Are there any empathics here?

reor · July 13, 2006

Well, the internet is a creepy place, filled with all kinds of weirdos. Some may sound profound, but can also be driven by questionable motives. Maybe that's just his objection. On the other hand, those weirdos on the web come from the RealLife!

Be open-minded, but sceptic. Have refference from many different sources. Don't take things for granted and don't be objected by just one bad critique. Ponder before wonder.

KaiduOrkhon · July 16, 2006

Dear Bettina:

Hope you don't mind my asking. Have you ever been diagnosed (also) with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD, as defined in DSM IV - Diagnostic Symptoms Manual, edition 4)? Even if you're not familiar with the reference book - has any professional therapist ever so diagnosed you?

Best regards to You and Yours.

"Please take control of your life, because, if you don't, sure as hell, somebody else will". - Solamente Marie D'Angelico

mike90 · August 31, 2006

Well hello again everyone, been working a ton of hours the last couple months so i haven't been around. Well wether or not anyone missed me here i am again:-) How are the other empaths out there dealing with it all? Better then I am I hope

In answer to Anjruu's earlier question in my experience there is a wide range of different "levels" of empathic abilities.I too dislike describing it like I'm one of the X-men or something, but I don't really know any other way to put it.

The person that introduced me to all of this is the "strongest" empath I have met so far. she actually turned my empathy from a dormant trait into an active one. And I am just so grateful to her for it too :mad:

Someone mentioned earlier the link between having a traumatic past and empathy. I have yet to meet any empaths that didn't share this trait in common, in fact me and my best friend (also an empath) have had a lot of discussions over how this ties into it all.

The last time I actively tried to use my empathy to do anything was rather disastrous. I was with 2 of my friends, both also empaths ( all my close friends are) We were basically doing a concentration exercise of sorts, using our empathy to probe into eachother basically.

This is something we had done every now and then over the last 5 years or so, never with any harmful results until now. My main reason for doing this is since becoming empathic I have noticed some sort of dark aura, energy,

presence, whatever you want to call it within one of my

friends. Whatever it is, it's presence is so strong even our non empathic friends have remarked on it over the years. None of them have ever really been able to put it into words exactly, just saying something about him wasn't quite right and disturbed them

What i was trying to do was get at whatever that thing is and see if there was anything i could do to help. What ended up happening was whatever that force or energy is got a hold of me and took me somewhere. What it really

felt like was I got pulled actually into his mind somehow. I'm not sure what all happened next exactly because i blocked most of it out. All I can remember clearly is being somewhere dark and horrible, with something horrible.

It felt like this force was mentally tearing my mind in half like a sheet of paper. I dont know how else to describe it. I have never been so terrified in my entire life. Just when it felt like whatever this force was was actually killing me, or at the least driving me absolutely insane, i finally came back into my body. When I came back i was screaming,

and I have never heard a scream like that in my entire life.

They told me later when I started screaming like that they also felt the presence of whatever it was and they too were terrified. One of them later told my their initial thought was that we were all about to die, which is also how i felt.

And yes i know i sound like an absolute lunatic. In the 5 years or so I've been dealing with this I've seen and felt a lot of strange things, but never anything like this. Afterwards I was so weak i needed help to walk, and i had severe chest pains for a little while. Whatever happened

to me scared me so much i think i almost had a damn heart attack. I had been doing slightly better prior to this incident, but this seemed eventually to be a catalyst to once again launch me back into another cycle of depression.

I've since tried now and then to probe at the mental block I have around the whole incident, but i gave up trying since what i felt was incredibly disturbing. Whatever happened to me my mind is just not able to handle it.

This freaks me out a little bit since as far as i know of i have never had any repressed memories before, and i have been through some damn scary stuff before, much of it as a small child, yet i can remember it all

As to gib's question as to how I'm doing, well not too good. On the material side of things everythings great. Just bought a car, got a substantial raise at work, everything would appear to be looking up to an outsider.

In fact this is definately the most successful i have been to date in my life. On the personal side of things, i don't think I have ever felt so alone, alienated, and depressed.

