Empathy advice

[pressure]

So we all know empathy can be a female dog.
I was always an emotional kid and never understood that was because I had to deal with other kids emotions on top of my own.

I'm a natural empath and am better at nonreceiving than receiving since I don't really exercise the skill.

Empathy was a vocab word I learned in 8th grade. We learned the basic definition.
When I was 15 (and since I am a writer) I wrote a character who I called an "empath" and described her skills in detail without even having heard that there were empaths. I must have been able to describe the effects so accurately because I was one without realizing it.

But anyway (sorry for the long anecdote), lately I haven't even been able to receive. Not even a little bit. My nonreceiving's alright but I think I'm losing the ability to actually feel what others are feeling. I think I can just *tell* what their feeling because I'm so used to reading body language by now.

The thing is I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. But is it worth losing my empathy just to be happy? I don't know.
Ironically I'm getting much better at sending! Sending was something that definitely came naturally for me. I would give someone a hug and try to place how I felt in them. It's something I learned on my own and I do think I'm getting better at it.

Am I worse at receiving because I'm better at sending? I really don't have anyone to talk to about this.

[JediKaren]

I was able to do empathy, mostly recieve without knowing what I was doing.

I have certainly spent a good amount of time cursing out my empathy and badly wanting peace, yet I would not be the same person I am without it, so as much as I hate it, I need empathy to be able to care for and help others.

[pressure]

thanks for responding.

how can you tell if the person you are sending to can really feel it. it's not like i can ask them since they have no idea that i consider myself an empath. they've probably never heard of one before.