I feel like an emotional sponge

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Hello all,

As I stated in the title above, I feel like an emotional sponge.

What I mean by this is I take on other people's emotions if I come into contact with them. All it takes is being in the same room with someone for a matter of moments, and boom I've caught it. I don't even have to talk to a person for this to happen, all it takes is somewhat close physical proximity like being in the same room or even a whole house and I can feel it.

I find this so draining, the more intense the emotion the worse I feel. Unfortunately, I feel other people's negative emotions more than positive ones.

Do any of you have this issue? And if so, what are some tools or coping mechanisms that you employ to deal with these feelings?

Thanks,

CFL

Yes. I have been like that my whole life, at least as long as I can remember anyways.

I have many hypothesis and theories as to why this may be and what possibly could be contributing, but all are rudimentary at best.

When I was in college I had a child psychology professor who taught us about how children and their mother develop a primal, emotional form of language and bond between each other. I remember that she would comment on how sad it was that this connection seemed to disappear as the child slowly transitioned in a more verbal form of communication. Modern research has suggested that part of the development process of autism involves the lack of neural pruning that normally occurs in young children, resulting in many more neural pathways that can cause sensory overload. It could and would be quite easy and possible for that or those particular primal neural pathways could have not been trimmed, thus maintaining to some degree the ability to at least perceive the emotional energy of those around you.

I used to sort of think I was just imagining it, but then I ran into a cousin from out of town who was able to see auras around people. She said she could see their aura, but wasn't able to understand what she was seeing unless she truly understood the emotions that were behind and the cause of the aura she say. At first I admit to being a doubter, until she would describe what she was seeing and I would realize that I felt the same things from them she was describing, just in a different way. Once that happened it was actually quite fun and nice having someone to talk to and share with, even if it only was for a few months.

How do I cope in the past and present? In the past I tried all sorts of things, mostly unhelpful and probably dangerous. Lots of drugs of various types and effects, but marijuana for much of my life as it helped somehow and to varying degrees. Today I eat an edible occasionally but nothing like the past, and simply face and try to understand the emotions I am feeling that I care about and getting away from the toxicity of those I want nothing to do with. That and I don't go out in public without my over ear headphones playing good music and helping distract my mind and block the emotional noise. Nothing really helps when the world around me gets really bad, then the world sometimes scars my soul with its darkness and blind hatred for everything and there really is nothing I can do about it.