Quote from: Sceadu on July 27, 2016, 03:00:45 AM
I agree with many of the statements in this post. I am an extremely empathetic person, able to intuit and read other people's emotions. (I don't always respond appropriately when I empathize, but that has to do more with fear of failure and social anxiety.) Other people's emotions are extremely vivid to me, especially anger. It seems sometimes like another person's emotions can be so strong that they can hijack my emotions just by being near me. I'm an INTP, by the way. I also think that my temperament has contributed to how easily I am impacted by trauma.
I have also had this ability since I was a child, and the thing I am most sensitive to is volatility, i.e. the feeling that another person's mood can change instantly. For example, I just spent a few days of my vacation with some of my parents' friends, one of whom is known to be a moody and volatile person. He triggered me so much I could barely look him in the eye. I think this was adaptive during childhood, because with my high level of sensitivity, it took very little to traumatize me. Often adults with egocentric views of situations, the ones who view children's misbehavior as an affront to their authority or a challenge, are the ones who snap and respond most angrily. Even seeing other kids disciplined in the grocery store by adults who yell at them or hit them triggers me, and did as a child. I literally feel the adult's actions as if they are disciplining me, probably more than the kids do sometimes!
I dated a guy last summer who was a volatile individual with a lot of masked rage and a hair trigger. I never felt safe around him. I began to use one of my two typical responses, fawning (as described in Pete Walker's work), to compensate for my lack of safety. His opinions on people and ideas shifted quickly and with scant evidence, and he could be angered by a tiny slight. I knew in my gut that he would turn on me if I made one wrong move, and I was right -- that was exactly how the relationship ended.
RELATE DATED THE SAME GUY he triggered me and I triggered him and it was a nasty merry-go-round--Empathetic here too, and yet I can be screaming at myself or quietly telling myself t his is a bad situation, but I still walk into it. . . then I get to re-practice my appeasing or (fawning) response--Its like its so ingrained in me that I seek it out despite my instincts telling me otherwise, I sure feel broken and damaged. I guess the blessing of late is that I'm noticing myself doing it. that's is surely progress ,