Help, I Feel Everything: The Blessing and Curse of Being an Empath

A glimpse into the rest of my life.

Empathy is, without a doubt, my defining trait. It’s also the most exhausting thing about me. I’m the person who absorbs everyone’s emotions like I’m getting paid for it. I can walk into a room and immediately sense if something feels off, even before anyone speaks. I remember people’s tiny quirks, their go-to coffee orders, the random childhood stories they told me once in passing. In a lot of ways, it makes me a great friend. But it also means I carry around a lot of emotional baggage that isn’t even mine.

Apparently, this was obvious from the start. When I was four years old, my grandfather, Lanny Tucker—a psychoanalyst who spent his life studying people’s emotions—told my mom that I was an empath. Not in a cute way, but in a “she’s going to have a difficult life” way. And honestly? He was right. I wasn’t just a kid who felt things deeply—I felt everything deeply. A sad story at bedtime? Ruined my night. Another kid crying on the playground? My problem now. It’s like my brain got wired from birth to treat every emotion within a five-mile radius as something I personally needed to manage.

At its best, my empathy allows me to form real, meaningful connections with people. It’s why I can read between the lines when a friend says “I’m fine” but definitely isn’t fine. It’s why I feel deeply invested in other people’s happiness and go out of my way to do small, thoughtful things—like sending a meme at the exact moment I know they need a laugh or surprising them with that obscure lavender-scented hand soap they casually mentioned two years ago. (Yes, this really happened. Yes, she loved it.)

Empathy also makes me a solid communicator. It’s helped me in class discussions, in group projects, and in any situation where emotional intelligence is key. I’ve always been able to pick up on social cues, adjust my approach, and navigate tricky conversations with a level of understanding that, honestly, feels like a bit of a cheat code sometimes.

But then, there’s the downside. The crippling downside.

Empathy means I don’t just understand other people’s feelings—I feel them. All of them. All the time. I cannot watch a video where someone surprises their grandparent without getting misty-eyed. I cannot watch an emotional scene in a show without fully internalizing it. And when it comes to real life? Forget it. If someone I care about is upset, suddenly, I’m upset. But I'll make sure they won't know how upset I am because making them more upset would push me over the edge.

Which brings me to my TikTok problem.

A normal person might watch a video of a baby deer standing alone in a field and think, Oh, cute! I, on the other hand, immediately spiral. Where is its mom? Is it okay? Is someone helping? Is a 'good' person helping? I don’t even wait to find out—I just scroll immediately because I cannot emotionally invest in a potentially tragic deer saga today. (This is also why I have Google searched “Is the dog okay?” before watching certain movies—shoutout to DoesTheDogDie.com for preventing emotional breakdowns since 2010.)

It’s not just TikTok, though. If a friend is having a bad day, I feel like I am having a bad day. If a random person looks sad at the grocery store, I will think about them all day long. One time, I cried at a wedding of someone I hardly knew. They were crying, and my brain was like, Well, guess this is our problem now.

For a long time, I thought this was just who I am. That being an emotional sponge was just the price of being a good, caring person. But I’m learning that there’s a difference between empathy and emotional exhaustion. That just because I can absorb someone else’s feelings doesn’t mean I have to.

I’m trying to set boundaries—something that, for an empath, feels almost impossible. I remind myself that I can care deeply without self-destructing. That I can support my friends without making their struggles my struggles. That sometimes, I need to take a step back and protect my own energy.

And you know what? That’s okay. Actually, it’s necessary.

Because here’s the thing: Empathy isn’t about feeling everything—it’s about feeling with purpose. It’s about knowing when to step in and when to step back. When to help and when to simply listen. When to scroll past the sad deer video and not feel guilty about it.

So yes, empathy is both my best and worst trait. But if learning to manage it means fewer emotional spirals over fictional animals? I’d say that’s progress.