#because it isn't hyperempathy disorder | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

autistic-beshelar · 4 months

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Hey! I'm very interested in what you've told me about antisocial personality disorder, neurodivergence, and empathy vs. compassion so far. I would love to hear more!

hi, sorry this has taken me a bit to get to, i've had a hectic few days, and i knew i'd end up writing a lot!

ASPD:

i'll start by saying that i don't have ASPD, so i'm just going to give the basics and hand you off to people who DO have it. it's important to bear in mind that ASPD is primarily considered traumagenic, and that, like any other disorder, it can manifest in a bunch of different ways, and people with it can behave very differently from one another.

ASPD is a cluster b personality disorder characterised by low empathy, limited range and depth of emotions, disregard for other people's feelings, disregard for societal conventions and morality, chronic anger, and chronic boredom. the common view of pwASPD is that they are violent criminals, but that is primarily because research is only ever done on the worst kinds of people, and i'm sure many of them are misdiagnosed. i'm sure i don't need to explain to you why basing a disorder solely off of people in prison is fucked as a concept, given how both the prison system and psychiatry are both incredibly flawed. (it's also for this reason that i have no scientific studies to give you, because the only ones i've come across are grossly ableist)

having ASPD comes with a lot of challenges, but having a disorder - any disorder - doesn't make you a bad person. from what i have seen, a lot of pwASPD don't so much 'not have morals' as have a deep distrust of authority and base their morality on logic or serving their own interests. in fact i've seen an awful lot of pwASPD who are very left leaning or are anarchists. of course there's also plenty who are right wing assholes, but that kind of goes to show that a disorder doesn't dictate your morality, it just might lead you to approach your sense of morality differently.

ASPD resources, from actual pwASPD:

https://shitborderlinesdo.tumblr.com/post/115096247519/the-anti-social-personality-disorder-checklist

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/your-stories/life-with-antisocial-personality-disorder-aspd/ (cw for mention of csa)

https://inanawesomewave.tumblr.com/post/177638772232/the-bones-of-it

EMPATHY:

my favourite thing to rant about. empathy is wildly misunderstood by most people, so let's start off with a proper description. there are two main types of empathy: cognitive and affective. you will also see some people say that there's a third type, 'compassionate empathy', but i have never seen a definition of it that isn't based on the idea that empathy is necessary for compassion, so i'm ignoring it, and i'll get to compassion later.

cognitive empathy: basically, thinking about feeling. cognitive empathy is the ability to recognise and understand emotions. it is involved with reading people's expressions, or understanding why a certain situation might cause a certain emotional response.

affective empathy: this is typically what people mean when they talk about empathy - the ability to feel what someone else is feeling.

it's extremely important to note that this is fucking impossible. 'feeling what someone else is feeling' is some sci-fi nonsense. it isn't real. the belief that it is causes a lot of harm.

affective empathy, properly defined, is the a person's emotional response to an emotion that they perceive someone else having. it isn't always as simple as 'i'm happy because they're happy'. affective empathy can also be involved in more complicated situations, like feeling afraid because of perceived anger (which leads to a whole conversation about hyperempathy and hypervigilance and the relationship between them, but that's a whole other post that someone who actually has feelings would be more qualified to write)

so that's empathy. it's really just a bunch of feelings that we have about or in relation to other people's feelings. there's no moral component to feelings whatsoever. morality only comes into play when action is involved. which leads me to...

compassion: being kind, not as an inherent state of being, but as a choice.

i'll talk about my own experience here, but i've heard similar from other people with low/no empathy, and i've heard similar from some pwASPD as well.

i choose to be kind because i believe it's the right thing to do. i see a lot of injustice in the world, and it makes me furious - in fact, for me, it's primarily my anger that fuels my compassion. my morals have been based partly on feeling, but also on logic, and on a lot of research. to me, being kind is logical and sensible. it's logical to want people to be happy and safe and free. it benefits me too, for starters.

i don't need to feel sad about people's suffering to want it to stop. and though i don't really feel much empathy, i do still get emotional about things - i can still be sad or angry or happy about certain things happening, it's just... less than other people.

i look at the world around me and i try to find things that i can do to make it better because i think that's my job as a human. sometimes i'm bad at it, and sometimes i'm too tired to, but at the very least i can refuse to cause harm, and when i do, inevitably, cause harm, i can make amends.

