Last week when I visited my parents, there were moments where I had to catch myself from falling into their emotions. My Mom or Dad would be on edge, and my own heart would race.
Some of us are like this, we feel other people’s feelings for them. Our cheeks burn pink for other people’s embarrassment, friends problems make our minds crazy. We are the hyper-perceptive, and this can be a gift. Hyper-perceptives are givers, we truly care about and understand people, we make deep connections.
Hyper perceptives can make great therapists, interviewers, managers, mentors and friends. But for us to get there, for real empathy to happen, it takes holding onto yourself in the face of someone else. Here are my tips.
NAME IT
I am in a pleasant mood, sitting on the bus, when a close friend calls to talk about what is going on in her relationship. Afterward, I realize I am left feeling shaky. We didn’t fight… but my pleasant mood is run over, my anxiety spiked. She had called me anxious and now I am left with her anxiety.
What do I do on the bus, after I hang up the phone? Hopefully, I catch what happened, feel the anxiety. Without knowing what is going on, or catching it in the moment, hyper-perception is paralyzing. Naming it, as soon as you can is the goal.
DIG INTO THE WHY’S
Hyper-perceptives are groomed for the healer role. When a friend calls, we often don’t notice we are feeling their emotions for them. It is automatic. We did it for our parents, or our siblings or kids at school.
A lot of women I know are hyper-perceptive. In traditional gender roles, women are taught to put the comfort level of others before themselves. We are the ones to make everyone in the room more comfortable, to know when to laugh or change the subject. That role can be wonderful, but dangerous when it’s instilled and not questioned.
BE IN THE MOMENT AND BE YOU.
Once I can figure out why I feel anxious on the bus, the next goal is to do that in the moment. To realize as it’s happening: talking to this person is making me anxious. When that happens during a conversation, I remind myself: I am not this person. I am not who you are, I am who I am. It sometimes helps, as I am sitting across from them, to remember their face is not my face. I am my own person. This is a way to connect back to self. Holding onto yourself is where real empathy for others can begin to happen.
TALKING ABOUT IT
It can sometimes be appropriate to bring this problem up with your friend. But probably, they aren’t conciously trying to give you their anxiety. It is a problem of yours and how you deal internally. You can simply, shut down the conversation, or explain that these topics make you feel X. But this can move into over-sharing and analyzing your internal psyclogical battles–which I don’t recommend.
STAY 50% INSIDE, 50% OUT
The goal in remembering, I am not who you are, I am who I am is to come back to self. And in these relationships where it is easy to lose yourself, remaining 50% inside and 50% out helps. That means taking care of yourself and noticing your emotions during a conversation, but also being in the moment. Being you in the relationship.
19 Comments
I think I oscillate between being hyper-perceptive (with all the good-listener, empathy, understanding qualities, and all the exhaustion and insecurity and not knowing if this is what I’m feeling or what someone else is feeling…) and being so self-centered/focussed on a topic that I don’t notice what’s going on around me, and may even ignore social cues. Maybe the latter is a mechanism of protection against the onslaught of others’ emotions. Anyone experience something similar?
Poet, wow I find this interesting. I feel like I am ultra aware of social cues in some aspects but then I am not in others. Also if I am super tuned into someone I might forget silly things, like lose my phone or forget to change a song on repeat. I think in order to be so ultra perceptive we have to in many ways shut off other parts of ourselves, so i think it would make sense.
I go back and forth between being hyper perceptive and being in a polar part that is cold, that blocks me off from people. And this is a part that takes over when I’ve had enough– when I feel like I am bled dry. It’s hard to not flit back and forth between the two parts, but what I try to do is just catch each when they came up. To hold both, and let them know I can handle myself, it’s ok.
R,
What a wonderful post! I am this type of person most definitely but have never read anything on the subject; it’s making me think about past situations, how many times I’ve allowed myself to join another’s state of being… Your affirmation is very helpful, merci!
Love Lust & Light
♥
R
Rubyyy Jones
I’ve been marked as highly perceptive or “empathic” since I was in high school. One of the best things I’ve learned, although I often forget to practice it, is shielding (as woo-woo as that sounds). Envisioning and really feeling a layer of my own personal energy and emotions covering me all around, head to toe does wonders for blocking out other people’s vibes. It doesn’t cut them off, but it puts a barrier between me and the world so I can filter and choose what to feel.
Thanks Ruby! it is interesting to look back at relationships through this lens. It’s like, sometimes I feel like I have so much darkness inside of me…where could all that emotional disturbance have come from? The answer is, it’s not mine. It is mine to deal with now, but it was not mine originally.
Ellie, yes boundaries are so important. I think having a shield is a great idea, as long as in that shield you can still stay connected to your “true self” your core being. Thanks for sharing the wisdom <3
A clinical psychologist wrote a book about this trait. She calls it HSP. (Highly Sensitive Persons.) It has been very helpful to me. I thought it might interest you.
: )
Here is her site:
http://www.hsperson.com/
Finnle,
Thank you for this! I know many psychologists have written about this phenomenon, but sadly I didn’t have any resources to share.
