Hi emi39
My heart goes out to you so much as you try so hard to manage being the 'feeler' of the family or the 'sensitive'.
Just about every family has their key 'feeler' or 'sensitive'. It's the person who feels and senses the most. They're typically labeled as 'The black sheep of the family' or 'The odd one out'. In fact, they are the person who has one of the greatest abilities of the family. I think a lot of the problems can come down to how to manage and master such an ability. It definitely pays to connect with other feelers/sensitives. This way, you're not feeling or sensing alone. You can start to realise 'I'm not imagining all this'. For example, you could have someone say something thoroughly degrading to you and you can feel the putdown. Someone who's a feeler will say 'Did you feel that?!', whereas another person may say 'You're just too sensitive. You're just imagining things'. When you find people who can feel/sense as easily and as strongly as you can, it's a definite confidence booster. You become a part of a group of people with the same ability.
When someone says 'Mental health doesn't exist, we didn't have it back in my day', my response to that would be 'Yes, you did have mental challenges but you were perhaps conditioned to become desensitised to them, something you've possibly forgotten'. You could be super cheeky and add 'Perhaps this helps explain your insensitivity now. Have you ever stopped to wonder why you can't feel for me? Do you think it's because you're emotionally switched off?'.
Staying switched on does come with a huge number of challenges. Managing the volume of what you're feeling can require mastering the volume dial, knowing how to dial emotions or feelings down or even up when you need to. Frequency becomes another thing to manage. How often we feel becomes a factor that can lead to overwhelm. If we're feeling all the time, there's no break. This can wreak havoc on our nervous system, as we feel largely through that system, a system connected to other energy systems in the body (vascular, muscular, endocrine etc). We're an absolute powerhouse of energy. How we manage and master that energy can determine what kind of manager and master we become. Mental, emotional and physical are definitely tied in together, which can explain why our thoughts and feelings can give us a sense of dis-ease or eventual physical disease. Next time you think 'I'm sick of my family's attitude', throw a 'because' in there. 'I'm sick because of my family's attitude. They're part of the cause of my sickening level of unease'.
If you were to google 'The challenges of being an empath', I wonder how much you'd be able to relate to. I imagine quite a bit. I imagine you'd also be able to find some helpful tips when it comes to managing being able to feel/sense so much. You have a great ability that your family, by the sound of it, see as a fault. You're ability to feel/sense is not your fault. Their refusal to address your need for guidance, greater self understanding and self mastery is their fault or flaw. I should add that with greater confidence a feeler/sensitive can become rather challenging and sassy: 'You do realise I can feel exactly what you're saying to me. I can sense the shut down and the put down'. If that's met with 'What are you talking about? You're imagining things', to that I would say 'Oh no, I've learned to trust what I feel and I know a put down when I sense one. My question is 'Why can't you sense it?''😁
emi39, I sense your deep heartbreak and it's time to fully love yourself back to life. Finding the people who are going to help you do that is key to unlocking the way forward.❤️
