I am not saying that I am an empath, but I feel that I am.

I am the kind of person that “feels” for others. It is more than just empathy. It is like I can feel them. This is more so, if it is someone that I know and love or have some kind of connection with.

I noticed this with animals when I was a small girl. I loved animals and I still do. If one was injured or born with defects or even just left out of the barn and had to weather the storm, I just felt for them. I felt their cold. Their struggles. Their loss of their siblings or mother. Or whatever. Sally Struthers, move over, I got this. 

I thought I was a bunny, kitty, puppy, calf…whatever, it may be, “whisperer”.

I felt them.

I was a very sensitive child and a “middle child”. I was left out many times, amongst friends, cousin outings, even in Sunday school, including bible school camp, just about anything, I was the kid no one really wanted on their team. I was the last pick, usually. I don’t know why. I thought I was fun.  I despised it when the teacher would tell us to find a partner and everyone would find their partner and I was left alone, along with one other kid across the room, you know what that means, so, we were put together to work on a “project”. I am not sure if experiences like this pushed me to “feel” more than others.

Oh, the feels.

In my nursing career, I had times, I would feel too much, as well. If a patient was hurting it was not always easy to be the bad guy and get them to get up out of bed or reposition them, without feeling for them. I once had a toddler that was dehydrated and needed fluids intravenously, but the team was having a hard time placing the cannula, so I sat in the hallway with the mother and together we cried, as we listened to that little one’s weakened raspy cry on the other side of that large hospital door. As a more seasoned nurse, feelings may have “hardened”, not in an uncaring way, but for the sake of the patient’s wellness. We know our patients hurt. They just went through a horrific accident, in which they lost their best friend, but they still must get up out of that bed and to the shower. They need to wash that clotted blood out and shattered glass from that windshield from their hair. Refresh. The smell of fuel, blood, and grass removed.

I do feel this.

As I got older, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, she went through chemotherapy and radiation treatments, in which the radiation made swallowing an issue. She eventually needed a feeding tube placed. Over time, I found I was unable to eat. Although my weight loss had started intentionally, prior to her diagnosis, as her illness progressed, so did mine. The thought of consuming food became a chore. That is very strange to think, but if you have experienced this type of illness or have been through anorexia through a loved one, you know that eating truly is not easy to do. Your brain controls so much even making you feel full after just a few bites. For me, my anorexia was not because I looked in the mirror and felt I was overweight, as I was not. Mine was knowing and loving a lady that was enduring so much and if I could take her discomfort away, I would, but I couldn’t. She was dying.

I felt that.

There have been times that I have sensed or just knew someone was not an honest person. I don’t know how I sense these things, but I have. I have had times when introduced to a person, I know instantly, they are not my people. I can sense inauthentic people, and know, “nope, go be fake somewhere else far away from me”. I have read that the intuitive empath can sense good or bad. They have a kind of a telepathic or psychic notion. They have exceptional perception. Although, in some situations, we may have to tolerate these inauthentic people, even when we know they are not good because we have to “adult”. Tolerance is in small doses, though. Don’t overextend your kindness or love on those that will only use you until you are beaten down and can’t get up.

I definitely feel this.

I think we all can be considered an emotional empath, as who hasn’t cried when a friend or someone else is crying? Who hasn't watched a movie and cried when your favorite character gets killed off?  I have cried at funerals, in which I didn’t even know the person that had died and was only there for support for the daughter or the mother that was going through the hardest loss of their life. Well, maybe not all people do this, but I do. I cry with them and for them.

I feel for others.

As an adult, I have learned to limit my time with some people. I can consume so much of what they are feeling. I especially have learned to be careful with those that may be considered “toxic” or extremely negative, as time spent with those people, I too, may start to feel horrible and become an ugly negative soul. My husband will be the first to say, “You have been around so-and-so, haven’t you?”

I feel too much.

I may not be an empath, but I feel I may have empath tendencies and I am good with that, as it explains a lot about me and about my life.

Now, I am just waiting on my daughter-through-love, to have Baby B, because this sacrum and lower back pain, is killing me…Okay, so it could be from sneezing and age or carrying loads of laundry out of the house to be laundered for the past 10 days while waiting on a part for my washing machine, but either way, I am hurting. I am feeling it.

Just having all the feels, here.