(there's also a long discussion to be had about how basing your morality on your ability to empathise with people makes it extremely easy to no longer care about people who have been dehumanised, but that's a post i don't feel qualified to make)

a book i am desperate to read on this subject is Against Empathy by Paul Bloom, but here's an article about it, which is of course not perfect, but makes a lot of interesting points: https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/1/19/14266230/empathy-morality-ethics-psychology-compassion-paul-bloom

i hope that helps explain some things. if you have - or anyone else has - more questions, feel free to ask, and i'll do my best to answer.

#empathy #low empathy #politics #kind of #autistic #actually autistic #there's a lot more i could say tbh but lets leave it there or i'll write an entire essay. with chapters #also i've used pwASPD because i usually see person first language used for personality disorders #and it's not my place to use identity first if that's not the community consensus #but pls let me know if you are ASPD/ are someone with ASPD (or another PD) and have thoughts or feelings on this #identity first vs person first is sth that's interesting to me #disability #ableism

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alostlittleriverlotus · 1 year

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I've been embracing my empathy gaps instead of trying to hide them and it's honestly so nice.

For instance, a big empathy gap for me is around the death of elderly people when it's natural/old age. My friend's grandma died and I'm just there like "Oh." I let my friend know I can't really understand since it is just a part of life, but I'm sorry for their loss. My friend rants a bit to me and I just sit there feeling kind of awkward, but trying my best.

My mom always made me feel so awful for being that way around death that isn't animals or isn't some "dying young or through tragedy thing." To me, death from old age is just something that happens, whatever it may be that actually took them. And especially with older people I don't know, it's like I cannot empathize there at all. They lived a good life, my friend got to talk with her grandma a bit ago.

I was the same way when my grandparents died when I was younger and I always felt so awful for not reacting the "right way" and being confused why my mother was sad over her parents dying.

But I'm allowing myself to experience these instead of shaming myself for them and honestly, having my friend support me is so nice. I just explained why I didn't really care or couldn't find a way to empathize and they understood. All they needed was to talk through their thoughts a bit and me listening.

It's really nice to be able to express this and open up and let myself be the way I am without being shamed or seen as some monster as I've experienced most of my life. I'm hyperempathetic most of the time, but I have gaps cause of autism and trauma as well. And it's genuinely so nice to be able to just let myself be who I am. I love my empathy, but it's also very exhausting emotionally so also allowing myself to not be as empathetic with things is refreshing because then I'm not as anxious or desperate to please or feeling things as intensely outside of my own emotional bubble. In fact my hyperempathy only added to the traumatic event that happened at 16/17 because of how I was. So that's another reason why I have empathy gaps.

Either way, empathy doesn't mean shit in the end. It can help in relationships and understanding, but can also be bad if there's too much of it. Nothing wrong with low/no empathy, nothing wrong with fluctuating empathy. It doesn't dictate shit and there's lots of people who have had it used against em (like me :p) so wherever you fall with empathy, what matters most are your actions, not some arbitrary thing that some people experience and some people don't. Humans are multifaceted and complex, we are different and we all have different strengths and weaknesses, different traits, especially with how trauma and disorders and neurodivergency can affect that.

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ablednt · 2 years

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is “empath” a term with any real meaning outside of like, pseudopsychology? a friend’s therapist told them they might be an empath and idk whether to be concerned or not

Definitely be concerned.

Okay so empath as far as I know started in new age/witchcraft circles as a "spiritual belief" and normally I say let people believe what they want but this is specifically the part of that community that is primarily cis white women and they’d be like "🥺 I'm an empath my spiritual gift is empathy which means I'm just TOO NICE to everyone." They would use their sensitivity and "picking up on everyone's aura/emotions" basically to avoid everything they did not like and to guilt trip everyone who inconveniences them.

Like when I was younger and empath as a term was starting to become widespread in the circle of cis white Christian women in my life they'd say things like "the Black Lives Matter protests are just too hard for me :(( there's so much anger I have to ignore all of it for my health."

I don't know when the spread to pseudoscience happened exactly but at some point white women who weren't into witchcraft still wanted an excuse to be racist (this happened before I heard about it since we weren't witches yet) so they took the term and applied psychology to it. Empath is %100 not in the dsm and it's not a disorder, let's be abundantly clear, however it was very quickly mistaken for hyperempathy so a lot of people got told they were an empath. Said white women in my life told me I was an empath to ignore the clear autism and ADHD (+BPD) symptoms that were giving me all these intense emotions. I casually used those terms for a while as a teenager but never fully immersed myself in the bullshit also hilariously got gatekept by empaths before because they could sense my autism from a mile away and it was primarily an ableist community.

