Why Too Much Empathy Can Cause Burnout

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[brushstroke]

I learned this from experience and from Abraham Hicks. You can't get sick enough to make others well. You can't get poor enough to make others rich. Be selfish. Focus on yourself so you have the energy to help others.

[ajregalia]

To the person reading this, this is 100% true and I implore you to make boundaries with your empathy. I get it, believe me I do. The feeling of seeing someone you care about having gone through so much pain and you feeling helpless to get them through it so you feel the least you can do is be an ear to listen. You tell yourself you're okay, you tell yourself you're still a positive person, you tell yourself you can take it cause they need it.

And the thank you's they give feel rewarding, allowing them to vent feels like you've helped them. Being an ear to listen feels like intimacy, like that they trust you enough to confide these feelings they hide from the world. That you're an important person to them and they're an important person to you, so it's okay to be there for them.

But that can EASILY go too far where you find yourself hearing them vent for hours and hours each day but they don't seem to be getting better, that it has been 5-6 months and they're still struggling with the same problem, and that problem has become the largest or even primary topic of your interactions with them.

You make so much space for them, so much room in your life for their problems that before you've noticed you've become not their therapist nor close friend but an emotional sponge for their negativity. And you don't see how it's colored your interactions with other friends, family, and especially yourself. how you've defined yourself as not just an empath but THEIR empath. You've sought value in that role because you've lost sight of seeing value in yourself.

In living your life for another person, and not even in a way that builds any genuine connection, you've allowed yourself to believe that is your worth. But you are worth and deserve SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. You don't have to set yourself on fire to keep another person warm, it is not selfish to spend your time for you. And you may find that person you've dedicated so much love, time, and energy into has never noticed your effort/taken it for granted while calling you a friend.

I implore you to set boundaries and value your time

[babybirdhome]

Empathy is not the destination, it’s the road and the fuel that gets you there. Empathy should only be the tool that allows you to develop and engage compassion - compassion should be the destination. Compassion isn’t about absorbing or feeling what another person feels. It’s about helping to reduce or eliminate their suffering. This is something that can’t be done through enabling someone’s abusive or toxic behaviors, and it isn’t something that deals with them through cruelty, either, because that is the absence of compassion. Compassion is about helping the other person. Empathy is about absorbing from the other person and joining them in their suffering, and/or helping yourself to feel less of your own guilt as a result of witnessing their pain. That doesn’t really do anything on its own and that’s why it should only be the road and the fuel that gets you to compassion.

[lucille-oatmeal]

when i was younger, growing up with internet meant that I wanted to talk and be a shoulder for everyone that I could meet. It felt so easy to listen and spend hours talking to people about their problems, trying to help them with it, etc.
this was a huge mistake. i'm 23 now and dread even the smallest of conversations with others.

[RoseRoseRoseRoseRoseRose]

As someone who helped many people a lot, all I can say is that Dr. K is right ✅️ because there are negative & especially UNGRATEFUL people outside who will absorb your energy for nothing. That's why I became CHOOSY in helping people, that means: when I see a grateful person or a person with positivity for the future & a potential ability of realizing their plans, then I will help them out. But the ungrateful people can stay away from me. 😊

[deiruru]

This resonates so much for me; I'm extremely empathetic but over the years I became burdened by it. I absorbed all the negative energy and it almost destroyed me.

[Luckystrokes]

It's good to be empathic but aware of the toxic people who will just keep using your empathy. It's like a waste of brain power to engage with someone on that lower state, we're talking your mental and physical health , it could be them trying to stress their problems too you, or them trying to take their problems out on you either way you don't have to be a victim, you can set boundaries we needed .

[Jordanx]

I had to learn this after many years of burning myself out this way. Now when someone I care about is in a negative place I just remind myself that it belongs to them and while I can be supportive, it isn’t my responsibility to make them feel better, and taking on their negativity won’t help them.