After living with me for a year and a half without being

able to hold down a job or help me in any way while I've basically been having a quiet nervous breakdown, my roomate finally moved out a couple months ago to live with his girlfriend. We've been friends since i was 17 years

old and over the years I have had to bail him out of his screwups over and over again. And now after me again opening my house to him to help him when he had no place else to go ( this is the 3rd time this has happened),

he has not even bothered to call and see how I'm doing once in 2 months. So now I am living on my own entirely for the first time in my adult life. Most of my close friends have either moved away or seem to have no interest in talking to me anymore. I basically only have one friend left, who i see maybe once or twice a month.

My entire life right now is basically either being at work, or sitting here at home in a drug induced stupor. I smoke marijuana pretty much every day, unless i don't have any

or I'm broke. I'm not really too thrilled with the situation,

but it seems to be the only thing that helps with the depression. Otherwise i just end up coming home from work and sitting in front of my computer trying not to think about suicide, which I again ponder daily. I don't

really want to die, I never have. I'm actually pretty afraid of death. So it's not so much about not wanting to be here anymore, more about not knowing how to cope with the pain. I feel alone all the time. I am on good terms with my family again, and get along well with most everybody i work with, and am friends with several people there. But

none of these people really understand me or what I'm really like at all. I feel like i have to lie and pretend to be someone im not and be fake just to get by, as people generally don't seem to "get" the real me. Not to mention there are huge chunks of my life I can't even talk to 99%

of the people i know about, as they'll just think im a lunatic. Ive tried opening up to people about the empathy

and my depression problems before, and generally after that people don't seem too interested in talking to me anymore:rolleyes:

I'm basically making a mess of everything right now and i know it. Im not in good shape physically or emotionally but I dont really know what to do about it.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about trying to go see a doctor and get some help again. But last time i went through that whole mess they just made me worse, so I'm really at a loss for what to do. Sorry for the massive post, but frankly it just feels good to get a lot of this off my chest. Like i said i really dont have people around me i trust and can talk to in my life, and it feels good to get this out whether any of you beileve me or not or think im a nut or not

mike90 · September 1, 2006

Well what a horrible, horrible day I'm having. Well this may not be the forum for it, but since I have no one to talk to and am at a loss for what to do anymore I'm going to put how I feel and what's going on with me right now in here. Hopefully this will not bother anyone, hell hardly anyone pays attention to this thread by now anyway.

I'm trying so hard to cope with this depression but god it's so awful. I cant remember the last time i was relatively happy with my life. Close to about 3 years now. The depression has been very bad for almost 2 years now. I've been trying to deal with this the best I can but I just feel like im running out of strength. The average person has no idea what it's like to feel incredibly miserable almost 24 hours a day for years at a time.

I'vr considered going to go see a doctor again but im unsure. Last time they didn't really help me at all, in fact everything they did seemed to make it worse. I wasn't treated very well, and i got the feeling it was because of my low income and lack of insurance. I make better money now, but I'm still not insured so I doubt I'll get much help from them.

Last time they sent me a letter letting me know my case was closed without really resolving anything. Pretty awesome thing to do to a suicidal person, just set them adrift. Especially when you know without doubt they are suicidal seeing as they were referred to you after a suicide attempt.

I try to stay positive, but honestly I just don't have any hope at all anymore. I just feel dead inside most of the time. When it's not that I'm in pain. In addition to all the crappy things I most certainly do remember about my childhood their are a few incidents that are different.

Their are a couple memories I have, both of them around 5 or 6 years old, where there are parts missing. I remember things up to a point, but then theres just a blank spot there. Both incidents are when some rather unsetlling things were going on. The parts that I can remember are very disturbing. Which scares me.

I went over 15 years hardly thinking about these incidents at all. After all they kind of blend in with a lot of other bad things that happened hen i was growing up. But in recent years i keep coming back to these memories over and over

last night at work( graveyard shift) for some reason I started to think of one of these incidents. And it felt like, I dont know, maybe i was almost able to remember what happened. But I hit up against some kind of mental wall and I started to freak out. At least it was only internally so no one noticed.

But its getting harder to hold myself together at work sometimes, which is basically the only place I'm fully functional anymore. I've been through this enough times to know how the cycles work, and it feels like its ramping up to get really bad again. Al the signs are there.

I'm hurting myself again. Susbstance dependant again. Could probably stop if i really tried, but how bad I've been mentally when I don't have anything to "medicate" myself with doesn't encourage me to do so.

