so as it turns out,
i’m not crazy–i’m an empath.
okay,
sometimes i’m still crazy.
but when i get super sad and then feel elated the next minute–
the thing is–
i often don’t feel my own emotions,
i feel other people’s emotions.
so weird.
i always knew i was really really empathetic
but only in the past couple of years have i learned about being an empath.

so i’m an empath.
i feel things
and know things
that other people cannot sense.
i know when someone is lying.
i can see an aura better than i can notice the color of your eyes.
and it has come to my attention that being an empath–& not knowing how to protect yourself–is a dangerous & even a bad thing.
i don’t know how to protect me.
i lay open for everyone to just dump their emotions in.
and then i turn into a raging pond of dumped emotions.

so today i was reading a book about service dogs for families that have special needs children and i felt profoundly sad.  and instead of just feeling sad, i examined why i felt sad…only to realize that the sadness was not my own, but the sadness of these families.
it finally clicked.
i was not feeling my own emotions.
i was feeling someone else’s!!
and just like that, the sadness evaporated.
how often am i doing that?
being angry with someone else’s anger?
being happy with someone else’s happiness?
being frustrated with someone else’s frustration?

i wonder.
when i was a child, i loved animals. all animals. i loved them. i collected them. i had over fifty pets as a kid–and even more imaginary ones.
but my dad was so angry.
and he put that anger on us kids
and on the animals.
and i felt myself absorb that anger.
i felt it grow inside me.
i recognized it when it came out–it was his anger, not mine.
but over the years i adopted it as my own.
i was the one being angry at the animals.
it stopped being his and became mine.
and i felt so horrible about it
about myself.
i cringe to think that that is who i am.
but what if it isn’t?
i wonder…
if i now realize it is not my anger after all…can i send it on its way?