Posted by Cass on July 22, 2004, at 14:27:41
In reply to emotional sensitivity and empathy » just plain jane, posted by gardenergirl on July 22, 2004, at 0:43:24
Dear GardenerGirl and all,
I haven't read many self-help books lately, but I'm going to buy the one you mentioned, GG. I have alwasy been very intuned with the vulnerablility or emotional suffering of others. It's excruciatingly painful. One of my earliest childhood memories is of being at school and seeing a little boy get dragged across a lawn by a dog. His foot was caught in the dog's leash and the dog was running and dragging him. I remember him crying in fear and humiliation, and it was enormously painful for me to see this. It was as if it were happening to me. I also remember adults and children around me laughing as the watched this scene. I knew I was different from them, and it was confusing.
Being very empathic was even more difficult because my unhappy mother was very hostile toward her children. She seemed to only believe the worst, especially of me. I was her last and least wanted child. She tried to teach me that I was an insensitive, unkind child, and a part of myself believed that. Consequently, I couldn't deal with the empathic side of myself. I wasn't usually able to act on it. It contradicted the identity that my mother had set for me.
poster:Cass
thread:368291
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040717/msgs/369031.html