It’s interesting that you just posted this because I recently had a moment which showed how hyper perceptive I am. My fiance and I went to an open mic to support a friend but since I was so sick we left before she went on. I went to bed but couldn’t sleep all night because my mind was racing about my friend and if she was nervous or had everything she needed. She texted me that whole day about that night and even though that night she was calm, for some reason I took her nervousness from the day and carried it with me into bed. Don’t know if this makes any sense but it actually drove me crazy that I could not get her out of my head and got absolutely no sleep that night.
I usually am the type of person who compensates for a person’s mood or behavior. If you’re reserved, I’ll be outspoken. If you’re loud, I’ll say nothing. Because of this it feels like I have different personalities with different people. So say if I bring a few friends together who don’t know each other (say a person I’m usually outspoken with and a person I’m usually quiet around), I’ll tend to compensate for the behavior of one friend. Sometimes I feel like the other friend is seeing me act in a completely different way than they’re used to and will consider it fake or question why I don’t act like that with them. It’s hard to explain to a friend that I “try to even out the energy” so to speak. If I have a friend that’s being negative, I’ll be positive. Or alternatively, if I have a friend being overly optimistic to the point of being annoying, I’ll be cynical. It’s weird. Would you call that being hyper perspective?
thank you thank you thank you for this post as well as the comments that have recommended further reading. i’m definitely feeling affirmed on the stomach-clenching, teeth grinding, up-and-down emotional roller coaster that is my interactions with other people.
after two years in direct care i am just not cut out to deal with crises every day. i’m currently on my sixth or seventh year working with kids who are, at best, emotional cyclones. my partner and friends suggest i just “don’t take home” the emotions. i’ve tried for these two years to build coping and self-care strategies that work but i have not found anything that helps other than retreating to a room by myself for a while.
but this is a great relief. at least i’m not alone!
I recently started to look into this subject a bit. I’ve never realized I was hyper perceptive until this post actually. Well, in a way I guess I did know, but I didn’t full comprehend/acknowledge it.
From the time I was a small child I’ve always felt I was different. I never thought I was ‘special’, I actually believed I must be a freak. Other children usually stayed away from me. Adults didn’t know what to think of me. I must have made them uncomfortable for me to be able to know what they were feeling and to be able to feel it myself.
As I got older my sensitivity to others people’s emotions tripled. The reason behind that is my family. Funny how who you are is greatly defined by how you grow up. My mother is bipolar and my brother is schizo-affective, so reading people’s emotions became a kind of survival tactic, a necessity.
Receiving all these emotions as a child became overwhelming. I didn’t know how to shut it off at first, until the age of 11 or 12. My ability to shut off those emotions was still new to me. I wasn’t really able to get a firm hold on it until my late teens. To this day I am still practicing it.
I, like Poet, tend to go through moments of hyper perceptiveness and lack of any perceptiveness. I have to catch myself from seeming cold or oversensitive towards people. My close friends understand this about me, but others are always confused by it. My ability to control myself and what I receive will be greatly helped by this post. I can always look back and re-read these helpful hints. I also think meditation would greatly help.
Getting a better grasp of who I am as a person I think will help me understand my feelings and the feelings of others.
Brittany,
Your comment reminded me so much of myself. Often for me being hyper perceptive can mean that I match someone else–so if they are loud and fun, I am loud and fun. Or it can be about compensating for everyone else’s discomfort and awkwardness by becoming the ONLY loud and crazy one–the source of other people’s entertainment, some sort of social clown. Often, when I do this I feel conflicted about it afterward and worried about how I come off, but I automatically go into this too.
Halida,
Wow, how intense. It reminds me of how therapists, in between sessions need some downtime to center. I think having time where you are centering and coming back to self is most important. Have you tried meditation? I know, meditation makes me go “ughh” too. I can’t just do the “look into a candle” style meditation but I use guided meditation CD’s. Might be of interest to you. I recommend Carolyn McManus “mindfulness meditation”. Regardless of how you plan on inviting a little bit more self energy in, good luck to you and know you are doing important work with these kids <3
Comorbid,
Ahh yes, the childhood thing rings SO TRUE for me as well. I was recently working through this myself and was reminded that Alice Miller in her book Drama of the Gifted Child calls this walking on stilts. The metaphor being, its painful to be so far away, and above everyone else walking on these stilts but it also makes you special, and can be hard to come down from.
I felt emotionally isolated as a child and that is probably when the hyper perception and pulling away was at it’s strongest. My heart goes out to any kid who feels or felt the same. It’s quite emotionally brutal. <3
Wow, this was really helpful.
I consider myself to be quite empathic. I take a lot of other people’s feelings with me. It can get quite crazy. I can’t seem to shut off these emotions. I don’t show it, but inside I’m dying every day. My emotions are so extreme.
Even when reading books or writing or watching television, I’m feeling this. I can get so deep into it. I’m happy that I’m not alone.
