Codependent or Empath?

[Eye438]

I have been reading a tremendous amount of material on codependency which I know I am and working on this on many levels in my life, I feel like I am being tested continuously as I become more aware of my self in regards to others.

I am also delving into the idea of being an empath, there is really a very fine line between the two the difference being codependency being a mental health problem stemming from childhood and not getting the love we needed as a child that is carried into adulthood and managed in very unhealthy ways.

As for an empathic person, it is about picking up on energies of others quickly and feeling what they are feeling, highly intuitive and at times overly sensitive to the energies of others in many social and public places. The idea of being empathic is not a studied area among psychologists. The term has been around far longer than codependency.

I have become very self aware of my ability to pick up the energies from people and have felt intuitively something was going to happen in particular situations in advance of an incident that actually did occur. For example  I was at a friends home for dinner and went outside and the new neighbor was a very large African American family with 10 children playing, an extreme amount of energy for me. I began to feel something was going to happen, almost everwhelming. Within a few minutes a squad car was driving by slowly and passed again and again, a total of 5 times finally stopping in front of me asking if I called the police. He got a call and could not find the location, he was on the wrong street which was odd, he went back around to the other street and at this point there were 2 people waving a block down for help.

I guess my question is this, is it possible some of us are so sensitive to the energies of others or our surroundings that we take in suffering and pain more quickly than most people?

Has anyone experienced this feeling in a public place?

I am not dismissing codependency by any means, but I know within my being I have always felt the energies of others without knowing them personally.

[eeks]

You might want to check out psychologist Elaine Aron's work on the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) - it's not the same as "empath", but there's some overlap.  www.hsperson.com/

I guess my question is this, is it possible some of us are so sensitive to the energies of others or our surroundings that we take in suffering and pain more quickly than most people?

I don't know the answer to that question.  But I think it's an interesting subject.  And if it's true for you, you may need to learn ways of noticing others' energy and responding to it but without getting triggered/overwhelmed.  It sounds like both a gift and a challenge.

Has anyone experienced this feeling in a public place?

No, but I've met people and immediately got a bad feeling about them, and said "no, don't jump to conclusions too quickly" but they turned out to be untrustworthy.  It seems to be particularly to do with trust.

I also get other "feelings" once I've established a relationship with someone, I had a "feeling" in the idealization phase with both uBPD former friend, and uBPD ex (where I found myself saying to myself, "wow, I like this person... .but not as much as they like me?"

[Eye438]

You might want to check out psychologist Elaine Aron's work on the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) - it's not the same as "empath", but there's some overlap.  www.hsperson.com/

Yes I ordered that book and Emotional Intelligence plus codependency for dummies.

I guess my question is this, is it possible some of us are so sensitive to the energies of others or our surroundings that we take in suffering and pain more quickly than most people?

I don't know the answer to that question.  But I think it's an interesting subject.  And if it's true for you, you may need to learn ways of noticing others' energy and responding to it but without getting triggered/overwhelmed.  It sounds like both a gift and a challenge.

Has anyone experienced this feeling in a public place?

No, but I've met people and immediately got a bad feeling about them, and said "no, don't jump to conclusions too quickly" but they turned out to be untrustworthy.  It seems to be particularly to do with trust.

I also get other "feelings" once I've established a relationship with someone, I had a "feeling" in the idealization phase with both uBPD former friend, and uBPD ex (where I found myself saying to myself, "wow, I like this person... .but not as much as they like me?"

I spent 2 long relationships that way but oddly it felt comfortable for me to think that person liked me more, but then again those relationships were unhealthy and abusive for me. The only relationship that cut me to the ground for the last five years is the BPDex I have never allowed my self to be stripped down to nothing in my life, and now at 61 relearning who I am and very sensitive to energy of others. I feel naked like I just fell to earth and seeing and feeling everything for the first time. It's good to do this long overdue inside work, but it's not easy facing oneself fully, it's definitely one day at a time.