Empaths: Why We Need to be Aware of the Dark Side of Empathy.

Every “quality” or “good” thing we have comes with its dark side. That includes empathy.

Empathy fatigue is a very real thing.

It’s that feeling of utter exhaustion you have when you have extended empathy to someone else and not considered yourself enough and then hurt yourself in the process.

When you’ve extended thoughtfulness and empathy to someone else’s situation and then also not had it mirrored back to you for something that you hold dear, that breeds resentment and anger, not a sense of connection.

Then it can feel as if the very thing that makes up the best of you has gotten infested with maggots.

If you are someone who leads with empathy, you will get this.

I think anyone who identifies with the word “empath” often has similar problems. Empathy comes naturally to us. But we’ve also found that it can be very tricky. It often gets mixed up with other things.

We feel like it makes us susceptible to being taken advantage of. Boundaries feel that much harder because it’s so easy to take other people’s perspective. We have the opposite problem than those people who find it hard to feel and put themselves in other people’s shoes.

We find it hard to get out of those shoes. We understand a little too much.

At least, we understand the feeling. We might then spin a story around this feeling that’s not true. But we are definitely not clueless about the energy moving inside the other person.

Then, empathy can get mixed up with a tonne of gnarly beliefs – “I am not good enough,” “I am not important.” or “I am not a good person if I don’t give people exactly what they want.”

Strands of people-pleasing get mixed up with it & goad us to inch closer and closer over an emotional cliff.

The thing is, all of us have a sacred self.

A self that feels excruciating pain when we sacrifice it in the name of helping others. A self that is not selfish but self-full.

Without it, we would be nothing.

It’s fine to keep giving and I do believe, in a certain sense, that if we are connected to a universal source, then the supply never ends.

But this is not true for giving away parts of our very self.

If we are doing that, then it’s as if we are chopping a part of ourself that is as essential as an arm or a leg in the name of being empathic.

Would you cut away your arm or leg to give to someone else?

No.

I wouldn’t either.

And that’s healthy.

Then, why do we have to give away parts of our own authentic self in the name of empathy? That’s like chopping away a part of your soul, giving it to someone else and then not understanding why you feel so fractured.

That giving is invisible to everyone else. But it’s counted as maiming by your soul.

I have gotten confused and done this kind of giving in the past.

It’s something the people-pleaser in me still struggles with from time to time. It’s something that’s coming up again for me lately. This pull, this need to “have to give.“

Have to give?

Have to give. Otherwise, I won’t be good. Have to give. Otherwise, I am selfish. Have to give. Because that’s who I am.

Am I only the things I give?

I don’t think so.

This year, I have been a little more conscious of the things I give. Not in the sense of calculating. But in the sense of, Do I want to give? Or am I giving because I can sense a need, because I am in the habit of rushing in to fill it, because I cope with emotional overload by fixing other people’s feelings?

Also, am I in a state to give?

If I am emotionally exhausted, this “giving” will tip me over the edge and make me very angry indeed. So, now, I am definitely a lot better at stopping my fixing and rescuing just because I feel the feeling of empathy.

Empathy needs to be monitored.

In fact, I shouldn’t always lead with empathy. I should also lead with discernment, with a sense of what’s fair, with a sense of who and what I am giving to.

What I want to do is get to a place where empathy feels more in my conscious control, something I think about and do consciously, not something which pours out of me as if I am a broken spout.

No more giving-on-demand. No more merely “nice.”

More intentional. More kind. More questioning.

Otherwise, the maggots will run amuck. Otherwise, what’s good might rot inside.

Here’s a great article that questions whether being empathic is always good: How to avoid the empathy trap.

Ritu Kaushal is the author of the memoir The Empath’s Journey. Set during the first few years after she emigrated from India to the United States, it is one highly sensitive person’s inner journey to rewrite her relationship with her sensitivity.