[elle]

While I do wholeheartedly agree with this point, I think it's important to keep in mind that in occasion there ARE moments where you feeling horrible about something that happened to another person can help said person.
For example, a few months ago I was staying at a psychiatric hospital for my own depression and about one week after I had arrived, during a group session, a girl that I had started being friends with shared her story of sexual abuse she suffered at 14 from her step father. After the session was over and we were walking down the hall I told her "wait, may I give you a hug?". She said yes and as I hugged her, I started crying, like literally balling my eyes out (which I wasn't expecting from myself either) and we stood there, in the hallway, hugging and crying together. Obviously I'm not her so I can't 100% know if I made her feel any better but from what I can assume I imagine a near stranger crying about a trauma you have experienced that your mother ignored and told you not to take to the police for the sake of her and your younger brothers.. must feel very validating.
So while generally I agree that too much empathy can lead to more suffering without helping the person that is hurting, sometimes it can feel like validation and maybe make the other person feel understood in some instances.

[_no.one.is.always.right_]

Emotional contagion is not always a choice. We aren't responsible for it and the other person who is struggling, isn't responsible for it either. Just don't let them depend on you. We can only encourage them and support and help but ultimately *_they have to take responsibility._* We can support them and set boundaries, instead of abandoning people when they're at their worst. I think most people know where to stop. They can stop without judging or hating the other person.
If anyone can't say or do anything good then it's better to not do anything at all and stop pretending to care, and move away instead of confusing them by giving silent treatment or hating them because *hate won't make them change.* It will only affect them negatively.
Just a perspective.

[aellalee]

Yeah. This is why I make an effort to help bring my friends' mood up and won't let them wallow for too long (fully dependant on circumstances of the low mood).
Humour is an important thing in my relationships with others.

If they stay down too much they're not usually someone I wanna be close friends with.

[MaruskaStarshaya]

I can sense a person's feelings from the air as if it's my own, this is why I avoid people who tend to share sad stories or negative moods until we have a strong friendship otherwise I suffer a lot with no point.

[TheKaraqi]

I think that happens a lot to empathetic people who feel powerless and low of themselves. You see someone needs help and you can’t do anything. Im in that category and I avoid negativity because of that (bad news, horror or crime movies). What I deal within me and in my life overwhelms me already so much.

[DrgnMistress]

This explains all the 'bad karma" i experience all my life from being a young child until a few years ago.. BOUNDARIES❣️❣️❣️❣️ & No more other ppl's bullpoop! ❤

[kathrynpassmore]

When my husband went on a 31 day road-trip across country with his best friend last spring… it took me a FULL WEEK before I ‘relaxed’ and quit looking over my shoulder every few minutes for criticism, negativism or anything else that makes me jump, freeze or have the ‘startle’ response on a regular basis. It took less than 24 hours before I was startled again at every turn

[krysidian]

What if you're living with someone that has an incurable chronic illness and their life depends on you? External Help not being possible. The option to create boundaries becomes so astronomically small.

[max_testosterone]

My mother is the most negative person I know. She complains a ridiculous amount, always has something negative to say to everything and generally just radiates negativity to her surroundings in various ways.

When I was a child this caused tremendous stress. We had a dog and I believe he died because he too absorbed the negative energy and just lost the will to live. She has that effect. Still to this day her negativity affects me, it's like her negative voice is internalized. Actually when I was a kid I noticed I heard her nagging in my head even when I wasn't home.

[daffy_core]

okay now lets talk about how to fix it

[saruchuu]

This is how I lost my best friend. I was there for them to the point of burnout. The moment the burnout clashed with my depression from other personal trouble, I wasn't able to be there for my friend. They felt entitled to my support, effort and time and cut ties with me the moment I couldn't show the usual support. While I realize the problem here was their entitlement and selfishness, I feel like things would have been different if I had set better boundaries.

After writing this I realize that maybe the fact that I lost them wasn't that bad, the situation uncovered a side of them that would have shown sooner or later but I think it was a lesson I had to learn the hard way.

[annswallow]

I had this problem with my son. We are both very empathic. It was very difficult to deal with. He had a lot of inner turmiol. He is doing better now.