To anyone reading this, again my intention is not to offend. I am also not making up melodrama to gain attention. And as I said I am aware this isnt exactly the place for something like this, but I really dont have anywhere else to go

GutZ · September 1, 2006

There is a common behaviour amongst people that have these problems. Like I've said in other thread pretty much my whole life I've felt mentally drained from depression, Anixety Disorders and probably others. I've definitely considered suicide once or twice, but thats when I was at my worst, I've always been and advicate against that sort of thing. I think for 7 years it was the worst, and it slowed down near when I was 21. I'll be 23 in october.

I think when I joined here was when I was slowly getting better, I started to gain interest in things, which specifically was how the universe works, so I was download physics books and such, till I end here.

There is not much that I can say that will "cure" you. I don't think there is such a thing. For one it's based on every individual, some just need medication, some need therapy, some need both, and some like me need a complete life change and need to do it alone.

The past memories you have to deal with them and let go. It's not easy. I think you've realized the biggest point, and thats to stay positive. That's the hardest part. Take it slowly, don't overthink. Take a while to examine yourself from with no opinions, just observe. It's like an experiment, think objectively.

It's really hard to explain, but once you have a model of yourself in a particular way that you know you are postitive and rational, and happy/relaxed you try to dupilate it in reality but using the pretend world to allow yourself to forget all those irrational thoughts and behaviours, because in reality your memory and enviroment triggers them.

For example:

You screw up, your normal behaviour is to panic, worry, think about other times you screwed up, think of the possible things that could screw up in the future, hurt yourself, hurt others.

In reality you just dropped a jar of pickles (or whatever). You can't see that because you've tainted your world.

When you examine yourself doing these things with out opinions you can catch them and then let go and rationalize them later. The most important part though is to stay positive. You have to be strong to make sure you don't let things get out of hand though. I think if you really want to, you will, bottom line.

mike90 · September 1, 2006

Thanks for the advice. Im pretty much back to calm and neutral for now, and concentrating on staying there and keeping myself busy so i can't think too much. Sadly thats always key for me as the more time i have to think the worse i feel.

GutZ · September 1, 2006

Thanks for the advice. Im pretty much back to calm and neutral for now, and concentrating on staying there and keeping myself busy so i can't think too much. Sadly thats always key for me as the more time i have to think the worse i feel.

hehe I know that all to well. Good luck with everything, I'll root for you!

gib65 · September 5, 2006

For example:

You screw up' date=' your normal behaviour is to panic, worry, think about other times you screwed up, think of the possible things that could screw up in the future, hurt yourself, hurt others.

In reality you just dropped a jar of pickles (or whatever). You can't see that because you've tainted your world.

[/quote']

I know exactly how you feel. I have a tendency to get depressed a lot and it's usually triggered by something tiny like this. Then my thoughts dwell over it and snowball into something much bigger. It can reach the point where I've made a judgement about life in general or myself which is down right deplorable - like life sucks and the whole world should be destroyed, or I suck and I'd be better off dead.

I'll learnt tricks over the years to cull these kinds of thoughts. It has to do with thinking positive, like you said Gutz, but I've found that it's a lot harder to do with people who's thoughts are very complex and analytical. I know that if I tried what Stuart Smalley said: "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!" it would never work. A voice from the back of my mind would say "Why? Why do you think that? What's the rational behind that." to which I'd reply "Well...uh...gee, I don't know." The problem is, I need to believe in what I tell myself and for that, I need a good solid rational for why my positive thoughts are true. So the lesson I've learnt from this is not that positive thinking doesn't work - it's that, for a person like me, I have to be more creative with what kinds of positive thoughts I tell myself. I found it to be very much like programming my own mind. When someone says "think positive" that's just like programming a computer to do something by telling it "work!" But the reality of it is that you have to come up with a very specific set of instruction in order to have a sound program, one that will be unique to the particular problem you're trying to solve. This is how it works for analytic minds as well.

Mike, I really feel for you. Drop me a PM whenever you want. I tend to come and go from the SFN every now and then, so if I don't respond right away, it's probably because I'm "on vacation" for a while. I'm not like most people who tend to get scared when people like yourself express issues or experiences like the ones you've had - these kinds of things interest me.

Anyway, I guess I'll ask a few questions here in this thread. Do you think you're current depression phase would have started if it wasn't for that "dark entity" you encountered with your friend? Do you find that you're mind has a tendency to evaluate things in a negative light - even when there's no good reason to be negative about it? That is, do you (unconsciously) look for the negative in things? Are you adverse to medication?

