”You probably don’t know this but you are an “Empath”.
The man with the white hair says this with a slight laugh.
We are sitting at terminal 1B in Dubai waiting for a flight to Boston and are having a light conversation.
He is a clinical psychologist and we have traveled together overnight from Melbourne on a 12-hour flight. Like soldiers in a trench, we have survived the ordeal. We have talked about our families, our fears, our experiences. Being complete strangers just a day ago, we have bonded over bottles of liqueur in those damp confines of the aircraft.
Of course, as a psychologist, he is always on his job. Evaluating, probing, measuring.
“Never heard of that word?”, he asks amused. I nod in denial. I am proud of my extensive vocabulary and he has just busted that bubble.
“Empaths are sensitive to slight nuances of behavior that others may be oblivious to. If you notice these things, you are most certainly an empath”, he says with a slight emphasis.
I have always known this but now I have a word attached to the mindset.
I notice minute shifts, small things, and almost everything, and by everything I literally mean everything.
I notice when someone stops hitting me up like they used to.
I notice when the way someone talks to me starts changing. That slight passive-aggressive tone in their voice even when the actual statement is just blandly soothing, even patronizing.
I notice the little things that people do and the little things they used to do and when they stop doing.
I notice when things change and when they no longer look the same.
I notice every single little detail even though I am blissfully oblivious to the big picture and miss most things that others usually catch.
People are surprised when I tell them things, they probably haven’t even noticed themselves. They wonder how I know.
However, it’s annoying and at times makes me slightly worried, paranoid.
A sigh from my daughter — Is she sick? What is she not telling me?
A slightly tighter tone when my manager is talking and then an hour later a nice conversation he is having with a colleague nearby — What did I do wrong? Will he ever like me?
I am an empath and I a receptor for people’s signals.
And this is how I survive.
