Problems with being an empath

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I have high functioning autism and am also an empath. I can feel what others feel but don't read others well because the emotions get overwhelming. As a person with autism sometimes I make others uncomfortable with my presence because of giving off unusual vibes. I can also sense when I am an inconvenience to others, such as when I have a hard time understanding what they are trying to teach me during work training.
When I am around others who feel this way I get a very strong gut feeling that I should be somewhere else and sometimes I feel obligated to leave because of how others feel about me. There are times when I have strongly considered becoming a hermit by getting my own apartment and supporting myself with work from home jobs. I sometimes feel hatred because of the feeling that I can't exist without bothering others. Anyone else have this problem with the general population?

Without the being an empath part, pretty much. Took me years to work out first that I was bothering a lot of people, and then why. Now that I know, I try to accommodate people by either keeping away, or being as polite and impersonal as I can manage, so they never get to the point where they care much.

Hatred for yourself, or for others?

Last edited by Gromit on 12 Apr 2019, 4:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Are you claiming empathy as some form of "psychic" or supernatural ability?

Im confused. How can one be an empath (read others emotions well) and at the same time say you can't/don't read others well?

Aurora911 can speak for herself, but I don't have a problem with the idea. Intensity of empathy is not the same as accuracy.

I guess I still don't get it? I mean I understand (or think I do) that the OP feels intense emotions coming from others, but feeling them without understanding them well would seem to be the same problem everyone has who can't read emotions well.

I don't think so. It is also possible to fail by just missing things. If you are willing to consider a fictional example, Sheldon Cooper gets people wrong mostly by missing what they feel, not by intense but mistaken empathy. Intensity and accuracy look like two independent dimensions to me.

I am also what gets refered to as an empath. I find people exhausting.

I think it's a very subtle reading of people that I've learned because I was brought up by a mother with very intense mood swings. I think I learned to figure out when the bad moods were beginning and to get myself the hell out of the way as a protective mechanism.

I can feel vibes off people, but I don't always understand them.

I got really bad vibes off my last roommate and I don't know why. I was intensely unhappy living with her. The first night in my own apartment after moving out I lay in my bed and felt this incredible peace and freedom.

Yes but

Nobody can exist without "bothering others"



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Everyone bothers everyone at one time or another. Being an empath just means you're more attuned to picking it up when someone is bothered.

I'm not sure how sensitive you are and how clearly you are able to distinguish the energy you're picking up so if I say something that is off or doesn't apply to your experience, I apologize.

Sometimes people will direct a negative feeling at someone else that has nothing to do with it (like maybe they are just having a bad day and any hiccups are triggering more irritation for them). So there could be a chance that what you are picking up might not actually be about you, you're just receiving it. Try not to internalize everything that is sent your way, the more you take in the more you are going to feel crappy in general. There's some people out there that are plain toxic, so no matter what, if you spend time near/with them you are going to be negatively impacted. When we take on (or are exposed to) the negative energy of others our own energy can be distorted. So your feelings of not being liked could also be coming from the fact that your energy has been 'tainted' and not that its actually that you are disliked. Another fun thing empaths get to experience is at times, you can take on someone else's feelings It probably more typically happens with people that you are close to (emotionally)but if you are very sensitive you could get it from strange also. If that's the case, I'd advice trying to make sure that the feeling you are having is yours and not something you may have picked up from someone else.

Honestly as an empath, other people are probably going to bother you a lot more than you would them. Trying to create an emotional/energy barrier (boundaries) for yourself I think will help so you won't take on too much from others. Another thing that is important is allowing yourself time to 'clear'. Time to yourself, to relax, to do something enjoyable, or to try to transfer the negative feelings to something else.

I think I can relate to what you are saying. I think I have high functioning autism -- I was diagnosed once. I respond very strongly to others emotions, without easily knowing how they are viewing the world and being almost blind to their motivations in many cases. I've read that people on the spectrum often have more of this gut-level kind of empathy, but struggle with the cognitive kind. This is one reason I spend a lot of time alone, to get peace and relax without the flood of human information.

Regarding the giving off of unusual vibes, I get that feeling too about how people feel about me. One theory I have is that a lot of people's behavior seems to be about saving face. If you (like me) can be very literal minded, then I think this can make people uncomfortable because you may be more focused on the facts and less on the "performance" of the situation. People just seem to want to act out their social role in a creative way, but I am like "yeah, but specifically doesn't this mean..." Like in a meeting, I gather that people tend to ask questions that make them look smart and conscientious and make the speaker look good. If you ask a hard technical question people get uncomfortable and you seem rude (I gather from my experience), but the only questions that come to my mind are technical ones. Or maybe it is something totally different for you, but this is a theory I am developing in the back of my mind about human interaction.

I actually just started reading this book on Kindle, that seems relevant:

Mindwise by Nicholas Epley

[opinion=mine]

I think that when people claim to feel other people's emotions, they are actually feeling their own emotions and are simply reluctant to claim ownership. "These are not my feelings, they're someone else's" is both denial and blame-shifting, especially when the emotions are anything but pleasant. "My psychic ability is to feel other people's emotions" is just further down the rabbit-hole toward full and complete self-deception.

[/opinion]

Own your feelings, people! You'll be better off for it.

I suppose there is a difference between saying you feel someone else's emotions and saying that you saw an expression on someone's face that you immediately interpreted as anger/sadness/humor/etc and as an immediate response you felt angry and defensive/got choked up/smiled/etc. Using language specifically seems to have its benefits.

Now what if someone says they are quick to have such reactions to the perception of others' emotions. Can they train themselves to insert a pause so as not to get carried away by such reactions/perceptions?

Can they also train themselves to not confuse their own emotional reactions with the actual emotions being felt by another?

Just because another person's angry expression make me feel fear does NOT mean that he or she is feeling fear too!

That seems eminently trainable.

True, B doesn't necessarily follow from A.