76 | SATURDAY | 30.04.22 | The GuardianLIFESTYLE
Do you feel other people’s
experiences and emotions
as strongly as your own?
You may be a hyper-empath.
It’s overwhelming, writes
Joanna Cannon, but you
can also harness it for good
A
s a very small child, I returned from a weekend in
Cromer with not only a collection of sea shells and a
new bucket and spade, but an exceptionally broad
Norfolk accent. At fi rst, everyone found this highly
amusing, but it was less funny when I was still
talking that way several weeks later. My mother tells
me a similar thing happened when they took me to
Wales. And North Yorkshire. Because, like a sponge, I
soaked up whichever accent I was exposed to. It
wasn’t just accents, either. As a fi ve-year-old, during
a particularly boisterous garden game with a friend,
I ran into the kitchen sobbing hysterically and
clutching my hand. ‘“Whatever have you done to
yourself ?” my mother said. “It’s not me!” I
frantically rubbed my wrist. “It’s Susan! She’s fallen
over!” Because Susan’s pain was my pain and I felt it
just as keenly as if I’d done the damage to myself.
Back then, we didn’t have a name for this
subconscious appropriation of other people’s
emotions (and accents), but now it’s fashionably
referred to as being an empath. Or in some cases, a
hyper-empath.
Relating to someone else’s pain is a natural
human response; we’re all empaths to a degree. But
hyper-empaths are diff erent. Do you sob when people
win a large amount of money on a quizshow? Do you
start to feel queasy if someone says they feel sick?
Hyper-empaths take everything on (noise, colour,
conversation), so often fi nd crowds overwhelming.
Of course, there are many reasons why we might
be fl ooded with emotion, but hyper-empaths are so
tuned in to other people’s feelings that the sensation
of taking on someone else’s experience is
unmistakable. We do it quietly, though, not to draw
in sympathy, or make “everything about ourselves”.
Often we disguise it so cleverly that our own
struggles may go unnoticed. Labelling yourself isn’t
always helpful ( once you’ve stuck one on, it can be
diffi cult to remove) but understanding the idea of
hyper-empathy might explain why life sometimes
leave you emotionally exhausted.
At fi rst glance, a tendency to relate to others so
keenly is wholly positive. “You’re so compassionate,”found nothing more upsetting than an empty
plastic chair at a bedside during visiting hours.
Hyper-empaths relate heavily to other people, and
perhaps the isolation I so often saw in older patients
was something I could also see in myself. Medicine
was an unexpectedly lonely job. I envied people
who could leave it all behind at the hospital gates at
the end of a shift, because I took everything home
with me.
There were no doctors in my family, and although
my mum and partner were supportive, it’s diffi cult
to explain to someone else how it feels to walk the
wards. My concentration was shot to pieces and the
things that usually brought me comfort – watching a
fi lm or reading – became impossible. Instead, I
would sit and ruminate, turning over the day’s
events in my mind, even ringing the wards on my
day off to see how a patient was doing. My hyper-
empathy was at it outside work, too. In a supermarket
queue, I once overheard a complete stranger
discussing a lost dog. I was so upset for this woman,
I spent fi ve hours at home trawling internet rescue
centres trying to locate it. (The dog came home, by
the way – which I’m telling you because I know there
will be fellow hyper-empaths reading who will be
worried about it.)
It seems counterintuitive that people with
hyper-empathy would work in a job where they’re
exposed to extraordinary amounts of suff ering, but
the caring professions are knee-deep in empaths.
Perhaps the ability to understand someone else’s
pain means we’re especially driven to try to help
them , to fi x things. But it didn’t take me long to
realise there are many things we are unable to fi x.
It’s a diffi cult lesson for an empath. The desire to
help someone is overwhelming and, on a slightly
less altruistic level, if you can make someone else
feel better, you will – by default – start to feel much
better yourself.
This was never more apparent than with one
palliative care patient I met. Even thinking of her
now makes me catch my breath. We were exactly the
same age and we’d grown up in the same part of the
world. We knew the same lyrics to the same songs,
and we’d spent our teenage years with the same
posters on our bedroom walls. If ever there was a
patient to bring out my excess of empathy, it was
her. The diff erence between us was that she had
metastatic breast cancer and I did not. I was
involved in her care for a long time, and I had the
great privilege of sitting with her as she died. It was
a moment I will never forget, and it made me realise
I had to do something about my hyper-empathy or
I would go under.
Daynes says it’s more useful to think of it as
“rational compassion” , a concept which originated
with author and psychologist Paul Bloom. She says
it’s important to separate “feeling for” (the logical
quality of caring for others and being concerned
about their wellbeing) from “feeling with” (which
epitomises empathy, and can be the component that
trips us up). If we can let go of the feeling with, but
retain the feeling for, we’ve pretty much cracked it.
The trick is identifying an incoming emotion,
making a decision as to whether it’s useful, and
adjusting our reaction accordingly. If you’re angry
about animal cruelty, volunteer as a dog walker at
your local animal shelter (there is always a need ); if
the report of a serious road accident upsets you,
write to your local council about speed cameras.
“It’s bloody hard, though,” Daynes admits.
It really is. I had no coping strategies as a doctor,
and this was why I started to write. I sat in my car in
my lunch break and began to write a story about two
little girls in the summer of 1976 that eventuallypeople say whenever I complain. The problem is
that, along with your own issues, you end up
dragging everyone else’s pain and anguish around
as well, which can actually be quite draining. I’ve
also been accused of thinking I’m special because I
claim to feel everything very deeply. But hyper-
empathy is so much more than caring and feeling,
and the navigation of extreme emotional reactions is
tiring. Compassion and empathy are positive
qualities, but there is a tipping point.
Kerry Daynes, consultant psychologist and
best-selling author , says empathy (like many sweet
things) is fantastic in moderation but debilitating in
excess: “As a forensic psychologist, often working on
cases involving horrendous acts, I often fi nd myself
fl ooded with empathy. If I allowed it to, it would lead
at best to some bad practice and decisions on my
part, and at worst complete incapacitation.”
It’s a tricky balance, one I battled with constantly
when I was a junior doctor. I eventually specialised
in psychiatry for six years, where the balance was
easier, and though now I’m a full-time writer , the
memory of those days is still vivid. I remember
watching my consultant deliver devastating news
to a patient, and the many crash calls I rushed to
proving futile. I could no longer run sobbing to my
mum, so, on a regular basis, I would lock myself in a
toilet cubicle at the Staff ordshire teaching hospital ,
and very quietly cry.
I found working with elderly patients especially
distressing, because they were often alone, and IIt isn’t all pain
and misery.
Hyper-empaths
are great friends:
we understand
other people
Illustrations: Nathalie Lees