Are you a hyper-empath?

[Full Steam]

I used to feel very little, and after years of dragging myself through life a fake NT I considered myself cold inside.

Then I deliberately dropped my fake NT masks, and started dealing with the world as me in the raw.

No walls, no defences, no masks, just me take it or leave it.

One unexpected thing happened and I started feeling again, in technicolour. I now see myself as a hyper-empath, in that I pick on the atmosphere in a room as I walk into it, and I get deep feeling about people and their motives almost instantly.

I also feel what other people feel in real time. I cried when gay marriage was voted for this week, and I feel what people in films feel quite strongly.

Anyone else like this?

 

[Esa]

I used to feel very little, and after years of dragging myself through life a fake NT I considered myself cold inside.

Then I deliberately dropped my fake NT masks, and started dealing with the world as me in the raw.

No walls, no defences, no masks, just me take it or leave it.

One unexpected thing happened and I started feeling again, in technicolour. I now see myself as a hyper-empath, in that I pick on the atmosphere in a room as I walk into it, and I get deep feeling about people and their motives almost instantly.

I also feel what other people feel in real time. I cried when gay marriage was voted for this week, and I feel what people in films feel quite strongly.

Anyone else like this?

Often but I can’t say all the time because sometimes the self-doubt takes over. This is, I reckon, due to low self-esteem. Also, people are in constant denial, sometimes I can’t tell if I’m actually wrong or they’re just lying because they can’t admit things even to themselves.

 

[Esa]

I wouldn’t say I’m a hyper-empath, though.

 

[Beguiling Orbit]

I know what you mean, @Full Steam. Empathizing in a mimicking way, trying to do it the same way I think an NT might do it, always proved fruitless for me. I even thought I might be a sociopath for a time. I'm content now with how I empathize as an Aspie. I realized that just because an NT can't see (I mean "feeeeeeal") my empathy, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If they believe that my empathy doesn't comes across when I offer advice that seems (to them) too straightforward, too judgmental, too logical, that's their problem, not mine. After all, why else would I offer them advice in the first place? If I didn't care, if I couldn't empathize, if I didn't feel it deep down in my bones, then I wouldn't bother to offer them any advice. I would just let them go about their day and mind my own business like I usually do. I'm certainly not going to talk about feelings. That doesn't do anyone as much good as solid advice to solve the problem that caused those feelings.

But old habits die hard, and I often feel doubt like @Esa, so I have to constantly remember to stay true to myself. It's a constant struggle, but every day I'm learning more and more how to be comfortable wearing my Aspie identity.

 

[Tom]

Hard for me to really know. At times it feels like that, I am getting tons of input or having a deep response to something (that others are not responding to apparently). But at other times I am operating very logic/robot-like and not having emotional responses when others are.

I'll give an example. I cried in school once, just observing a kid with a very meager lunch. On the flip side I have little or no response at funerals. The departed is well... departed. Why are we carrying the body around in rituals like a bunch of cave people?

 

[pax]

Probably not to that same extent. I also cried when I saw Penny Wong's reaction, and thought Magda dancing with Alan Joyce was fabulous. I'm very moved by disasters on the news and movies, but I'm not good at picking people's motives.

 

[Full Steam]

I know what you mean, @Full Steam. Empathizing in a mimicking way, trying to do it the same way I think an NT might do it, always proved fruitless for me. I even thought I might be a sociopath for a time. I'm content now with how I empathize as an Aspie. I realized that just because an NT can't see (I mean "feeeeeeal") my empathy, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If they believe that my empathy doesn't comes across when I offer advice that seems (to them) too straightforward, too judgmental, too logical, that's their problem, not mine. After all, why else would I offer them advice in the first place? If I didn't care, if I couldn't empathize, if I didn't feel it deep down in my bones, then I wouldn't bother to offer them any advice. I would just let them go about their day and mind my own business like I usually do. I'm certainly not going to talk about feelings. That doesn't do anyone as much good as solid advice to solve the problem that caused those feelings.

But old habits die hard, and I often feel doubt like @Esa, so I have to constantly remember to stay true to myself. It's a constant struggle, but every day I'm learning more and more how to be comfortable wearing my Aspie identity.

Funny, I thought I might be a sociopath as well for the same reasons.

