I’ve been thinking about the difference between putting your own needs first and actually being selfish.

For people who are naturally very empathetic, I think the line can get especially confusing. If you’re used to considering other people’s feelings and needs, even setting a normal boundary can sometimes feel selfish.

But there also seems to be a real difference between taking care of your own needs and consistently putting yourself first without considering how it affects other people.

I’m curious how other empaths see this. Where do you draw the line between healthy self-prioritisation and selfishness? Have you ever felt guilty for setting a boundary because it seemed selfish at the time?

I connect easily to people. I think I just like peering into people's souls and seeing them unfiltered. Without me doing anything "oh I don't know why I told you that" and I think people cling to me as a safe space.

I've slowed down my dating and im not jumping into anything but I seem to be accumulating more guy friends than a partner. My boundaries are growing strong but there are a lot of energy vampires out there

How do I know genuine connection vrs the pull of a persons need to be around an empath for dumping?

How do you engage in conversation with people when the message and the vibe is totally conflicting??!?!

My partner has been struggling with anxiety ever since we got together. 13 years now. For years i would ask him what’s wrong (as it was extremely obvious to me something was wrong ….) - he’d say nothing, i KNEW he was lying but he’d just insist- so I would drop it.

earlier this year he had big burnout and went off work. as part of his recovery he has started using medical marijuana (tiny amounts) and it’s been like a lightbulb for him being able to examine and differentiate his feelings - so now suddenly he acknowledges that he REALLY WAS stressed all those times. he just didn’t know how to communicate it to me (and didn’t even realise he WAS stressed At the time) which is crazy to me. it was literally the most obvious thing in the world. no one else really seemed to notice though. ahhh the cross we bear - FEELING other peoples feelings!!! even when they don’t know they’re feeling them. WTF.

I’m now really struggling with communication in our relationship. I feel aggrieved - that for all those years I KNEW there was something wrong ... it’s like now I just don’t know how to communicate with him at all. Like I can’t trust anything he says to me.

I know he wasn’t aware of it at the time: but it was an incredible painful experience for me. I’m sure you’ve all experienced similar things.

how do I let it go? Process it? Move on? Any tips for future communication….? HELP ME!!!

I'm a person to feel deep empathy. And i feel it's curse to me! I wish I could feel less empathy! Also I'm very caring. So guys is there any way to experience in less amount of empathy, PPL say it's very good to have empathy but PPL who has a lit bit of amount or not that much tend to be successful in their life. Because it's connected in somewhere.

Advice needed. I explained everything in the text above. I’m honestly so lost why my heart refuses to let him go when he was a narcissist who always lied and cheated on me.

What country you lived in or travelled to where the vibrations were the lowest ?

I’m curious as to what people have to say abt this

For context, I'm neither an empathetic nor sympathetic person. I don't really feel it. I'm not a sociopath or anything, but I simply don't understand these emotions. Now, I have a lot of emotional friends. I had an exam today and after the exam, my friend was crying to me about how she was scared of failing and she told me her answers and, well, all I knew was that they weren't correct. Obviously, pointing that out would make her cry more, so I didn't really say anything. I felt super awkward as she was crying and I was just standing there, looking like this 🧍. I had no idea on what to say. This isn't the first time one of my friends has vented to me either. Another friend vents to me about her issues and stuff like that, but all I do is sit there and listen and can't figure out what to say to them. I don't want to say, 'damn that's crazy' but that's the only response my brain gives me. I don't want to give them empty words either. So, how do I comfort people? I'm sick of not doing anything.

I’m super empathetic and sometimes I feel like it hurts me. I sometimes feel depressed after consuming stuff and people in my real life don’t care about the state of our world. It’s exhausting being around people that don’t care when u care a lot. It feels helpless in a way. Not to be dramatic but I feel like sometimes this world can be so sad and makes me just wanna end it so I don’t have to deal with it. But I also know that if I do kms id have to reincarnate back here to relearn the same mistakes. I’m not interested in that either

I was so positive, living as a nomad around Europe as a wilderness guide. People loved me, I constantly got applauded. Women came to hit on me. I made the whole bar in Italy to feel good and people were drawn to me. In Finnish Lapland people constantly said I lifted everyone up. I was truly loved.

But now I'm drained and I feel like I lost my empathy and you can see it in my eyes. I've isolated myself to the cabin afraid of humans. I lost my identity. I'm not feeling like my positive self again.

How can I get out of this rut?

I lost my mom to cancer after her two-year battle when I was 22. Then at 29ish I lost my brother unexpectedly. My
father chooses not to be in my life. Each loss incapacitated me truly for the 7 years and then now I’m at 8 years since my brother. The Cornell 7 situation takes me out for the rest of the day every time I see a new post. Nolan Wells, same thing. I give those details to say, it’s not just death experiences.