Anyway another shift happened and I don't exactly know what the cause of this was either but it pretty readily has to do with empath at its source being thinly veiled white fragility but at some point terfs got ahold of it and like a lot of them. Terfs were busy painting the picture that anyone outside of cis womanhood (but of course, especially trans women and anyone else perceived as a man short of cis men themselves were the main targets) were "raging narcissists" because they're ableist as all shit of course.

So once they saw empath they latched onto it with a death grip because if everyone they didn't like was an abusive narcissist(tm) then they were delicate little empaths being abused. Because terfs one skillset is weaponizing their trauma against minorities this also made it's way into the ND community itself when the "survivor of narcissistic abuse" community was born and gained traction for a while. Then people who weren't terfs but only ever found these terms to describe emotional abuse started IDing as narc abuse survivors too and shit got real ugly.

Most recently a lot of people have realized that the concept of being an empath is really ridiculous and started satire posting about empaths and this satire was in turn taken seriously so now currently dunking on them is trendy and their numbers are slowly dwindling. Genuinely encourage everyone who wants to mock them and spread misinfo about them because it's funny and taking out a literal hate group.

But anyway to bring things full circle the white witches and pagans in the more appropriative circles (not just cis white women anymore) are complaining about having had their term stolen by terfs and ableists whilst doing nothing to examine the initial racism and other bigotry that caused it to spread in the first place. Like no compassion isn't your spiritual gift janet you just will die if you don't use that as a crutch for your lack of personality.

The only time empaths got any official recognition where books published about narcissistic abuse so if a therapist is referencing it that means they're getting their sources from a eugenicist hate group that wants to mass murder cluster Bs so that's a huge ableism red flag and they're not a safe therapist to talk to even remotely.

#antiblack racism tw #ableism tw #ask to tag

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fierceawakening · 4 years

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⚡ I can't recall if you've seen the show Hannibal or not. Will Graham on that show is described as being on the autistic spectrum and having what sounds like hyperempathy. (It's described as "an empathy disorder", but the character telling him that he has a disorder because he feels too much empathy is Hannibal Lecter, and obviously his perspective isn't to be accepted uncritically.)

I haven’t, no.

#Anonymous

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alostlittleriverlotus · 2 years

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Literally when I say being hyperempathetic isn't all that great, I mean it.

1: I have literally been made fun of and belittled for it. I've been told I'm too sensitive and mocked/laughed at for empathizing with things that aren't real.

2: It can be exhausting. Even a fictional character can bother me and even trigger the hollow feeling I get from my BPD due to pure sadness.

3: I'm more at risk of having PTSD episodes due to news. I love true crime and all, but it can seriously affect me to my detriment. Being hyperempathetic also added to my trauma with my friends because I'd imagine myself in their shoes and would become so terrified I'd be sick.

4: It's so hard for me to set boundaries. Not purely cause I'm hyperempathetic (partly due to trauma and needing control), but I can't say that my hyperempathy doesn't affect it. I feel bad if I set boundaries. I'm getting better at it though.

5: It makes it so difficult to stand up for yourself and makes it so easy for people to manipulate you sometimes. I don't have a great family, my parents are super transphobic/homophobic and yet I still can't help empathizing with them. It makes it difficult for me to want to cut ties even though I've wanted that since I was in elementary school. I'm good at standing up for myself, but it really plays on my guilt and such because I can imagine how they feel and it turns into intrusive thoughts. Especially knowing when I've made my mother cry cause of our fights. Like I know I was in the right (she refuses to accept responsibility or even fully apologize), but it still hurts.

Being hyperempathetic can be a lot. I'm far more sensitive to things and so I have to work harder to manage it. It's never bad to be hyperempathetic and it's fine if a person wishes to romanticize it that has it, but for those that aren't hyperempathetic, please be aware of how difficult it can get for some of us. It is a lot of extra emotional weight and can be quite exhausting, especially if you're someone with a disorder that plays off that (for me, it's my BPD.)

And people with hyperempathy, especially my autistic folks, it's okay to ask clarifying questions especially around emotions. It's okay to set boundaries and say that you can't handle talking about something. It's okay to take time alone to recharge your emotional battery. It's okay to not always talk about people's problems because you can't handle it. Self care is so important and I wish everyone well. No matter where you are with empathy, you deserve so much love and I'm sure this advice can be put to anyone, not just hyperempathetic people. It's okay to put yourself first, it's okay to set boundaries, it's okay to consider your feelings. You deserve to have your needs met too.