 

[Full Steam]

Hard for me to really know. At times it feels like that, I am getting tons of input or having a deep response to something (that others are not responding to apparently). But at other times I am operating very logic/robot-like and not having emotional responses when others are.

I'll give an example. I cried in school once, just observing a kid with a very meager lunch. On the flip side I have little or no response at funerals. The departed is well... departed. Why are we carrying the body around in rituals like a bunch of cave people?

I've had the same with funerals. And any situation artificially made to elicit an emotional response. I don't respond at all, and feel no more than I did eating breakfast.

Emotions happen to me in their own time, and I think it's important to let that play out and not feel bad for being a part of emotional scenery unless we feel the need.

 

[Full Steam]

Probably not to that same extent. I also cried when I saw Penny Wong's reaction, and thought Magda dancing with Alan Joyce was fabulous. I'm very moved by disasters on the news and movies, but I'm not good at picking people's motives.

It was brilliant, and what got me the most is that is was solid gold proof that complete strangers care, and they care in their millions.

I suspect the no campaigners were praying for apathy and self interest, and they got the opposite.

 

[Gracey]

I'm really not sure?

I can sometimes walk into a room and seem to think I can pick up on the atmosphere in the room.
If it's super charged I feel uncomfortable and usually make excuses to exit.

I can sometimes feel the air pressure outside too, particularly thunder storms (A polite, reserved British thunderstorm)

People who whine can drain my energy. It's hard work trying to remain neutral or positive when I feel I'm being dragged down by my insides just listening to really, really negative people who blame others for their life or see fault with almost everything.

I quite like the company of spiritual people. Not the 'get rich quick-take advantage of the vulnerable' type charlatans but the gentle souls who care and share without wanting anything in return.
... And animals.
I like being in the quiet, calm, unobtrusive company of animals.

Hyper-empath? Not sure, don't think so, not constantly anyway. I do try to 'switch off' and ignore what's going on a lot of the time.

 

[WereBear]

I also feel what other people feel in real time. I cried when gay marriage was voted for this week, and I feel what people in films feel quite strongly.

Anyone else like this?

Oh, yes, big time. When I was a child I would get terribly upset at fictional characters suffering, and even more so in real life.

So glad to know what is is... and this really does blow the whole "without emotions" BS out of the water.

 

[Full Steam]

I also pick up and often mirror people's moods.

If my wife is very tired she gets a bit narky and just being in the same room makes me irritable or depressed, even if she's not been talking.

 

[JDartistic]

I've always thought that we are very sensitive and I never understood why everyone said we couldn't feel. that was never the case for me - I feel 1000-fold. I cry at movies and I get really upset when I see road-kill - just makes me so sad to see these innocent animals dead on the side of the road. And as for people, I can walk into any room and be empathic - why I am sometimes so popular b/c I have an instinct as to what everyone needs to hear. But then I guess I get burned out and have to leave the party. LOL

But yeah - you're right on!

 

[isthisreallife]

I used to be, until I had to turn it off for my own wellbeing. The only problem was, I ended up going too far, not feeling anything at all, like I was just cold inside. A big battle ensued afterwards, and now I just have trouble identifying what I'm actually feeling while I can still correctly identify what others are feeling. It's just messed up.

 

[Coupe]

CW - long post, some internalized ableism and pathologizing "medical model" terminology


I do think I'm a hyper-empath...I think I have been ever since I was very young. I literally couldn't watch any kind of movie or cartoon with any kind of prolonged crying in it (such as Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or even The Lion King) without crying too. Same thing when I saw or heard a real-life baby crying or another little kid crying. Even now, as an adult, whenever I hear a baby crying, I get super emotional and I'll feel like doing everything I can to make them feel happy, safe, loved and secure again. Oddly enough, however, when our family was vacationing this past summer and our baby cousins were there, my youngest cousin (who was only a little over a month old)'s crying didn't really produce that sort of overly emotional response in me. I liked her very much and felt bad when she cried, of course, but her mom and dad were there and always knew what to do to soothe her. At one point, I even said to my mom, "Man....I'd forgotten how loud newborns are."

