May
Empathy: Shut up or Tell?
Written by MaleneThe topic has been up several times on many sites for empaths; Should you tell anyone about being an empath, or should you keep it to yourself/the most trusted people around you? These days you can follow the discussion on Empath Community, but it is mostly the same answers all the way through.
The most common response is: “I’ve only told a few people, and I am very careful about who I tell it to.” I can relate to that, actually. I don’t exactly follow it, but it does make sense. The two main problems about telling it is:
- People won’t believe you (why should they?) with the risk of being ridiculed and worse, and
- People do believe you and starts feeling uncomfortable around you.
There really is no positive outcome from telling it, not in any social aspects anyway. On the other hand keeping it secret is perhaps a bad idea as well. When other people starts to notice, that you are hiding something, they will start wondering what it is, you don’t want them to see. And that can actually activate the same two reactions as by telling it.
There is an aspect of acceptance, which has to be taken into consideration. We all want to feel accepted, not for what we do but for who we are. A great part of who I am has to do with how I perceive the world, and that is obviously affected by the empathy. I believe a lot of empaths have a need to feel accepted as empaths in order to be accepted as humans. I’ve felt that way too for a long time.
But I have been inspired by a brilliant mind to think differently.
The only solution I can see meet all of my needs is my blog, actually. I don’t want to tell people directly, because that forces them to express an opinion, and that can never be good. I don’t want to hide it either, I want to be open about it, as much as I feel the need to be.
By using my blog, and linking to it from different places, facebook amongst others, I am able to give people an opportunity to read what it is about. I am sure, no one has really taken an interest, but that is besides the point. I am not forcing anyone to take a stand, and I am not forcing myself to shut up either. They have the possibility of knowing, if they want to know, and those who don’t want to know won’t read the blog.
And the rest will probably find me weird anyway…
By Tony Irwin on May 29, 2009
Yeah I’m at the same place. I’m not hiding it, but I’m not actively telling people about it (which to me would smell like a needy bid for approval/acceptance anyway). For me this feels like it’s a healthy place to be at, and I think there’s tremendous power in using a real adult photo and a real human name on the internet – it feels like the very opposite of what the internet is all about.
By Tony Irwin on May 29, 2009
You know I just realised the irony of claiming “I can read/experience the inner hidden lives of the people around me” and yet I will
a) Join a website full of like people and try and mask my real identity from them with a funny/cutesy name and picture.
b) Assume that although I can read everyone in my life, nobody in my life has the slightest clue about me. And they need me to enlighten them and explain to them who I really am (and using terms I only encountered myself recently).
Irony of a delicious flavour.
By Malene on May 29, 2009
Tony! So good to ‘see’ you again!
I was beginning to think I had lost you in the make-over.
I guess “who we really are” has very little to do with the empathy, when it comes down to that. I have fallen into the trap a few times lately, where I wanted to excuse my actions with my ability. It just seems so easy, when it is such a present influence on my life.
And then again, mostly I don’t even think about it. It is only when I blog, I consider the effects on my life in general. And mostly I blog just to reassure myself that this is actually what it is. Writing about it supports the idea, that it is true somehow. What an ilution, really.
Not the empathy, but the thought that I can prove anything to myself…