I hope this fits into the context of this post…
Dalide
I relate very much to this post, though a lot less so now that I’m an old(ish) lady who’s had lots of therapy. I feel like I have so many things to say I don’t know where to start, or so many things to say they kind of all cancel each other out and as such I have nothing to say.
Anyhoo…one thing I try to keep in mind is – not only can you not fight someone else’s battles for them, but if you try to, you’ll only diminish yourself and as a result be LESS able to be there for them. Not to mention feel drained and resentful. One short ‘n sweet metaphor my therapist often uses is that of needing oxygen masks on a plane – the mother should put her mask on FIRST, because how can she she assist her child if she herself can’t breathe?
Another resource is the book “Women Who Love Too Much” about codependent relationships. Which often means relationships with addicts, though not always. Basically codependence means doing things for others that they should be able to do for themselves (confront others, call their jobs and say they’re sick when they’re hung over). I’ve found that the (subconscious) appeal of those kind of relationships is wanting to be the hero, that those relationships don’t require me to learn how to articulate my needs because my partner’s needs are always so much bigger/more dramatic/more urgent than mine that it somehow feels “right” to be a martyr and throw my needs under the bus in favor of theirs. When in fact that’s really unhealthy and leads to resentment and fear of starting another relationship and repeating the same patterns.
Ha, guess I did have a lot to say! ;o)
–fuzzilla from TBK-land
Dalide, I feel for you, in your words that inside you are dying everyday. It is so much easier to distract ourselves from the disturbed emotions inside, but feeling them, looking into them is where growth happens. It takes bravery to look into the darkness, but that is how we become whole. You have my support in that.
Fuzzila, So glad to see someone from TBK found me
Isn’t she the greatest?! I’m glad you brought up co-dependency. I think this is a fascinating topic and one that most people actually have some sort of experience with. My guess is this is why co-dependent was removed from the DSM–it’s common (unfortunately) not a mental disorder, however it is destructive! I often feel co-dependent and I see it in many of my relationships. Codependency can be an abusive relationship pattern as well and it is something I think we should all look into. Your words are wise.
I feel like my tendency to take on others’ feelings has sabotaged most of my serious relationships. I take on my partner’s feelings as though they were my own. I allow their desires to override mine until I just can’t be in this relationship that doesn’t meet my needs anymore – but the reason it doesn’t is because I don’t stand up for my needs. And then I feel trapped. I can’t leave because I feel how much it would hurt them if I left, and that emotion is more powerful than how much I want to leave, often for years. I’m working on it. I don’t want it to happen again, because I have such wonderful men in my life. I don’t want to lose them to my mistakes.
Another term for this is empath. I hope you don’t mind me providing a website that discusses empaths.
http://www.judithorloff.com/Free-Articles/emotional-empath-EF.htm
Leah, yesss. This is a pattern for many of us hyper perceptive people. In part what you are describing is enmeshing when in a relationship with someone. Losing yourself in them. This happens to me, as well, and I have to wonder if it’s more common among women. Facing this pattern and coming to break it is about holding onto yourself in the relationship, being you and being with this other person at the same time. I’s about understanding that you can ONLY meet your needs through yourself. Often we enmesh because we feel the other person will fix us. But only you can fix yourself. And until you really work on that, enmeshment will just keep happening. Stay strong, sounds like you are on the right path.
Brooke, yay! the more resources the better. Thank you dear.
I’m hyper perceptive, mostly because I’m a Gemini. I’m also a dude, which makes it easy for me to compartmentalize or otherwise not be overwhelmed by my perceptions. All of the data gets stored and I can calibrate myself to the individual pretty well.
This is so weird, I’ve never even thought about this before either but I definitely recognize this behavior in myself! I am a Gemini too, but what does that have to do with it? I can completely identify with Brittany and the whole compensating for others thing too, I actually kick myself sometimes for being so “psycho” in certain situations, and it’s always so inconvenient. I have been noticing this more lately because I’ve started back at university, studying fashion design, and most of my classmates are outspoken, smart and sensible with a hint of snobbiness, so I find myself acting like a kid or saying stupid things and asking stupid questions(even though I know what I’m doing). I don’t notice it until I’m in a situation where I actually want to be heard or respected and it just doesn’t happen because they don’t think of me as the kind of person who can make these decisions, even with something simple like choosing where to have lunch. Also when I try to mix my old friends with the new uni friends it’s just so weird and I don’t know how to act almost, I feel like I’m so conscious of myself.
I’ve also been hyper perceptive since I was little, although I can also compartmentalize things so I might get crazy for that time but it won’t affect me in the same way afterwards. I also have a physical response where my body starts to shake and I grind my teeth or they chatter. This usually happens when I am in a deep conversation, and its funny how you mention the over-sharing and analyzing psychological battles because this happens to me evvvvvery single time that I get an overwhelming feeling for someone. I think maybe it’s because I feel that this person has been so honest or trusting in me that I can do the same, but I always regret the sharing afterwards.
Thankyou so much for posting this because maybe now I will recognize and name it so that I don’t have these embarrassing over-sharing moments. Sorta like now haha.
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