Problems with being an empath

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Teach51,
It sounds like your daughter-in-law was feeling sympathy for the person in the restaurant, rather than empathy. Sympathy is seldom distinguished from empathy these days, but they are separate emotions. I haven't read your whole conversation but I just thought I'd say hello and welcome you on board.

Fnord:

Thank you Isabella. Hi to you too!

I'm an empath, and it can sometimes be rather afflicting in some ways. I'll rather be the opposite, because being a strong empath like I am doesn't win me many friends anyway. People just think I'm weak. Also being an empath can make you look more naive than you really are. I'm not too bad with sussing out people's motives, but I pretend to be ignorant to it because I want them to be happy more than I want me to be happy. So that probably contributes to my depression half the time, because I put other people's happiness before my own. But since I happen to be on the stupid autism spectrum, if I do decide to be selfish for a moment, people will be like "you lack empathy!!"

I have cognitive empathy too. Last week I was on holiday and we saw my cousin's mother-in-law who works in one of the supermarkets there. She had only met us once, so we assumed she'd know who we were, but when we said "hi, how are you?", she smiled and said "hi...good thanks", but I could tell in her facial expression and tone of voice that she hadn't recognised us and she was wondering who we were. I felt awkward for her, because she looked really confused, so we then told her who we were, and she then looked more relaxed and she said, "ohh yes, I'm surprised to see you here!" followed by small talk. But I could really feel how she was feeling by her body language when she didn't recognise us. I do this often; feel what other people are feeling, usually from their body language (which includes facial expression and tone of voice).

I'm thinking an empath is somebody with very strong intuition, who is very good at picking up physical and vocal cues from a person (something people with autism are often accused of not being able to).

I don't firmly believe in any psychic/spirtual/supernatural stuff because, well, seeing is believing and I have yet to see any solid proof that it exists.

Welcome, fellow skeptic!

That's my boy! I thought of you Fnord the moment I read it

I absolutely believe though that there are existing levels of communication between people that have yet to be proven scientifically, an additional dimension if you will. I have been studying Kabbalah, the method of Baal Ha Sulam, and Rabbi Baruch Ashlag,( not Madonna's kind:-)) for many, many years and have experienced this communication personally. Kabbalah is the study of the forces of nature, to a Kabbalist, God is nature. There are forces in nature that we have to train ourselves to fully perceive them sense and comprehend them, and we must learn to utilise and implement them correctly. The wisdom of kabbalah is the study of these forces, in order to attain the final correction of the shattered soul, of which we all have a fragment, connect them all together and bring redemption and an end to all suffering for mankind. Yes, sounds corny.The Torah is the handbook of the purpose of life and is all written in coded language, according to the belief of kabbalists. Complete mumbo jumbo to most I have no doubt lol No matter, connecting people and promoting tolerance, love, unity and mutual responsibility can do no harm. Einstein in his golden years was very closely involved with the wisdom of kabbalah. I belong to an organization with hundreds of thousands of people, on all continents and of all religions who connect with each other constantly to promote world peace using this method.

You did convince me though that empathy is possibly a hyper-vigilence triggered by trauma, a conditioning to read people's moods, in emergency mode as a defence mechanism. Animals have this instinct. I recall that you suggested it might be that we emit a certain scent when nervous or afraid? That makes a lot of sense. You have taught me to be more logical, believe me, this is a very good thing.

The next step would be to put down those texts on ancient superstitions. Anything to do with astrology, numerology, and "mystical" diagrams is worthless, unless you're being paid to tell people what they want to hear about themselves.

Sometimes I think I know what others are feeling, but I often get it wrong.

As a kid, I would get panic attacks when an ambulance would go by because I’d envision some sort of horrible scenario and extreme suffering when, for all I knew, someone was mistaking a case of bad indigestion for a heart attack.

When people believe that they are empaths, I think it tends to come down to having empathy, imagination, and, at times, zeroing in on specific social clues - almost automatically. We can read a given situation, perhaps, without realizing the cognition behind the conclusion we seem to have come to intuitively.