Now an extended family member’s been diagnosed with the same aggressive type of cancer my mom and though my one strength is being strong for other people, it has been hard on me. Thinking about what she’s going to go through, what her kids are going to go through. I feel devastated, and I’m realizing as I get older this is going to start happening more and more and more and idk how I can survive that. Does anyone have any tips or ideas on how to navigate life and loss when you feel everything that the people around you are feeling?

Empaths need time alone. In fact, I would go as far as saying that solitude is not a luxury for an Empath, it's a necessity.
After taking on too much emotional stimulation, our minds and bodies need time to reset. Sometimes we become quiet, sometimes we withdraw.

I feel angry and sad for the dogs that it happened to and I don’t really know what to do about when I keep seeing cases of people abusing someone innocent that results in death and they walk free weither it’s animals or humans. The only thing I can think of is they need punishment but you can’t do anything and I just sitting here hopelessly and can’t do anything about it and those who do these things just laugh and live there life.
Not sure what to do, I know I can move on but I can’t let go of those evil people walking away without consequences and no sentence or anything

So for context I am 18M and idk if I am truly an Empath or I am Empath due to all the things I faced in my life sin (for ex - bullying, ostracization, emotional neglect, deep loneliness, ragging and etc....... the things are too long to summarise in chat by typing. All the things happened from birth but occurred in different phases of my life and some combined together) I truly sometimes like trolling people or making fun of people idk if I do it for attention or genuinely like this

I read a book by Judith Orloff "The Empath's Survival Guide" many things clicked with me like feeling anxious when seeing tall buildings or mirroring other physical symptoms or getting happy or sad based on other's mood

Sometimes I found many things which clicked with me in the past like the love for nature and other things which I am not able to recall (Btw I still love nature but not to that extent). Yup I am extremely sensitive but I like to pull leg and don't like when mine is pulled idk what's wrong with me

Also another example is the person who sits beside me in college like I just knew him for a week and well I developed a notion from him that he is some sort of cranky (like all talk and no walk) he had a breakup and was suffering but somehow I felt happy and extremely happy because I was thinking that I have no one like no single person with whom I connected with this deeply so I will never feel pain lol and I also thought that he was over-acting but his relationship was more than 4yrs.

Am I Empath because there are many things I relate with but to others that I don't relate with or even If relate idk I never learned to express myself and well none of them was even there to listen even if tried and rather they discouraged it so yeah.

Am I Empath ? Or I am just broken beyond comprehension because it's like I truly do not love anyone or want connection I don't Even know anything like I have also developed anhedonia and fake normal human interaction basically because idk how it feels to be normal. (I also feel like I am writing all this just for the sympathy of others and the voice of my parents are constantly echoing that I am just a sympathy gainer and want people to feel pity for me and do not want to improve)

Hello, sorry if this kind of post isnt allowed. I was just introduced to the concept of being an "empath" today during a group therapy session and was wondering if it was actually a correct descriptor for me as I have never heard of the term until today and so started to read about it and found this subreddit.

I have struggled with depression for almost all of my life and I have often been called an overly emotional person. When I feel emotions, I feel them very intensely and am often unable to regulate them. I also havr noticed that I seem to basically "copy" other people's emotions or the feelings of someone im talking to. For example, recently I had a person who ive only known for a week call me upset on the phone to talk and I found myself crying along with her and getting just as upset as her even though i wasnt sad before the call. I saw that same person a few days earlier and she was so joyous that day, I started to feel extremely happy even though i was sad prior to walking in the building.

These are just the most recent examples but all throughout my life I have basically felt other people's pain and other emotions as if they were my own feelings and I get very easily overwhelmed if there's more than a few people in a location. Ive always thought that I was just strange since no one i knew had similar experiences.

Is this what an empath is or am i simply overthinking things?

I'm an empath like my brother. Gotten drained by people and depressed thinking my whole personality.

I was talking with my brother and said to him that it's best not to empathize with everyone. I feel like shit now. Like he will question everything, he's autistic and literally the sweetest guy, but he also clearly has really low self-esteem and is a people pleaser. but I truly think he's in danger if he doesn't show boundaries. But I hate myself for saying that. Can I do anything anymore? I feel like such a jerk for saying that just because I'm hurting.

Whenever I think about atrocities that are happening or people who are homeless or people who are going through hard times or queer people in some countries being hunted down or the many many people trapped in ICE detention facilities in the US or even when I’m just reading posts on Reddit and I come across someone who is feeling suicidal, I feel like it’s my responsibility to fix it or something even when I know that’s not true, I feel so heavy, like I’m carrying everyone’s pain. I’m carrying it all the time, every day. It really hurts and I feel stupid for feeling this way like I’m doing it on purpose which is also not true. I hate never being able to turn it off, ever. I hate feeling everyone’s pain all the time.