#hyperempathy #empathy #autism #actually autistic #bpd #trauma #ptsd #hyperempathetic #high empathy #sensitive #hypersensitivity #hypersensitive #self care #reminder #loving reminder #self care reminder #it's okay #you deserve love

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alostlittleriverlotus · 2 years

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ahhhhhh, another empathy rant. Mostly about my experiences with high empathy, romanticization of empathy, and some issues that come with being hyperempathetic based on my personal experiences. Random thoughts basically.

i dont believe there's any real tw or cw I need to put. If someone believes differently, please let me know and I'll be edit them in :)

I saw someone say empathy is a hindrance (from someone low empathy, it was lighthearted) and honestly...yes? Omg yes it is. Like I appreciate my empathy, I like being high empathy since it can enhance my enjoyment of media, help me to understand others in a way that works for me, add to who I am, and definitely allows me to connect with fictional characters in an especially unique way that most neurotypicals cannot (I say specifically neurotypicals as this is added in by my being autistic.)

But like. Oh my God it's emotionally exhausting. Part of my trauma comes from how I could understand the abuse my friends went through and picture myself in it (I also have an incredibly good mind at having pictures, I know not every hyperempathetic person has that) and leads me to taking on their feelings as my own. Which only adds to my BPD and lack of understanding of who I am or if I'm really feeling things. It adds to my guilt over getting upset and my disordered actions that I cannot control such as when I have strong emotions (especially since that is a part of my trauma and people would use it against me.) And my empathy plays into my sensitive emotions as well. It's also lead me to feeling bad when said person or another didn't feel bad. For example, I'd feel like my oldest brother was extremely upset when the reality is it didn't bother me so I'd be feeling all this guilt and blame when he was literally fine. It's also lead me to getting hung up on fictional characters, replaying the scene in my head for about 5 days and taking on those emotions as my own, leading me more emotional distress.

Empathy can be great and it isn't everything either. I just know, for me with my hyperempathy (related to me being autistic), it can be so difficult. I remember ranting to my ex boyfriend how it felt like such a curse and I wished I wasn't that way and he just romanticized it even more. I mean, honestly red flag, my ex just spoke over my feelings a lot, but that's a different discussion.

I really do hate the romanticization of empathy or high empathy at all. Like yeah, it can be great just as low empathy or average empathy can be, but like, of course it has its problems too. It can be a hindrance, it makes it exceptionally easy for me to become overwhelmed or have emotions projected as my own when they arent. It also has caused difficulty in allowing me to be manipulated due to how I project these feelings of people feeling bad (like with my brother) and me feeling guilty over them. And it has happened because my ex used to play on that a LOT and guilt me over things, knowing it bothered me.

Just like anything, it comes with pros and cons. Low/no empathy has em too, average empathy too. I'm not saying "oh woe is me, high empathy sucks," I just wanted to share some of my experiences. Regardless of where your empathy lies or if it's learned or natural, you still matter and you aren't better or worse for one or the other. These are simply my struggles/experiences and how I've felt about my empathy over the years. I had a period of time where I wished I hadn't had it due to how it was emotionally exhausting and people would use it to manipulate me and make me feel like the monster for something aka adding to my abuse.

Oh yeah and the inclusion of "this disorder has no empathy so you can't have it" like I see with NPD and occasionally BPD (yes people have said that to me, omg it's ridiculous.) It only adds to my imposter syndrome.

I just really hate the romanticization of empathy in general. It doesn't make us human. It doesn't make us better cause we have high empathy or whatever. It doesn't make it some magical super power. It just is. Some people have higher empathy, some people have lower, and it all exists in a spectrum. It doesn't matter if it's high or low or wherever. It doesn't matter if you had to learn it or if you were naturally very empathetic. Empathy isn't even all that special. It's just another part of people that exists and can happen. Low/no empathy can be trauma based or it can be natural like with autistic folks. And in the end, it doesn't matter and doesn't define who you are as a person.

I just was scrolling through some stuff cause my friend got busy and it made me feel really needy for attention and like I needed to be validated and it went into a whole rabbit hole of stuff and that's how I got back to empathy stuff again.

