Empathy includes the capacity to identify with the feelings of others; like you literally know how they feel. But imagine their emotions just bleed over into yours like watercolors. It’s hard to separate things back out as it happens. We can become an emotional mirror, matching and reflecting the intensity of their feelings and their energy. That’s not cool when you want to de-escalate things and end up fanning the flames. 

 

By David Jones

Hi. I’m David, and I’m an HSP: a Highly-Sensitive Person. Hey, don’t look at me with that tone of voice.

HSP is the tag being used for those who are overly in-tune with their environment and the people who inhabit it. It’s also been called Hyper-Empathy.

Some associate the words “empathy” and “compassion” with weakness or vulnerability. Like “love” or ” forgiveness,” such things become buzz words in some contexts, triggers with unintended baggage and negative connotations. As if empathy and compassion at any level is naive and turns people into bleeding-heart pushovers or whatever.

But rather than being a Have It/Don’t Have It duality, empathy is like just about everything today: splayed out across an expanse, an empathetic spectrum running from practically zero to somewhere over the rainbow.

It’s not really a surprise. I mean, in his book, Going Home: Jesus and Buddha As Brothers, Thich Nhat Hanh said that if you have one thing then you must also have the other. It makes sense that, if there are a lot of folks in the world suffering from an empathy deficiency, you’d also have others suffering from an overabundance. The two polar extremes are related, connected, forever pieces of the whole.

How can we have too much empathy? The answer is wrapped up in the wisdom of the old saw, “Too much of a good thing.” Too little isn’t great, too much isn’t either.

That sweet Middle Way is so important.

Earlier I suggested there’s suffering connected with hyper-empathy, and that’s certainly true in my case. While empathy is a gentle soaking rain, hyper-empathy is a flash flood—sure we need the precipitation, but do we need all of it at once?

Here’s why I mentioned suffering:

My emotional buttons are primed for pushin’. Writers like to manipulate an audience’s emotions. That sounds bad, but it’s just writers moving readers to feel something by design, a very effective tool for engaging an audience in the events playing out.

For me it gets to be too much. Something sad or happy occurs on screen and I’m crying, even when I know it’s coming; I cry every time Samwise wades into the river to catch up with Frodo and says he means not to lose him. Each time Becca sings “Don’t You Forget About Me” at the end of Pitch Perfect I need tissues nearby. Every. Time.

I second that emotion. Man this sucks.

Empathy includes the capacity to identify with the feelings of others; like you literally know how they feel. But imagine their emotions just bleed over into yours like watercolors. It’s hard to separate things back out as it happens. We can become an emotional mirror, matching and reflecting the intensity of their feelings and their energy. That’s not cool when you want to de-escalate things and end up fanning the flames.

Empathy with weak or non-existent personal boundaries can get especially messy.

In the worst cases our emotions can no longer be distinguished from theirs. We find ourselves being emotionally assimilated by the Borg while that tiny voice of reason in the back of our minds grows quieter. This isn’t what we want, but resistance is… well, wasted effort doomed to failure or something.

Here comes the tsunami. Now imagine being bashed around in a mosh pit of emotions, energy and sensory stimulation. That’s what a crowded, bustling environment becomes. Pre-holiday grocery shopping. Pre-snowstorm grocery shopping. Even a thoroughly-enjoyable comic book show can be enough to overwhelm me if enough people attend. So much sound, movement, and energy.

My wife and I love going to estate sales, but if you cram loads of people into a house talking, browsing and trying to get to the next room, the chaos often drives me out of the house and onto the porch. It’s just too much to handle and I begin to compact myself to cope with it—imagine shrinking your personal space down to the skin.

This overwhelm drains me like a self-important smartphone app drains your phone battery. I become physically, mentally and emotionally fatigued due to the crowds and the movement and the noise and the chaos.

I feel you, dear. I’ve always been able to relate to how my person feels, but it’s beyond ridiculous now. My wife’s emotions overwrite mine sometimes if I’m tired. She might have a sharp emotion and if I’m nearby (or sometimes even if I’m not) it’s like a physical slap or a nasty static shock when you touch metal. If she’s sad, I start becoming sad. If she’s angry, I start withdrawing. If she’s worried, I amplify it even as I try to reduce it (which is just SO helpful).

What’s worse is that these imbalances have grown since my recent strokes.

Talking about it with my wife, she said I always had the markers for being a Highly Sensitive Person but now all the filters and coping tools I employed in the past aren’t really available anymore. So situations I could manage before quickly overwhelm me now. Instead of handling these effects I spend more time recovering from them.

Mindfully I’m working on rebuilding my skill set for managing these things in the moment. Breathing exercises and meditation help before, during and after draining encounters. I’m determined to remain a peacemaker, looking for ways I can moderate uncontrolled emotions where possible and removing myself from the scene when necessary. I spend whole evenings alone sometimes, draining off all that absorbed energy and restoring my equilibrium.

Do you struggle with being an HSP? Do you find yourself being assaulted by the external world due to high sensitivity? Feel free to share your challenges and coping strategies in the comments below this piece.

Be well.

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

Comments

comments

Latest posts by David Jones (see all)