I'm fully aware that one of the supposed criterion of an Aspergers/Autism diagnosis is a "lack of empathy," and....that hurts me. It really does hurt me. If anything, I've cared deeply about those whom I love/am attached to the point where it exceeds conventional boundaries. The thing is, the folks who came up with that list of "symptoms" only want empathy given in a certain way. I have way more memories of someone shoving me away, telling me to leave, and otherwise rejecting my efforts to comfort and soothe in the only way I knew how than actually being successful at "being there" for someone. What really takes the prize is when I was in preschool, would notice a kid crying, toddle over and pat them on the shoulder and say something like, "Aw, it's ok, don't cry," only to have one of the teachers swoop over and snarl at me, "You mind your own business." It's like, yeah, let's teach kids at the earliest age possible that it's survival of the fittest and you can't depend on anyone...awesome. /sarcasm

As I grew older, this led to my either avoiding situations where I'd have to provide emotional support altogether, or beat myself up over not magically knowing The Right Thing To Say the way I assumed "Everyone Else" did. My dad (who might very well be autistic or otherwise neurodivergent himself), bless him, tried to reassure me that it's rarely the case that anyone knows the exact thing to say that will take another person's pain away right off the bat, and that I was doing more good than I realized just by physically being there for someone and just offering to help in whatever way I could. Of course now I'm just starting to realize that the problem isn't that I have never felt or cannot feel empathy - I just don't express it in ways that fit the ruthlessly narrow NT definition of the word. Oh well - their problem, not mine.

 

[Sabrina]

It depends, if I am more or less relaxed, in a positive vibe, I empathize a lot more than most people. I think it's due to imagination, one thought leads to another, until I get the full picture very fast. For example, if I see people begging in the street, I can have a complete life story in my head of how they got there, in seconds, and also, I realize very quickly, how it's just a matter of luck that I'm driving a car instead of being in their place. I can imagine myself being them, begging in the street, immediately. I hyperempathize.

But if I am immersed in my own world, be it because I'm sad or mad, or because I'm too concentrated thinking in something, I don't empathize at all. Why? For starters, I don't even acknowledge that there's people around me when that happens. It's as if the rest of the world dissapears, and I can't empathize if I don't realize first, that there's people around me. It's not that I don't see them (although sometimes I don't hear them) it's that I am hyper-focused in me.

If I am not hyper-focused in me, I hyperempathize, which would be the same as being hyper-focused in the other person (or animal, or film, etc). I go from one extreme to another, although I try my best to keep some sort of balance.

 

[Esa]

I know what you mean, @Full Steam. Empathizing in a mimicking way, trying to do it the same way I think an NT might do it, always proved fruitless for me. I even thought I might be a sociopath for a time.

People seem to be confused about the concepts of empathy and sympathy. Furthermore, they seem to be convinced that there should be certain reactions in certain situations. What I'm seeing is, they are not always genuine about their feelings. They just respond in a way that they believe they're expected to. I think that it's the case for the majority of the people regardless of the ways their brains function.

I also sometimes wonder whether I could be a sociopath.
I'm not entirely convinced that being a sociopath is a bad thing. After all, I would love to be immune to pain.

 

[Suzanne]

I honestly do not see where the "empath" comes in! I am hyperSENSITIVE to my surrounds now and it is very uncomfortable. It is like everyone is naked to my eyes and I want to shut my eyes to have peace.

I think I go overboard on the empathy part. If I hate doing something and someone else is doing that thing, I feel an overwhelming sadness for them, despite their reaction being the opposite.

I lack sympathy. I feel so artificial sometimes, because it is forced ie saying the right thing, for decency sake. Whereas what I want to do is go into the logistics of it all.

 

[Bolletje]

I think I know what you mean. I used to not really know how I felt, other than a very binary happy/not happy. Because unconsciously I was too busy pretending to Feel Feelings As One Should. And I was mostly pretending to be happy because that was how people are supposed to feel, right?

But as I've started "becoming" myself instead of being who I think people want me to be, I've started actually feeling. It's pretty overwhelming sometimes, how I can be walking down the street listening to music and suddenly hit by a wave of feelings because the lyrics resonate with me, so I get teary-eyed. I cry at movies and books and music now. It's overwhelming, but I wouldn't want to go back. Besides, I'm more "normal" now than when I tried to fit in.

 

[Adora]

I do consider myself hyper empathetic,I hate seeing others in distress and can upset me I also hate seeing animals getting hurt.