I woke up at 4am again.

Today as I sat on the floor of my room watching the sun come up from my window, I attempted to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), with the full intention of writing about something completely different.

Having dealt with regular bouts of insomnia that can’t possibly help my state of mind in the mornings, I have been telling myself to stay away from social media at these times. The reason is simple (quite scientific really). When most of us humans first wake up, we are hit with a shot of adrenaline; it’s the thing that gives us the ability to jump out of bed, to spring into action. It’s incredibly useful and is something that I have always seemed to have an abundance of. The problems started as my anxiety developed over the years. Having been in quite a few intensely stressful situations over the course of my life, my ever-attentive anxiety has started to work overtime even for the most minor of inconveniences (a pattern that I have been working overtime to disrupt).

During times of anxiety, my mind will attempt to make almost every thought, word, action, more emotional than it is. It will attempt to connect dots that are none-existent or warn me of an impending threat where there isn’t one. Anyone who has suffered with a form of anxiety will know just how convincing our minds can be at that point in time. They will also know how much raw energy and effort you have to put in to be able to disrupt such harmful patterns, lest they become self-fulfilling prophecies. For me, a lot of my morning anxieties come initially as little niggles, worries about things that still seem unresolved, or events where I find that I wasn’t able to fully communicate how I truly felt. Then along comes social media…

After a lot of looking inside of myself (and a ton of research), I’ve come to realise that one of my big problems is having too much empathy. HEAR ME OUT! With the world seemingly riddled with fear and violence in these current times, a lot of people are (rightly) calling for more empathetic attitudes towards one another. It made me very happy to hear that empathy is now being taught in the majority of schools, with a similar level of importance being placed upon social skills that have long been attributed to cognitive achievements! Quite the backlash to the Individualism movement which, in my opinion, has noble ideals but has gotten out of control. Every conversation feels transactional, there often seems to be an ulterior motive behind people’s words, and we don’t always do the right thing…unless it benefits us.

Indeed, we do generally reward empathetic behaviour in infants. Studies suggest that it is around the time a child turns two that parents begin to stop noticing the kind things their children do for them. Instead, turning their attention to more typical achievement-orientated actions. It is later on in the child’s life that the parent usually finds themselves trying to rekindle some of that lost empathy.

On the other hand, too much empathy, or rather, not effectively using that empathy can lead us to feel trapped. Certainly, for me, I have felt almost held hostage by the feelings of others before. Nature, nurture, or a bit of both, I have found myself consistently putting my own emotions on the backburner for the sake of other people’s. Even when times aren’t hard, I find myself dedicating too much brainpower into pulling apart the actions of others, attempting to see things from their perspective and rationalising their (sometimes) irrational actions. This has bled into family life, friendships, and relationships, causing the dynamic between us to become unequal and my anxiety to build.

This default behaviour had gone on for so long within me that by the age of 20, I didn’t even know what my own wants/needs/opinions were. The many times I also encountered others who would drop me the moment I requested some of that effort and empathy be reciprocated, left me feeling a sense of alienation rather than being more connected to the world.

Sat on my regular bus, on route home from work and feeling drained, I searched for my headphones to block out external stimuli. Dismayed at the realisation that I had in fact left my headphones at home, I began to read articles on the subject. Psychology Today echoes my experiences as an overly empathetic person, stating in their article, The Empathy Trap:

‘[Overly empathetic people] may have a diminished ability to make decisions in their own best interest, experience physical and psychological exhaustion from deflecting their own feelings, and may lack internal resources to give their best to key people in their life.’ (2016: Online)

I am not saying that empathy is wrong, nor am I declaring individualistic tendencies evil. I believe that effectively utilising empathy requires complex emotional intelligence which allows us to both, put ourselves in other’s shoes, whilst also remaining attentive to our own individual needs. This is essential in relationship dynamics that are already unequal. For example, deferring to the needs of a boss or an important potential business partner may help keep them in our lives, but comes at the cost of our own disenfranchisement. There are ways to navigate a discussion without either completely taking over or rolling over.

‘It is a part of the human experience to put someone else’s feelings before your own once in a while, but not consistently. In successful adult relationships, the flow of empathy is reciprocal: Partners share power equally and move back and forth between giving and receiving. When one partner does more of the giving, however, resentment is likely to build.’ (Psychology Today, 2016: Online)

So how do we find that all-important balance between giving and receiving? This is something which I have already started working on. Whilst I have come across a lot of hurdles as I began to unlearn overly empathetic behaviour, one of the biggest (and most necessary) thing I initially struggled with was getting in touch with what my needs were. Our boundaries are so much easier to cross or manipulate when we never learnt to focus on how a situation made us feel.

I have been asking myself a lot of questions lately. Questions such as:

• Am I too busy worrying about what this person is thinking to take a step back and understand what I need?
• Am I constantly getting trapped in the cycle of doing anything to keep them happy or taking on their emotions as my own to the point that it hinders both myself and them?
• Do I focus so much on what they have to say during an argument that it completely overpowers anything I have to input?
• Is my emotional labour being reciprocated or taken advantage of?

Asking these questions has helped me give pause in high-pressured situations. I used to spend so much time attempting to understand the intricacies and nuances of other people’s emotions that I thought, if I can just explain exactly why I’m doing something (or am making a decision), that they will have the same empathy for me that I have for them. Life doesn’t work like that. The vast majority of people don’t work like that, because we each have our own inner worlds going on in our heads all the time. We all have our own cultural & emotional baggage that shapes our ideals and we’re never going to fully understand/accept the actions of others all the time. The great news is, I’ve realised I don’t have to explain myself to anyone! Not explaining has been an unexpected addition in helping me to create and reinforce my own boundaries.

Once I started to pay better attention to my own boundaries my days began to feel brighter. I started to feel less powerless in my life, less like things were just happening to me. Yes, I have since lost the bond I’d thought I had with certain people who used to take advantage. But I have a much closer bond with those who stayed.

More recently I have been sharpening my skills of self-awareness. Having made the time to step back and look at how I was feeling during times that I would get a strong empathetic urge to put my emotions aside, has made me able to communicate a lot better. I began to notice how easily I would get absorbed into the whirlwind of other people’s passing moods, or even the imaginary thoughts I would put into their heads (something highly empathetic people have a habit of doing which isn’t really fair for either party). I have been trying to create some emotional distance between myself and those situations. Instead, I have been finding more compassionate ways of responding to such scenarios which end with us both feeling validated.

Sometimes I slip up and my anxiety gets the better of me. I fall into old patterns and if I’m not too careful, I find myself back in those past situations, feeling powerless and unable to give my best to others. But I’m trying. Every day it gets a little bit easier. Vocal Media has certainly been instrumental in giving me the time to reflect on all of this through my writing, and the platform to hopefully give someone else the push they need to start treating themselves better.

It’s like they say when you get onto a plane: always put on your own oxygen mask first. Instead of neglecting our own needs, we should expand the empathy we give to others into our own lives. In order to be at our best, to effectively be able to help other people, we must first help ourselves.