Empaths

[LuvOrlando]

Here is a thought on the topic, In order to be able to really absorb what other people actually feel wouldn't a person also need to be somewhat of a void, similar to a psychopath but without the leanings towards inflicting harm? Maybe they both come from the same distorted experiences but personality molds them differently? If there is no void it's just a person feeling their own feelings?

I would suspect such a person would pick up joyous feelings as easily as anything else so not prone to depression per se'. Might expect them to be sort of blank on their own, like a canvas waiting for an artist. Of course there are degrees, like in any spectrum, but I'd expect a certain amount of blank.

Sort of chilling to deeply consider to be honest, our minds and humanness are a fascinating thing.

 

[Lilsia]

Here is a thought on the topic, In order to be able to really absorb what other people actually feel wouldn't a person also need to be somewhat of a void, similar to a psychopath but without the leanings towards inflicting harm? Maybe they both come from the same distorted experiences but personality molds them differently?

I would suspect they would pick up joyous feelings as easily as anything else so not prone to depression per se'. Might expect them to be sort of blank on their own, like a canvas waiting for an artist. Of course there are degrees, like in any spectrum.

Sort of chilling to deeply consider to be honest, our minds and humanness are a fascinating thing.

What? No. You can have your own feelings and pick up on others. There is not some meter for emotions that a person can have. When my FIL died, I did not know him well and it didn't affect me at all. But at the funeral, I could FEEL my husband's sadness and I could not stop crying when I was next to him. If anything, I think that it is reverse. If you can not feel what a loved one is going through, maybe those are the people that are emotionally devoid.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Here is a thought on the topic, In order to be able to really absorb what other people actually feel wouldn't a person also need to be somewhat of a void, similar to a psychopath but without the leanings towards inflicting harm? Maybe they both come from the same distorted experiences but personality molds them differently? If there is no void it's just a person feeling their own feelings?

I would suspect such a person would pick up joyous feelings as easily as anything else so not prone to depression per se'. Might expect them to be sort of blank on their own, like a canvas waiting for an artist. Of course there are degrees, like in any spectrum, but I'd expect a certain amount of blank.

Sort of chilling to deeply consider to be honest, our minds and humanness are a fascinating thing.

I don’t think so, at all.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I don’t think so, at all.

Been thinking on this all day and maybe there are two separate things on the High EIQ side.

I've definitely met both warm high EIQ and very cold high EIQ, neither were threatening but there was a distinct difference to the vibe.

Some are sort of warm and cuddly and part of the herd, teachers and nurses and such might be this variety, but then some are different, more like a shepherd watching a flock. There really isn't a name for the difference but I know it when I see it. They tend to swoop in and then disengage as fast as they show up.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Think this great article on The Light Triad is what many people were getting at:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190617-the-light-triad-that-can-make-you-a-good-person#:~:text=The “dark triad” makes us,of us are naturally good.&text=Do you tend to see,are out to get you?

Still think there is another variety that lands in a more judicious space, so they can intuitively pick up on intent & enforce equality out of code and principal more than doing it for feel good appreciation. Think the form I've been looking for as different might be called Cognitive Empathy.

https://www.verywellmind.com/cognit...f cognitive empathy,not being offered the job.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Another one talking about both Light Triad and Dark Triad
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00467/full

 

[White Cat]

Another one talking about both Light Triad and Dark Triad
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00467/full

This has nothing to do with it.

 

[JLTraveling]

I can only speak to my own experience here, but I believe that I'm an empath. Even as a small child, I had an innate tendency to not only understand exactly what others were feeling, but to internalize it. It's mostly emotional, but sometimes I even pick up others' physical pain. As I grew up, I learned to go into what I call "crisis mode"--great in an emergency, but then fall apart. What I mean by that is that I can sort of "turn off" both my own reactions and my absorption of what others are feeling in order to operate on pure logic when something really bad is happening. But as soon as the crisis passes, I have a flood of the repressed emotions from both myself and anyone else involved, to the point that I have to isolate myself for a day or two while I work through it.

Being an empath is what drove me out of direct patient care in the mental health world. No matter how hard I tried to do all the right things, I couldn't leave it behind at the end of the day. I took on all my clients' pain and carried it with me. It became unbearable.

My mom was in the mental health field, and she also struggled with taking on clients' pain. And then...the circumstances of her illness and ultimate passing were kind of weird. She and I were running a bunch of services for an immigrant population that had SO MANY needs that we couldn't possibly fill them all. She was also going to school at night for her doctorate. And one day she sort of burned out....came home exhausted and went straight to bed. We thought she'd bounce back in a day or two, but she didn't. Ultimately ended up quitting both school and work by phone from her bed because she couldn't get up to go do it in person.

And then came all the diagnoses....heart issues and chronic fatigue and rheumatoid arthritis and sleep apnea and PCOS and on and on and on. Severe pain to the point where she couldn't ever get comfortable. Restless legs. It's like her body just gave out and despite seeing an endless parade of specialists they never quite figured out what was behind all of it. She passed five years later with no solid diagnosis to make sense of it all, and the cause of death was one of her medications that has since been taken off the market. Sometimes I wonder if it was partially or fully connected to the empath thing. Before she got sick, she used to say she was fine, because she felt like she was tapped into an unlimited wellspring of positive energy from the universe, and she was able to act as a conduit to help her clients tap into it as well. Maybe it finally broke her?

I'm not sure how it's all related, but some level of clairvoyance also seems to run in my family. My grandma was an absolute non-believer in anything of the sort, she was a proper, old-fashioned, church-going woman. But she was absolutely clairvoyant. Sometimes little things, like she ALWAYS knew who was calling before she answered (long before caller ID). She'd answer the phone, "Hi Michelle." Even if Michelle was someone she hadn't spoken to in 20 years and had zero reason to believe would be calling her. But also huge things. When grandma was a teenager, she and her mom both had the same exact same dream on the exact same night: That her father would be killed when the taxi he was riding in was hit by a train. They laughed about it at breakfast the next morning. Then her father set off for work, and he was killed in exactly the manner they had both dreamed.

I don't know. For all my studies in psychology, I feel like we don't have the first clue about the human condition. These days, I try to just stay in my lane, keep my boundaries up, and not probe too deeply. It feels safer that way.