Empaths...

I feel the trauma and hurt and pain of others. I always have.  It is why I can't eat meat. It is why I can't do a lot of things other people do without thought or issue. Things people say casually, in passing, I remember, forever.  If I spent the time to do it, I can remember every hurtful thing ever said to me on a playground.  Not because I want to, but because the wounds are permanent, lodged just beneath the layers of my mind where I put things that are too painful to process.

I was told a lot by my Army Ranger father to “toughen up”, “get harder”, and “not be so sensitive.”  And that was like telling a girl to be a bird instead.  I did not have those skills.  I just had all this empathy that I had no idea what to do with...and it ruled me.  

I did though, begin to identify that my nature was wrong, or at the least, needed to be altered.  I was not ok as I was.  I was too soft, too easily moved to tears and cared way too much about everything.

I can remember exactly where I was when I decided to be something else.  Well, at least towards people.  Animals would never ever get the harder side of me.  They didn’t deserve it and there is no way I could ever be mean or hurtful to an animal.

But towards others, I started not saying if my feelings were hurt, hiding how I really felt.  I made a decision one day standing in my father’s home office, that I would not ever let anyone know exactly how I felt again.  Then I set on a course of action that lasted another 13 years. Later when my run came to an end, I would be shocked at how good I became at not caring about you, what you thought, what you said, how you felt and what I thought, felt or said.  No coincidence that I also started drinking heavily at that time.

It was like the alcohol was a kind of liquid barrier to feeling, and caring, and living.

I started off life with a naive innocence, followed by many betrayals, then coming to a place finally, years later, of awakened strength.

I loved in the beginning without limits or concern.  But the world does a good job of showing you that this methodology is flawed and subject to a great deal of pain.  I was an easy target for manipulators and liars.  I loved and dedicated my life to people who would not even cross the street to help me.  And the more they took, the more I gave because I was fueled by this need to please and fear of abandonment.

But when you live like this, loving too much without limits, then a complete cutting off of any real intimacy for a protracted period of time, then awakening to a new way to live, it takes some time to perhaps reach a crisis point.  For me it was 27 years.  27 years after I hit bottom with alcohol, I finally hit a bottom with the way I loved, who I loved, who I was dedicated to and who I gave my time, attention and love.  I experienced a level of betrayal and emotional abuse that was finally sufficient to bring about a change internally.

Bottoms are also beginnings and destruction leads to reconstruction.  And both of those can lead to transformation.  It took me a very long time to rebuild myself and life with boundaries, self respect and emotional intelligence.  It isn’t like I didn’t have those things before, I just had no idea how to use them.  They were like construction tools that I knew what they were for but had not a clue how to wield them.  Every previous attempt left an injury or insult.

I think I lost my naiveté but I gained insight into myself and into others.  The ability to maintain my own intrinsic boundaries made me feel empowered and in control in ways I had never been before.  Having a deep and abiding belief in something greater than me gave me comfort and communion when my ability to connect with others wavered.  I was not alone, ever.  My empathetic nature got a re-wiring and strapped in my intellect, my compassion and my inherent grace as a person.  When I started caring for me, I became unexploitable anymore.

Looking back now, I never lost my empathy.  I just had no idea how to wield it so it was very often wielded against me.  Kind of like someone who has a gun but not the ability or knowledge in how to use it.  So often they are murdered by another with the weapon they were too scared or knowledgeable to wield properly.

I am very grateful today that I didn’t lose how much I care about others.  I am very glad also that I finally learned to also care that much about myself. Empathy, like so many other things, should emanate from you, with you being the first and primary beneficiary of your own love, attention, affection and empathetic understanding.