I do daycare for two kids as well during the week and the mom is going through a hard time. She is pregnant (again) and the father of the baby has just decided to leave her and that he does not want to make it work (shes due in may). So with her life in turmoil and my contact with her a few times a week, has left me a bit stressed. Her kids are wonderful (most of the time) but with her fighting with her other kids father and now the father of the baby lets just say shes beyond stressed. Its times like this being an empath is hard. I find that the closer you are to people, the more you seem to pick up their emotions as your own without really realizing it.
I have three days a week I watch her two kids, and its been this way since September. I am a creature of habit, I like routine and change does not go well with me unless I am aware of it to come or initiate it myself. So its been the last month that things have really gone downhill for this mother and find my own life "interupted" by what is happening in her life. My days getting changed and me left rearrangeing my life in order to be accomodating..
So as you all know, I LOVE helping people and seem to do it whether online or in person. I find though myself taking on some of her stress and being worried about her, even though I am not exactly in her circle of friends. Its time like this I can't stress enough to everyone that when your feeling overwhelmed or stressed because of someone elses situation its time to take a step back and surround yourself with the white light to try and limit their impact on you. You might just not realize how much your own empathic abilities are picking up their emotion and dragging you down too!
I have had to numerous times use the apron of light technique to lesson the impact its having on me. I have done this with the father of her two kids as well as this is his first experinece dealing with daycare situation and lets just say thats not ideal! lol.
I know it will work out, and its going to be so much better as I lesson the connection it seems to have on me. I also feel that this is where my heart anxiety is coming from. Certain things seem to trigger it and seems to coincide with events from the parents.
anyways!!! on a good note, lets give away a reading for BROOKE777!! I want to hear your own stories of recent events that seemed to affect you when technically they should not have..Whether its a friend going through a life lesson, a parent who is sick, something you have seen on TV...etc.. Has it affected you by stressing you out? Making you feel depressed or anxious? etc.
EVERYONE who participates is entered to win. I will announce the winner on FRIDAY!
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20 comments:
Cheri -
I am so sorry that you are going through that. I can totally relate to how you feel, and just wish that I had the same abilities as you to get rid of the stress of other peoples problems. I have always been the type of person that takes on other peoples problems, and tries to help them to the best of my ability. I have found even in adulthood that I am still this way. The most recent occurance has been with a friend/neighbour of mine. She started dating a real loser, and he broke up with her randomly one night. She was devestated and needed my help. I left my son with my hubby and went to the rescue. She was beside herself, and although knew that he was a total loser.. she was adament that he was the guy for her and she didnt understand. I spent hours with her trying to calm her down and help her the best I could. She has health problems too and her body crashed.. which then led to suicidal thoughts. It was so hard for me to help her... and even worse that I was now quilty that I HAD to help her because if I didnt she might kill herself. It has now been months... and they did get back together.. then broke up again.. same situation.. and now finally have broken up again. I finally suggested she see a therapist.. which she has done.. but I still feel responsible for her. My hubby has tried to help me distance myself.. but I cant seem to. I check in with her daily just to make sure that she is ok and not thinking of doing anything stupid. Aa much as I love helping people.. sometimes I wish it was for easier things! You know....
again I hope this whole thing works out for you with the mom and her break up and kids. Thanks for sharing.. I hope it helped!
Danna
For once I am actually not wrapped up in someone else's emotions. I am usually the first to pick up on someone's moods but these past few weeks I think that I have been so wrapped up in my own that I have shut everyone else out. It's a good reminder to use ALL of my senses. :)
I get upset about things that are none of my buisness really, but I still think that they have a right to upset me. The issue in the news you might of heard about involving a mother drowning her 2 babys in the bathtub, it is in my community and they have my last name. It has really upset me as one of her children was my sons age and I cant help but wonder if I am somehow related to them. Also the issue about baby Isiah really upsets me as well. Pretty much anything sad involving a baby or child can really really take a toll on me.
