Which sounds a bit self aggrandising.
In fact being an empath is not usually either deliberate or necessarily altruistic or positive. Because all it means is that you absorb the feelings of others and feel them as though they're your own. Sometimes this results in acts of kindness and care. You see Sally is upset. Her tears upset you because you feel the sadness, so you may try to help her to make the feelings stop.
Often it leads to high levels of discomfort. When an empath says they feel embarrassed for someone, they are literally cringing. When an empath is doing something they love and someone they're with doesn't love it too, it ruins it for them.
Far from being a thing to self congratulate about, I think its actually a psychological disorder where a person can't recognise where another person's feelings stop and their own start.
At the mild end they are people pleasers. More extreme and they are codependents.
I think its often rooted in trauma from a difficult childhood where the child learns to be hypervigilent to recognise the moods and feelings of their parents, or in abusive relationships where the survivor learns the same.

I haven’t read through the thread but this jumped out at me. You are so traumatised from your childhood the survival skills you picked up have become a superpower almost. My dad was a violent alcoholic and I similarly notice things, even a change in voice tone. I don’t think it’s because we are special, our circumstances were just so fucked up we grew up on eggshells. We learnt early on how to not tip the cart. You like me, (besides an anonymous comment online) wouldn’t announce ourselves as empaths like we are these remarkably special individuals. Empaths aren’t a thing we’re just traumatised people trying to live. When someone tells you they’re an empath they’re usually a dickhead who wants to feel special and usually can’t read the bloody room, let alone situations in the way someone who grew up needing to use survival skills would. “I’m an empath” people are usually those into woo shite, love talking about how special everyone thinks they are and can’t keep a friend more than 6 weeks.

Also see Highly Sensitive Person.

You’re not special, you’re just a self absorbed wanker

People who describe themselves as an empath, a HSP, or anything Meyers-Briggs related make me want to scream.

Not me, but several people in my life who have bad family situations or were bullied extensively as kids. And yes, I totally agree that it's a form of PTSD.

The other observation would be that although traumatised people truly believe that they can
"detect the slightest change in people’s moods, tones and behaviours", I strongly suspect that, whilst they might have learnt what worked for their families, they then over-generalise from a position of hyper-vigilance, and this can become "telling you what your emotions are, and refusing to believe that they are not, in fact, what they have "detected" "- it's almost the opposite of empathy, because it's coming from and through all the lenses & filters of a highly activated fear response, and therefore doesn't apply well to non-abusive situations - everything can be seen through the lens of the prior abuse. And while I'm very sure it's extremely painful and exhausting for the person experiencing it, it's also painful and exhausting for the person on the receiving end, sadly.

Any person, with the ability to empathise, does not need to say it.

In time, people will notice.

I think that’s the difference though - most people have the ability to empathise, with the recognition of when it is rational/appropriate/necessary. For me, an empath will empathise with everyone, too much, all the time.

That's just confirmation bias because you're constantly interpreting people to be "not ok". For every time you correctly guess that someone is not ok and they really aren't, I guarantee there's a lot of times you thought your child was suicidal and they were fine or you thought a coworker was nursing a grievance when they just had a mild hangover.

Although having said that nearly everyone has some sort of big problem on their lives at any given point. A close relative with a serious illness, money worries, child in trouble at school.

It's quite arrogant to assume what other people are feeling and also that you alone are able to sense it.

I thought this was. Ama board and was rolling my eyes thinking yeah right they are always self absorbed.

You missed the bit where I said I only did it when they weren’t okay? I don’t go round imagining things are wrong when they’re not. That’s not empathy, it’s neuroticism!

This is interesting. I think you have a good point there: it's actually a psychological disorder ... At the mild end they are people pleasers. More extreme and they are codependents.

But I'm disagreeing with all the stuff about absorbing others' feelings. Autistic people often say this too: that they feel other people's emotions and get distressed by them. This would be a supernatural ability. It doesn't exist.

My view is that it's down to inadequate sensory filtering. Autism causes distressing hyper-sensitivity to all sort of things like sounds, smells and textures. It's normal to feel irritated by a rough seam; only someone with a neurological impairment finds it unbearable. They might feel like the seam's attacking them, but they learn soon enough that clothing has no mind of its own so their own sensitivity is the problem.

That logic's harder to access when the irritant is another human! They might find it easier to believe they're feeling Sally's sadness, but they're not. They're feeling overloaded by it. It distresses them because of their social processing disorder, and they choose to interpret their distress as Sally's. This can be singularly unhelpful.

I've known a few people who, having come to terms with this in themselves, will say they're not suited to give the right kind of support but will make some tea or bring a blanket, whatever. One of my best friends refused to help me when I was miscarrying - I wasn't too thrilled, but had to respect that it was better she said so than tried, only to then need my help!

It might be interesting to know whether 'empaths' and 'highly sensitive people' have abnormal physical sensitivities as well. Others, I think, are emotionally maladjusted as you said, needing to be needed.

Ooh, I like a bit of Myers Briggs.

But that's purely for my own entertainment, scrolling at 2am. Don't think I've ever discussed it other than just now.