Velvet thoughts

My brother says that my biggest problem is that I feel so much true compassion for people. This actually is true. When somebody is in pain, physical or mental, other people say they’re sorry, they express how they sympathize with that person, they discuss their feelings and generally do a lot of talking, “ohs” and other relevant noises, and then they go on about their business.

I don’t.

Instead I feel the pain which feels like swimming in liquid cotton. Instead I get sharp aches in my stomach. I get a numb, pulsing pain in my left hand. I get white hairs. I get a lot of bad dreams. I get a dark and pulsing sadness. I get the feeling that nothing is ever real. In several combinations at the time. The feeling is usually so overwhelming that I usually don’t say much at the moment, because nothing feels relevant or appropriate, which can be interpreted (and often is) as being rude and not compassionate.

And, contrary to what one might think, I sort of appreciate all those things. Not because I like the pain, no. I don’t. It makes me feel sick and helpless and hopeless and numb. I appreciate them because sometimes those emotions that come directly from my empathy are the only thing that give me energy of a certain kind, make me feel alive and make me feel emotions and remember that I once turned myself into an emotional vegetable on purpose, in order to not feel sorrow at all. I blocked all the emotions as an effect of blocking the bad ones, but now I understand that joy would be worthless without sadness.

Maybe there is a way to not feel the physical pain when my empathy turns itself on. I don’t know. It probably won’t happen unless I learn to express those emotions to people (at least to the ones I love) verbally or through the touch (this is where we come back to the communication issues again), which I doubt will occur soon. I’m still too blocked, emotions still hurt me, even the good ones. This is one of my biggest demons. I learn to feel again, and when the emotion is strong I get petrified for a while.

I have to learn to feel without hurting myself.