Cheri - sorry you are having to go through this. But a the interesting thing about your story is that I understand that completely. I have a close friend well we use to be really close, but when we were really good friends my whole mood would change and it wasn't anything to do with me. It was that she was going through a hard time and I felt everything that she was going through. I would be happy and excited about what I'm doing, and then within an hour or a day I would be down and just frustrated for some reason and it's the same for my husband. I can feel the change in me with the same change they are going through.
Cheri,
I have a sister-in-law like that, where every 6 months or so my husband and mother-in-law have to rescue her from her problems. Its quite stressful for all of us, because she hides her issues from us until the moment she crashes from all the stress and lands herself in a mental institution. This last time was in December and it was quite an affair as she drove out into a farming community and walked into a strangers house. They called the cops on her and she got sent to an institution while they waited for her memory to come back. She tends to blank out when the stress gets too much for her. She has many issues, which are too numerous to list here. I could write a book about it, but her sister is already doing that! Its really too unbelievable for words that this happens to just one person.
Hi Cheri
Well you know my situation going through a divorce and and all. That's problems enough for me. But i guess i am the type of person who feels empathy from people too. I work full time at our municipality that i live in. I work in the Tax/Assessment Dept. We deal with people paying their taxes, collection of taxes etc. So occasionally i get a few angry calls asking how come their taxes went up, but also get a lot of seniors who are on a fixed income and can't pay their bills or they have noticed that their bills have gone up and how they are gonna live. Some call crying which really affects me. I just about get in tears when i get this. I do the best i can to see if there is government assistance or what have you, but boy I sure feel it. I wish i there was a pill to take to not be so soft like me. It really affects me mentally. Hope everything works out with your daycare kids mom.
Wow Cheri, you have your plate kinda full with emotions! Well, I am a Police Officer in Texas (Detective) and believe me, the wave of emotions I sense are crazy sometimes. I want to help and solve all of the problems. I notice myself picking up emotions from others and have to take time to "get rid" of them. It seems natural for me to do this. I have to be very careful with cases involving kids and animals. The emotions involved with that, my own and others involved, are draining.
Cheri,
I'm the kind of person who likes routine as well. How lucky those kids are that they have you to create some sort of "time away" from the stress and to have a routine at your house. I'm glad they have you as something stable and happy in their lives.
As for the mother, I can't imagine what it must be like to be pregnant and left by the father. I truly hope everything works out and that some good comes out of the situation.
Having been through a divorce myself, I know how it feels to go back and forth, break-up, get back together a few times before it is truly a done deal. I'm sorry the mom is going through that.
One of my biggest weaknesses is feeling too much of other people's emotions and wanting to help. It is so frustrating to want to help and feeling pretty useless at the same time. Emotions are such crazy things!
Julie
I like to think that because I can feel for others and I am emotionally effected by how others feel that I truly feel for these people.
I work at an elementary school as a special ed aide. The teacher and other aides I work with have not been getting along. This has nothing to do with me really and I try to stay away from all of the gossip and talk that goes on.
But, when I get home I feel horrible that I can't fix everything and make things better. I don't think I should feel this way--I didn't create the problem but I am so upset that I can't fix the problem. It makes it even harder when these women that are 10 to 40 years older than me are asking me what I should do and to just make it all better.
I'm at a lost for what I could do. This puts a lot of stress on me and I find myself snapping at my husband and friends because of it.
I usually get headaches if the other persons emotions are very strong, Advil doesnt even help it. I find that I pick up the angry and depressed moods quicker than anything. I wish I could just filter it out and only get the "happy feelings" for no good reason ;-)
Cheri~
In october my husbands cousin got married on the same weekend my husband and I did but five year earlier. Well before her wedding she told the fam she couldn't have babies~ jump ahead to christmas dinner, SURPRISE she pregnant, 3 month pregnant. The situation has nothing to do with me, i'm happy for her but why say she couldn't have babies. We've been trying for just over five years now. Everytime I hear someone is pregnant i'm in a funk for a good couple of days. I just want to have a baby with my husband. That's all we ask... So that's my little story...
cheers...
k
This is one of the reasons I had to change careers. I loved my welfare clients, but I just couldn't continue to hear the stories day after day. I would have had to become a bit jaded to have protected myself and I didn't want to do that. Often they were pretty open about their issues, but sometimes I could feel things I just didn't really want to know. I still have to deal with this in daily life, but at least it's not my job.