GutZ · September 5, 2006

I know exactly how you feel. I have a tendency to get depressed a lot and it's usually triggered by something tiny like this. Then my thoughts dwell over it and snowball into something much bigger. It can reach the point where I've made a judgement about life in general or myself which is down right deplorable - like life sucks and the whole world should be destroyed' date=' or I suck and I'd be better off dead.

I'll learnt tricks over the years to cull these kinds of thoughts. It has to do with thinking positive, like you said Gutz, but I've found that it's a lot harder to do with people who's thoughts are very complex and analytical. I know that if I tried what Stuart Smalley said: "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!" it would never work. A voice from the back of my mind would say "Why? Why do you think that? What's the rational behind that." to which I'd reply "Well...uh...gee, I don't know." The problem is, I need to believe in what I tell myself and for that, I need a good solid rational for why my positive thoughts are true. So the lesson I've learnt from this is not that positive thinking doesn't work - it's that, for a person like me, I have to be more creative with what kinds of positive thoughts I tell myself. I found it to be very much like programming my own mind. When someone says "think positive" that's just like programming a computer to do something by telling it "work!" But the reality of it is that you have to come up with a very specific set of instruction in order to have a sound program, one that will be unique to the particular problem you're trying to solve. This is how it works for analytic minds as well.[/quote']

Well of course it isn't easy to do, but eventually someone will have to if they want to get over it right? Like I said (maybe not in this thread) it took me a couple of years to find out a way that works for me. It seemed merely impossible because of my anxiety and past, I am over-aware of everything!

It's exactly like you said re-programming your brain, couldn't have said it better! I never think of the right words to describe my thoughts hehe.

btw you still interested in that "voices in head" thing a page back? I think you wanted me to give more information?

gib65 · September 5, 2006

btw you still interested in that "voices in head" thing a page back? I think you wanted me to give more information?

Yes, if you wouldn't mind.

mike90 · September 5, 2006

WEll first off I'd like to say thank you very much Gutz and gib65 for your posts. I know at least for me sometimes its very easy to get stuck in this insular little world where i feel like I am just incredibly screwed up and that I'm the only one that feels this way, a solitary nutcase. And the surprisingly negative knee jerk reaction a lot of people have as soon as anyone says anything negative or depressing makes me want to bottle it all in and not talk to anybody a lot of times.

Sometimes when the depression gets too big its impossible NOT to talk about it, as it's in my mind 24 hours a day. That ultimately makes me more withdrawn and not able to talk to anybody, as I'm afraid of the stigma attached to depression. It goes oftentimes unspoken how taboo psychological problems still are in modern society, and how fearful a lot of people still are of any " abnormal thinking" .

Your last long post really struck a chord with me gib, as this is exactly how i think in so many respects. A lot of people just say " you have to be more positive" but just like you said it doesn't work that way. My mind is relentless and its always picking something apart. Due to my low self esteem its easy to find anything negative to say about myself, but to honestly feel positive about myself I have to have something logical to base it in. For example I am proud of my work ethic, because that to me is actually provable.

I can measure this easily by how much i physically accomplish versus my coworkers. So when i can get more tasks done on a day to day basis then x person i work with, I can feel like im useful and a valuable part of the effort going on there. My job is probably the only thing giving me any self esteem or sense of fulfillment right now.

Just like you said I cant just tell myself I'm a good person and people like me and etc. because my mind always argues back.People like you eh? Then how come you have almost no friends and absolutely no social life, and you spend all your free time sitting in front of the computer.

Also something in my subconscious tilts everything to the negative. I can be sitting there having a great day, and all of the sudden a memory of being made fun of or treated badly or some other negative memory of something in my past will just pop into my head seemingly from nowhere, and can oftentimes cause a domino effect leading me to sitting there and thinking of one negative thing about myself or my past after another

Its always a dice roll wether this will merely ruin my day, or launch me into another deep depression where i get suicidal and start harming myself. Sometimes a seemingly minor cataylst can lead into a depression that lasts for weeks or months. I try to stay positive, but the flood of negative input my brain sends me 24 hours a day is simply overwhelming, and usually easily crushes any positive ideas about myself or where my life is at that i try

to tell myself.

