Have we met?
That is a question I often ask people that I care about. Why? Because they don’t understand when I get emotional or worry about them. You see, if I care about you, YOUR pain causes me pain. I feel it. Even more so lately for some unknown/not understood to me reasons. But I did a LOT of reading this weekend, and found out a few things that explain a little more about why I am the way I am.
I have never really considered myself an empath, because of the fact that I don’t absorb everything around me. But there are certain situations, the greatest being that I care about you and your well-being, and I want to help you, protect you, shield you, absorb the pain from you. Whatever I can do to make sure that you feel love, happiness, and joy.
A few things an empath battles in their own head.
1 – Needing to feel loved. I am battling that in my life right now. Honestly I always have. One sentence from someone who was supposed to love me no matter what broke me a long time ago. And I don’t know that I have felt true love since that day. And it is why I pull away and isolate. If I feel lonely, I will make myself alone. I am alone. Even living with a man who is my husband, I am utterly and completely alone. Which brings me to my next battle.
2 – When an empath feels lost or abandoned, they isolate. Now, I KNOW I am a fun, funny, caring, loving, loyal, good, worthy person to be around. I know that in my head. My heart does not get the message. I start to question EVERYTHING. Pulling away from me even in the slightest is like walking me to the edge of a river of self-doubt and self-loathing and shoving me in. Because the first thing I will think to myself, is “What did I do?” Someone who means a lot to me, told me yesterday that women, especially women who have experienced a trauma, apologize for things that are 100% not their fault. Often they had nothing to do with it.
But because of an embedded piece of emotional shrapnel from nearly 40 years ago, I assume that I owe you an apology. And I find that I am always overly thankful for anyone who seems to actually want me around, and apologetic for anything wrong in that person’s life like I personally wronged them.
Always striving to be understood, it is easy to slip into a dark place and let the worthlessness and not valued feelings take over.
*In my reading today, several “experts” alluded to the fact that empaths have a great worth and the world needs us. Emotions are tough. They suck even sometimes. Hate, anger, sadness, grief, along with happiness and pure joy, are hard to understand. I feel all of that so deep not only for me, but for everyone I love. And when I am shut out and I know something is wrong, even if they don’t tell me to protect me, I feel worthless. So if I seem distant or like I don’t care, it is quite the opposite. I care too much and am protecting myself from being hurt again.
3- This last one is something that I have been working on for myself. Meaning Self-Acceptance. And here is why it is so hard for me. As I find people that I trust and feel accept me, I immediately start to fear what I feel is the inevitable. Abandonment. When I find another soul that I feel I truly connect with, I give my heart up pretty quickly. Therefore, it is easy for me to be hurt. And I HAVE been hurt. The last few years have SUCKED! And right now I have found a group of people who seem to accept me totally judgement free. Even when I apologize for no reason and Mother Hen them to death! But my heart is wary. There is so much pain in there already right now from feeling unloved and abandoned. I WANT to trust and believe so hard, but it is difficult to let go of what I have come to expect.
I have learned to lockdown pretty well at this point in my life. But as we all know from Covid restrictions, it gets lonely when you have no one to share things with. But if you truly know me, you know that no matter how many times I get knocked down, I will fight like hell to get back up and keep going. I often take the “Fake it ’til you make it” approach, but I also know that people prefer my smile and positivity over the jumbled mess going on in my head that even Clark and Russ Griswold couldn’t untangle. haha Sorry, you knew I was going to throw a joke in here somewhere 😉
AND I just apologized for being myself. DANG! This is going to be a hard one to break!
SO….the point to this now too long ramble –
If I over love, over protect, over step, over praise, whatever, Please know that it comes from a very true place in me, and I want you to feel happy so that we can both experience that emotion. I will always do my best to see the positive in any situation. And I will always dance when I feel the music move me.
B3T Books and Biceps 