I'm a Very emotional person. I tend to be the fixer in my family, and friends lives. I have no idea why I do this, other then I'm a people pleaser and I like everyone around me to be happy and it's as if, if they are not happy then I someone can't be happy as well.
I remember in May when I lost my baby, everyone was so nice and tried to be as comforting as they knew how. All but my mom and best friend. My mom acting like it was happening to her. So I ended up comforting her about me losing her grandbaby. My bestfriend actted like she couldn't deal to be around me as if I was bad luck. So I ended up trying to show her I was not luck bad and my lost couldnt hurt her in any real way... Gosh it really was a hurt time for me. And I had to learn to tried and take care of my feelings, and deal with me first and everyone else second.
alicia
silverfairy18@hotmail.com
Thanks Cheri, for making this post. It really helps me because for a lot of my life I have had to step back from people, family actually. One side is alot of alcoholics/druggies. And for years I had to distance myself because all their emotions/drama was hard on me and after watching my mother be terribly stressed and wrecked for so long because of other people I knew what I had to do for me. Maybe its because I too am a creature of habit, but I hated all the drama in my life. And even fairly recent I had to distance myself in a situation with kids. My nephews were abused physically and we tried to get some help but everything went really wrong and we even almost weren't allowed to see my nephews. Social services didn't do a whole lot other than some counseling which at least helped somewhat. It was a terrible ordeal and I cryed alot, and was so stressed I couldn't eat for almost 2 weeks (not a diet I recommend). I finally again had to distance myself because the adults in the situation have a way of really causing others to be stressed and emotionally wrecked. So even though I try to stay in my nephews lives as much as possible and keep an eye on them as best I can, I had to distance myself from the situation and people for my own emotionally stability. It was a hard thing to do being so "close" to the situation, but I couldn't let their chaos swallow me up.
Thanks again cheri.
This fall my boss's son, who had graduated from high school in the Spring, joined the navy. I have not children but I could totally feel how she was feeling. Pain, worry, proud, excited, etc.,etc. So many feelings all rolled into one. My stomach was a mess so I can't imagine how she was feeling. Danielle T.
Sorry you've had to deal with that (and being an empath experience it more emotionally too). I wouldn't say I have much things gone on that affected me that shouldn't have - my mother's cat had to be put down for kidney failure this past week which has caused me to be a bit emotional. We had him for the first 8 weeks of his life and still have one of his brothers so it hurt. Of course that meant noticing a bump under my cat's (their mother) chin made us visit the vet today!
I'm very sensitive to the energy that people give off. There have been some tragedies in our family recently that have me feeling overwhelmed. It's hard to even be around people right now because I can't stand dealing with my own feelings, let alone anyone else's right now.
This honestly happens to me on a daily basis. I have always been like this, but lately it has gotten worse. If someone is having a hard time in life or just in a situation I seem to be able to pick up on it and start feeling awful I basically take on their feelings and it can be very depressing. I especially can pick up moods from my husband. He can just walk into the house I do not even have to look at him and if he is stressed out I will automatically get a neck ache which can turn into a major headache, especially if I do not try to get out of him what his problem is.
I do the same with people that I meet off of the street. I do not know if working customer service for so long has opened this up for me or what. I am not sure if this is a curse or a gift......
Its so nice to read all these stories and know that im not the only one who picks up on other peoples emotions. Im especially sensitive to grief for some reason. It doesnt matter if its on tv or in person, I sympathize very deeply for what the other person is going through and it is very hard for me to shake the feeling.
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