Im still really unsure of how to feel about my whole experience with the "dark entity" . It was one of those experiences that changes your way of thinking forever. I already have a mind that makes me predisposed to depression, and finding something that terrifying and that disturbing actually inside of another person doesn't help. And its frustrating having such a powerful experience and not really being able to tell anybody. Sometimes I'm afraid if I was actually honest and spoke of my experiences in life

openly, everyone would think I was insane and I would be locked away somewhere.

Might sound paranoid to some, but I've already been through depression so strong it led to mental instability before, and I spent a week in the psych ward after my first suicide attempt. That gave me a lot of insight into how the medical profession treats people with depression. They forbid the use of words like crazy, but a crazy person is what they treat you like.

I feel an incredible alienation due to having the depression AND being empathic. It's hard enough when you feel hopeless and pointless most of the time, which most people cant relate to. When you add in ideas like thinking you can feel what other people feel, or having out of body experiences where you go INTO other peoples minds, well 99.9% of people are going to dismiss you as a wacko right off the bat.

Since the depression and empathy are such a huge part of my life and i can't trust 99% of the people in my life enough to tell them about it, it feels like I have to cover up things about myself and lie to people or they won't like me, which doesn't do wonders for my self esteem.

The first time I admitted to all my friends that i was deeply depressed and suicidal, most of them didn't want to be my friends anymore after they found this information out. The deeper i spiralled into depression the more my friends distanced themselves from me, reinforcing the idea that no matter how close i feel to people I can never tell the truth or people won't like me anymore.

The sad thing is after years of being terrified of my friends finding out what I was really like and abandoning me, that is exactly what happened. Because of my abnormal sensitivity ( in several respects) it's incredibly hard for me to feel emotionally close to other people, and after investing years in friendships to the point where I could actually trust these people enough to open up to them and then being shunned just made all my insecurities worse.

Even though in my little world I am respected and feel well liked by everyone in my life right now, that doesnt do anything for my self confidence or feelings of alienation, as I basically feel like that acceptance is conditional and I have to lie and pretend to be someone I'm not to maintain it.

As to your question about medication gib, it didn't work well for me. Everything they put me on either made me feel incredibly unemotional and detached from everything around me, or made me feel hyperactive and on edge, like I was on street drugs. I still rather unsure as to how much of it was the medications fault and how much of it was mine, as I was mixing drugs and alcohol with the medication a lot of the time, which your not supposed to do. But in my experience depression and addiction go hand in hand , and not merely chemical addiction. I've noticed a tendency I have to get easily addicted to anything thats distracting enough to let me forget about the depression for a while.

For a while that was videogames, and for a long time MMO's in particular(Everquest . Looking back I can see why. Playing the game allowed me to immerse myself in another world, one where I could be popular and successful, unlike my real life.

I actually dont remember much of 2001 at all as I was spending 90% of the time I wasn't at work playing everquest. The problem is eventually I see whatever crutch I'm using for whatever it is.

And the realization that my life is empty enough that I need something artificial to fill up all my time always sets in eventually. What that something is doesn't seem to matter particularly. For a while it was videogames, then drugs and alcohol, then games again, and now I'm once again back to drugs. But whenever that realization finally breaks through the layers of denial I try to surround myself with in everyday life, that always triggers another suicidal depression. I've already been through two this year. One when i basically realized I had become an alcoholic to avoid my problems, and now recently the second when i realized the same about marijuana.

What the average person just doesn't understand is how different the mindset of a depressive person is. Everyday seems like climbing mount everest. Nothing bad has to even happen for mespend the entire day struggling with myself to fight off the depression, which oftentimes seems to come from no identifiable sourse. Many times I just suddenly start feeling horribe, with no reason I can think of why. On rare occasions it's so bad I have to go lock myself in a bathroom stall at work and cry until the feeling passes, or risk having a total emotional meltdown at work and losing my job. It's also really hard to control my temper, and I find myself reacting with great anger to trivial things on a daily basis. It seems like there is always a great underlying anger underneath the pain, an anger from feeling so bad for so long and not having any way to cope with it.

I hope both of you continue to reply here, I cannot describe the relief of actually being able to open up and talk to somebody that won't automatically write me off as a wacko or offer shallow and critical "help" like just get over it. I've been working 16 hour days all week and am very tired atm, actually about to get ready for work right now, so i apoligize if this post is too long or rambling.

mike90 · September 6, 2006