I do get stressed when others are stressed and upset when others are, but I think that has something to do with having dealt with scary/upsetting situations involving stress when I was a kid. It can make me panicky and activate a fight or flight response.

Then we will agree to disagree Diversity of thought is an excellent thing.

"Without realizing the cognition behind the conclusion that we seem to have come to intuitively"

That's a valid point Twilightprincess.

"Diversity of Thought" is no excuse for wrong-thinking.

When one of us is able to prove the other wrong the drinks will be on me.

I can give you a good example by relating an experience that happened to me.

My dad was teasing my little cousin about her hair (she’s a redhead), and I thought I could feel her distress and came to the accurate conclusion (I found out weeks later) that she was losing her hair, so I told my dad later that day not to tease her about it.

Reflecting on this later, I realized that I just picked up on several clues that no one else noticed. She never liked being teased, but she seemed more upset than usual. I saw her blink away tears from behind her glasses.

She also had started wearing an inch thick headband everyday that she was never in the habit of wearing before. (It covered her bald spot caused by alopecia so no one could notice her hair loss.)

She was also prone to various health conditions that made it difficult for her body to absorb the vitamins and minerals it needed.

These sorts of things were floating around in my mind with some discomfort which brought me to a conclusion that I thought was intuitive at first.

Being very introverted, I pick up on little details (or clues) that other people miss. No one else noticed that my cousin was so upset by the teasing even though there were several people present.

Yes, I am also an observer. You are sensitive to others, that's a gift in itself. I pick up more than the average person by observation, I am an artist and pick up a great deal visually.
Sorry about your cousin, it was kind of you to tell your dad and spare her feelings. I'm also a redhead with slight alopecia, so I am really identifying here.

Makes perfect sense. Sensing/feeling someone is angry does not make any assumptions as to why they are angry. When a stimulus is present that could be thought of as the reason then it is sometimes the conclusion but not necessarily correct.

I've been struggling with a similar experience for awhile as well. I came across the following thread of research being done around Intense World Syndrome versus hyper-empathy syndrome which I'm still digging through. Some of the referenced articles may be of interest to you.

An article about Autism and Empathy: https://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/a ... ch-empathy

The research being referenced: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2518049/

One referenced page regarding coping with intense empathy: https://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/h ... y-syndrome

Excerpt from the Intense World Theory piece:

"We [...] propose that the autistic person may perceive [their] surroundings not only as overwhelming[ly] intense due to hyper-reactivity of primary sensory areas, but also as aversive and highly stressful due to a hyper-reactive amygdala, which also makes quick and powerful fear associations with usually neutral stimuli. The autistic person may well try to cope with the intense and aversive world by avoidance. Thus, impaired social interactions and withdrawal may not be the result of a lack of compassion, incapability to put oneself into someone else's position or lack of emotionality, but quite to the contrary a result of an intensely if not painfully aversively perceived environment." [8]

Excerpt from the article:

"Does That Mean That People With Asperger's May Have 'Hyper Empathy Syndrome'?

No, insofar as only one case of hyper empathy syndrome has really been documented in the medical literature — the fascinating case of a woman who had part of her amygdala (a part of the brain that processes emotions) removed in an attempt to relieve her epilepsy. The woman could subsequently not just recognize other people's emotions with almost frightening accuracy and "feel with" other people, but also physically experienced the effects of other people's emotions. [9]

"Hyper empathy syndrome might have been diagnosable as "Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" in the previous version of the DSM, and the current DSM-5 just may cover it as "Personality Disorder Trait Specified" [10], but one of the diagnostic criteria is that the symptoms must not be explainable by other factors. If hyper empathy is an inherent part of your autism, that means you can forget about that particular diagnosis.

"Leaving official diagnostic criteria behind, it is, however, absolutely possible to suffer from hyper empathy — something some people refer to as being an "empath" — if you're an aspie. You may intensely experience other people's emotions and be overwhelmed by the "vibes" they give off to the point it causes genuine suffering. You may even experience panic attacks as a result. You may also, on the other hand, experience extreme and positive connectedness with humanity as a whole. Learning about how to control negative and positive emotions when you have hyper empathy syndrome may help you some, though."