#npd #bpd #empathy #high empathy #low empathy #no empathy #autistic #actually autistic #actually borderline #actually histrionic #actually cluster b #hyperempathetic #struggles #crappy ex boyfriend mention #I'm just ranting about empathy cause I'm autistic and my thoughts are everywhere #I went down a rabbit hole cause my friend was busy and I was lonely and needy

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alostlittleriverlotus · 2 years

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I have mentioned I have high empathy or am hyperempathetic. And yes, that is true. I have also mentioned I have gaps in my empathy, often caused by trauma or my disorders. But how I have come to see it is I have fluctuating empathy. While yes, I am hyperempathetic lots of the time, it is t just gaps. It's like sometimes it's entirely different. Even situations that can be where I'd normally feel so deeply that it could give me a panic attack, I feel cut off.

I don't know if there's a real term for this, but I am aware it is trauma based. Obviously my empathy has never been perfect lol, but it genuinely changes as much as my moods. It reminds me of my aceflux. Sometimes one thing can make me feel sex repulsed and another time it's hypersexual or it's just normal or just none. And that's how it's come to feel with my empathy. Yes I'm naturally hyperempathetic, my childhood proves that, but due to the trauma I've faced, how I developed, and how unstable my identity is, I sort of just change. I just feel fluctuating empathy describes it. I see other autistic folks and people with C-PTSD mention they experience this and asking if others do too. So I know it's trauma based. It's just some thoughts I had. Seeing One/Henry be revealed in the Stranger Things episode tonight sort of made me really think about it. Cause normally that much death, blood, etc. would make me have a panic attack. Because I've had them before. But I looked at them and I felt nothing. No usual pain in my body like before, no sickness, not triggers.

It happens with true crime too. Sometimes I can't even think about it without nearly having a breakdown and imagining myself in those spots and it nearly destroying me emotionally and then other times I'll only be slightly affected and sometimes not at all. And it's confused me for a while. But I think I'm coming to understand it.

Apologies is this is poorly worded, it is also an extremely simplified explanation. I also struggle to explain how things can feel in me as they are abstract and often just experiences. Not to mention how I feel I have to rationalize to avoid being berated or mocked because of trauma. So I tried my best to explain it and I'm still coming to understand it myself. But right now it was on my mind and I felt like saying something.

Minor spoilers for Stranger Things season 4. When you see the "💜💜💜" then that's the end of them and anything below it is safe to read!

ALSO WHERE WERE THE LIES IN *ANYTHING* ONE/HENRY SAID?!?!?! I GET HE'S THE VILLAIN, BUT WHAT HE SAID IS VERY TRUE ABOUT OUR WORLD! HE LITERALLY JUST DESCRIBED HOW PEOPLE TREAT NEURODIVERGENT FOLKS AND LITERALLY EVERYTHING HE SAID WAS A MOOD!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, that is my rant.

💜💜💜

But fr. I just had it on my mind and thought to explain it. It really makes sense now to me. At least in some form. I used to feel so guilty and awful. And I'm glad other people experience it and I'm not alone even if it's not the exact same. Also I used Aceflux as a comparison because in my experiences, that's how the spectrum of empathy feels along with my spectrum of sexuality and sexual feelings. So to me, they are comparable. That is why I used that analogy.

So anyway, that's just my little thoughts tonight. I'ma go watch some more spooky shit. Laterz!

Edit: I wanted to add that some people have their hyperempathy shut off cause of burn out, but it isn't like that for me. Two scenarios can be the exact same and I just go into them differently. It feels like my aceflux, but it also feels like my BPD like how something can trigger me one second and then the next I'm like "dude what? It's totally fine. Whether it's like me or others, differences in empathy can happen! Empathy can be learned or emulated! It can be many different things! It's not some singular understood thing and it doesn't account for sympathy, compassion, or one's actions. It is simply one's ability to understand another's emotions in a different way. Fluctuating is entirely normal for some people, it may not even be trauma related, but mine is. That is just me. And wherever or however you experience empathy whether it's rarely, none, changing frequently, changing at burnout, high, average, often, whatever. You are incredibly valid and empathy really doesn't mean shit :p it's just something that people experience in vastly different ways and some may not experience it at all. Like hopeless romantics, those that need romantic relationships, those that feel little or feel it rarely, or feel no romantic attraction at all. It's another spectrum that a human may be anywhere on or ever fluctuating! And so there's nothing wrong with low, none, rare, or fluctuating empathy. Whether it's causes by trauma or just how you are or some burnout thing or rare instances of feeling or not feeling empathy, all incredibly valid! It's unique to you and no one can tell you what you feel or experience!

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alostlittleriverlotus · 2 years

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One thing I really dislike about people being "empaths" is just how romanticized the term is or how it's seen as some spiritual thing.

