Overly Empathietic People

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There are people out there that have so much empathy, they claim they can sense the feelings of others far away, empaths. It has been suggested to me by different people I'm not empathetic at all, and the opposite, I'm so empathetic I take on the personality and emotions of other people to an extreme.



I do mimic other people's behaviors and emotions if I'm around them, but I don't know how empathetic that is. Out of my own personal experience, people that display empathy I think have to look at the person first at least.

It comes right down to this, I don't totally understand empathy... I become engrossed in trying to learn about empathy... help...

I tend to feel a lot of empathy- do other people's emotions affect you? Do you get sad when a friend is, even though they may not have vocalized the fact that they are sad? I do this- I take on other people's feeling and feel them. Mostly the negative emotions unfortunately! I think you'll know if you're the same. You say you mimic people; I think that is different, unless you are feeling what they are feeling as well(or what you THINK they are feeling). If you are just mimicking, take comfort in that. Being as empathetic as I am is PAINFUL!! I am trying to grow a thicker skin, but it isn't easy.

Hope this helps!

Lucy

You've been watching too much STNG. Deanna Troy aside, I've never known of anyone to make that claim. Empathy is not a psychic phenomena.

When a Significant Other is worried or upset about something, do you instinctively notice even if they don't mention it, just from observing their facial expression or general demeanor, and know right away what to do to show your support and make them feel better? For instance - if you walk into a room and someone you know isn't smiling, is it your natural inclination to walk over, give them a hug and ask "You feeling okay?" This would indicate that you have a healthy sense of Empathy.

Or are you usually mostly preoccupied with your own thoughts and don't notice unless they start to complain about what's bothering them, and then do you feel kind of awkward and helpless, like you have no idea what would be the appropriate thing to do, or say? Deep down do you secretly kind of wish they'd figure it out on their own and stop making you feel responsible for their happiness? This would indicate that you are an Aspie, with an Empathy impairment.

Last edited by Willard on 21 Jun 2010, 5:05 pm, edited 3 times in total.

It depends... only when I'm actually around the person and their feelings are very strongly expressed, then I at least feel bad. But how can I know EXACTLY how they are feeling? If it's a stranger or I'm watching it on TV, I don't feel much. For example, on one job someone was crying and I just calmly left and told someone else to comfort the person, I'm really bad at that! But around people I know, like when grandma has an anxiety spell, I just wish she would stop and I get upset too.

I am pretty good at reading facial expressions though, so I can tell someone is sad when they are not verbalizing it, but only if they show it on the outside, like crying. If someone's sad and I can't see any signs of it, I don't know.

Look it up, there are people that claim to be empaths.

I'm a mix of your examples. I can tell if someone's not happy if they are not saying it by facial expression, especially if it's a strong expression, but I don't know what to do about it and I just wish they would stop complaining. I only give out hugs as a second thought usually, I very rarely do. Sometimes however, someone will be very upset and I won't catch it.

This is not Empathy. This is Sympathy. Not quite the same thing.

Sympathy is seeing someone experiencing an emotion and resonating with that emotion because you've had a similar experience yourself.

Well, some things do bother me or trigger me if they are having problems that I've gone though, but instead of feeling bad about them, I start thinking about what happened to me and I feel bad about me... if that made sense.

Empathy Quotient, I didn't do it in a long time...

Your score: 28
0 - 32 = low (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)
33 - 52 = average (most women score about 47 and most men score about 42)
53 - 63 is above average
64 - 80 is very high
80 is maximum

What I hate is when someone finds out something about my life that I feel neutral about or have suppressed sadness about or had a lot of anguish over in the past but now I'm dealing with it and they get very emotional and cry. I feel like they are somehow stealing a piece of my life and then getting all emotional so it becomes about them instead of being my life. It's even worse if they get so upset that other people are comforting them when it was my life experience to start with. It makes me feel invisible and diminished and disregarded. Just because I don't go around weeping and wailing doesn't mean it's right for someone else to get all upset and steal some kind of energy and attention about it. It's *my* life, dangit! Leave your own heavy emotions out of it!

I was just talking to someone about empathy, and they said that they had a diabetic puppy and I said "awww, that's sad" and they said that was empathy... but isn't that sympathy? I really can't put myself in the puppie's shoes, unless they got them cute little slippers, and even then it would be really hard

same here haha

I think empathy is weird. I can be very sympathetic, but I sometimes have a hard time responding to when people are expressing empathy (sometimes even sympathy) to me.

I can also be very empathetic, but I usually have to be very cerebral about why a certain emotion is felt to understand it.

Except if someone is crying, or I see it in a movie, I have a high chance of tearing without even thinking about it. Or maybe I am an I don't realize it. Crying is the one emotional expression I never seem to fail to do if someone else is crying.

It's ST:TNG. Her name is Deanna Troi. Saying things like that is just asking for fights.

I was at one point empathic. I don't know how or why but I was. It's my theory that I lost so much of my own emotions that I could no longer feel the hint of anyone elses, that happened when I was 16. I was so good at it when I was younger I'd go on aim and I'd have a conversation like

me: hey
them: hi chris
me: whats up?
them: not much, just watching _______
me: you sure that's it?
them: yeah, why?
me: I've got a bad feeling
them: well today _____ and me broke up
me: you okay?
them: yeah
me: you're full of ****

The last time I recall feeling anything major was when I was interested in this one girl who was an asexual neo-nazi. She was a basketcase, but most of the time she was okay not a self-harm type of girl, she wanted to join the US Marines so when the time came she could kill some Commies. One night I had the worst feeling about her so I messaged her and she told me she had her ruger to her head (why escapes me) and somehow I talked her out of it as I had 2-3 of my friends to that date. My strongest feeling was when I was with my ex Beth. I was in school one day and I felt suddenly more depressed, I made note of the time. When I got home I called her and I said "what happened today at 10:30" and she was like "eh actually I got a fight in some girl and she kicked me in the box".

I got 35 on the EQ. I still would say I lack empathy though. I understand social situations far better than I used to but I only understand them in an intellectual sense..

ie I see someone behaving in a way and I think "Oh they must be feeling this" and it is not that I have felt something similar, or have the empathy, but I read a lot of books about people skills, social skills and the like.

Been there, done that. It seems that I suck at empathy. I've done the EQ test several times over the past several weeks, and I always score in the 6 to 8 range (even when I try to cheat a little bit by choosing answers that would seem to push the score a little higher). It's funny, though - it's not that I'm a "cold" person, because I do show affection to the (very few) people I consider close to me. But I guess showing affection and empathizing with them are two different things, right?

I can sometimes tell when somebody's looking upset, but that usually doesn't trigger any "empathy switch" or something in my brain.

Blasphemy!!