Empath....

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It's taken me years to figure it all out and I have made a thread on here about this before, but I am only just coming to terms with it all.

I do believe that I am an empath. The odd thing about it is, I cannot be empathetic towards people in individual circumstances. I just tend to soak up all the emotions that are flying around me in the environment.

I work with about 60 people all under the age of 25 so one can only imagine the emotions.

In one 10 hour shift I can go from feeling sheer elation to absolute desperation and sorrow, right to the pit of my gut.

I know these emotions aren't mine because I'm quite a neutral person. Also I tend to take on other peoples personalities and I can even feel like another person too (this one is hard to explain).

I wonder if anyone out there can advise me on how to cope with this.

I have to walk for absolutely miles on my day off so that I can recover from all this, just so that I can be strong enough to deal with it all happening again.

I feel a bit silly talking about it because I don't even know if it is real. It's just that someone has suggested to me before that I might be an empath, otherwise I would be non the wiser.

Thanks in advance.

I feel like I've had similar experiences, especially when I'm around family a lot. When I was a few years younger, I feel like my typical response was to try and disconnect from the emotional environment, so I'd try and immerse myself in music usually and try to focus on this as much as possible. Nowadays, I think one of my coping strategies is the same as yours (going for a run helps a lot, or a walk nearby). The other thing I find helps is something which engages my brain and makes it so that the emotion doesn't completely encompass my brain. Sometimes this will be a book when I can concentrate, a logic puzzle or a comedy video on YouTube. Usually when I have another connection to something I'm doing, it doesn't let the emotion completely overcome me. These are kind of my relaxation strategies.

As far as not letting the emotion in in the first place, I am still struggling with this myself. Often the issue is me not being aware that I'm letting it all in because at the time I often won't feel anything at all. I'm trying to build my ability to read other's emotions which may well help, I think knowing why someone is feeling emotional in some way is often the biggest challenge because it's the confusion which bothers me most.

I have absolutely the same experience with large groups. My daughter has it even more intensely. Sort of like the crowd noise before a concert starts or like listening to a radio which is simultaneously tuned to a multitude of stations - the sources are not able to be pinpointed nor perceived yet the waves are picked up. I think it's due to my personal space being larger than typical and my inability to completely filter these large inductive inputs.