I think I’m extremely empathetic. It is not necessarily a good thing, I view it as one of my biggest strengths and also one of my biggest weaknesses. I do not really have much control of my empathy. I naturally want to put myself in other people’s shoes, to see things from their perspective, to feel things from their perspective. I think it’s because I grew up reading thousands of novels, that it is second nature for me to become someone else, to relate to their thoughts and feelings, without even trying to. This is why I feel no animosity to the person that raped me before, I understand what he did was wrong, but I also feel what he felt, and understand what he thought.

This radical empathy is a strength for certain situations. It was what made me such a strong raid leader, because I so naturally understood what people struggled with, or understood what was needed to focus people on what was important. It is probably also why people say they find me to be inspiring, because when I understand people I also understand what to say to inspire them and make them feel better. I am not always correct, this last time I said we have many good applicants that we are not taking because we value our players, and some people interpreted that as my threatening our players to replace them with applicants. But aside from the few situations where I judge wrong, or the few situations where people are in specific places in their minds and cannot interpret what I say to be positive no matter how I say it (like how I interpret things when I am depressed), my empathy has made me quite a good leader in general.

This empathy is also one of my biggest weaknesses. Since what happened two nights ago, as long as I’m awake I cannot go an hour without crying. I cry before and after work. Before I sleep and after I wake up. I cried during a good deal of raid today. The reason for this is obviously my ptsd being entirely triggered and I cannot leave the mental state of trauma. But the more I analyze it the more I think that I feel this trauma so intensely precisely because of my intense empathy. I know it’s wrong of people to hurt me then blame me for being hurt and making them feel guilty for hurting me. But I empathize with them. I empathize in the sense that I internalize their extreme anger, dissatisfaction, maybe even a degree of dislike towards me. And though I know, cerebrally, that I have not ever behaved badly nor in any way that requires me to feel shame or guilt or anything bad, I feel such anger, dissatisfaction, and dislike towards myself. I also do probably accept any sort of criticism, merited or not, more than most, because I know the people who make these criticisms are sincere in their feelings, and I feel it and see it like I am them.

I think I’m a pretty analytical person, and I think I see things pretty clearly, and know that often a lot of the criticism I receive is less a problem with me, and more just the fact that the criticizers are feeling upset and venting, often pointing to minor imperfections in me to make themselves feel better. But I do not manage my emotions nearly as well as I use my brain. I feel their anger, when they blow up my minor imperfections to make themselves feel better. I, by so deeply putting myself in their shoes, do the same thing, and blow up these imperfections of mine to the degree where I hate myself. I think this is why, though anyone would likely be upset at 4 hours nonstop of people you give all of yourself for criticizing anything they can about you, I think the trauma is particularly acute for me. And anything similar triggers it. Many have told me I should not take it to heart so much, that the people who do this to me behaved badly in those situations, and I should not give full credence to their criticisms. Cerebrally, I know it. But my inexorable, inescapable empathy as well as lack of good mental/emotional management takes it out of my control. And here I am. Crying, crying, crying.