I have high empathy (learning about the difference ones, it's high affective empathy while I'm learning cognitive empathy for when my disorders cloud my feelings aka a BPD episode or any jealousy, etc.) and it's part of me being autistic. It just feels too much like that indigo child bs that is just trying to make autistic folks seem like they're some magical other-wordly beings. And this is as an autistic person that identifies with non-human feelings due to my own experiences as well as trauma.

I just find the term empath is too stereotyped into this magical super power than what it actually is. I genuinely do qualify for what an "empath" is, but like- I just hate the term so much. And if you're one of those who fall under it like me and don't mind the term, no hate to you unless you're someone stereotyping "scary bad disorders" or generally being ableist. But it's just a word that I hate and I often feel it undermines the fact that high empathy isn't some super power, it's another part of being human. People have high empathy, people have low empathy. Hyperempathy is common in autistic folks and so is being hypoempathetic. I fall on the hyperempathy side along with a friend of mine while plenty of people I know have lower empathy (not necessarily exceptionally low or anything) or like my brother may be hypoempathetic. Empathy is just another part of being human, not in the way of "it makes us human." But it's like feeling love or not feeling love, experiencing sexuality or not. It falls into a spectrum, a range. Some people feel it intensely, some people feel it not at all. It's just another weird feature of us that exists. It is not some magic super power because we experience it in high volumes.

I've just never liked the romanticization of high empathy as some good and holy being. I have high empathy. I've felt immense guilt over my own actions and it's worsened by my BPD. I've been shitty and transphobic. I've demonized people and used ableist terms. I've hurt people I've cared about and said awful things to them. And as I mentioned at the start, I have lapses in my empathy due to my disorders. I just don't see the point to caring so much about being hyperempathetic. Advice for those with it is wonderful since setting boundaries and such is very important when you're so quick to want to help others cause you can empathize deeply, but in the end, it's just the way some of us are. I don't see a point to romanticizing it or why it's turned into some super power or spiritual thing. It's another part of me that exists. It doesn't matter where you fall on the empathy spectrum. It doesn't dictate most things in the end.

This is just a jumbled rant to say I really don't care about the term "empath" because I feel it turns it into some spiritual super power and takes away from the fact that it's just something some people have. It's not some special power that rare people have. I get finding comfort in spaces, but I just don't get all the romanticization or spirituality surrounding it. And with how many people parade around as "empaths" and go to demonize others, that has added to my strong dislike of the word. Like if you identify with the word and you're chill and all, sure go ahead. This post isn't about you. It just is NOT for me and it comes with too many problems. It reminds me WAY too much of how indigo children is used to make autistic people seem special and non-human which completely ignores the fact that autism is a disability and can have a lot of struggles with it. It feels like just romanticizing the good traits and ignoring the bad that most people often face discrimination and ableism for.

High empathy comes with struggles too anyway. It's so emotionally taxing I wish I didn't have it sometimes. And then it makes me feel worse cause of the gaps in my empathy or when I have BPD episodes and can't stop myself from letting my emotions go and then my hyper empathy makes me feel what they feel and that just makes me hate myself more and convince myself I'm a monster. It's nice I guess if you were taught boundaries and how to learn to manage it, but lol I did NOT get that so I've basically had to learn basic coping skills and boundaries on my own. Which sucks.

Eh, this is just a personal rant. The term itself just feels icky. It isn't even that difficult to say high empathy or hyper empathetic imo. I just don't understand people sometimes. And I'm a pretty spiritual person too, but I feel romanticizing our traits as some other worldly thing just feels like it loses touch with reality. But that could just me being personally triggered since the line between mundane and magic is VERY important for me since I struggle with psychosis and being on the schizospec. And again, this is all personal and how I feel. And I'm about done. That's all I gotta say. So laterz.

Edit: Apparently some empaths use the term as someone along the terms of psychic, but basically just more in-tuned to understanding needs. Honestly I see it so often used as a spiritual term, but also used for high empathy. I just don't get it and I feel even if it was a witchcraft term unassociated with hyperempathy, it has been changed and used in a more casual sense that it loses its original meaning. Cause some articles use empath in a psychology way and some use it as some magical thing. I don't know, I'm tired. I just don't like the word overall at this point. Whether one or another was the original use, I don't know and I don't think I care. If it's a part of your personal practice, go off buddy. It's not for me and so it's not up to me. I just feel there's so much surrounding it that it doesn't even feel clear anymore.

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