Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Empathy

I'm empathic.
Not so much that it's debilitating, but often enough that it makes me uncomfortable.

Sometimes people wonder why I'm not emotional for whatever reason.  Why I tamp down on it. Because crying gives me a headache, and I don't like being at the mercy of someone else's emotions.
It's exhausting.

I would like to think that it helps make me a better writer.  To have the ability to feel deeply the pain/fear/love of others.

Sometimes an event will trigger a memory for me, and I'll see it in my head.  Then I have to figure out if I've actually seen it or read it somewhere.  Because for me, it's incredibly vivid.  It did, for all intents and purposes, happen.

It's one of the reasons I don't watch Reality TV.  Living and dying by choices made and being wound up and all out of sorts is stressful.  I also don't care for the backhanded, back door bullshit that is prevalent.  It chips away at my spirit.

I read "A Hunger Artist" by Kafka decades ago.  Then I had the most horrific nightmare where one of my children and I were the ones in the cage.  It still haunts me.

I can avoid all the emotional rigamarole and only see three minutes of pure emotion, and I'm usually wrecked for the day.

Now.  Having established THAT...

...I'm a HUGE fan of "Bones".  I've explained how I missed it the first time 'round and now I'm glued to it on Netflix.
I felt SICK when Zack Addy was in the hospital, and there was that huge revelation about what transpired.  Now I haven't watched the show in probably a week because the next episode is one in which he guest stars.  But I'm not done with his previous episode!!!
It.  Hurts.
Then there was an episode about having to be a dog down, and I just can't.
Nope.

I don't fancy myself a wuss.  I'm incredibly strong-willed and put together fairly well.  I'm intelligent and can easily separate fantasy from reality.
But when my emotions are all compromised, it does a number on me.

However, as a song lyric says, "I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all."
*******




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