Monday, November 9, 2015

The night is yours alone


Do you ever have those moments of realization?

When it FINALLY occurs to you that you are never going to have certain things? 

It's a feeling like drowning. 

And I'm not talking about love and marriage, in case you were wondering. 

The more marriage counseling I do, the less interested I am. 

I am more talking about my family relationships. 

I realized this week that I am an 'over empathizer'.

When I think of each member of my family, my heart breaks for the struggles they've been through, for the good and kind people they are, and for how hard they are trying. 

I hate to see them in pain or sad or not having the things they want or need. If I can help them have those things, I will. 

And I think I have been expecting that from them. 

Even though I know it's not healthy. 

And I just realized I'm never going to get it. 

My family (with one exception) is more of the under empathizing type. 

Kind of the "I'm not going to help you because helping you only makes you weaker. True love is helping a person be as strong as they can be because life is tough". 

They will point out your flaws, your errors, your mistakes, your weaknesses and make you feel like there is nothing good or helpful about you at all. 

Which, if you are also an under empathizer, is great. It fuels you to be stronger and better. 

But, for me, it always feels like an attack and I wonder what I did to make this person be so harsh. 

I just now realized that this was their way of showing love. 

Only it still really, really hurts. 

Because it's not my way. 

I don't know why Heavenly Father made me this way. 

I wish I could be tougher and not be so knocked down so easily. 

I wish I didn't over empathize. 

It's probably what led me to becoming a therapist. 

It's probably been the motivation for a lot of things in my life. 

And it never ends well for me. 

Because you can't ask people to over empathize with you. 

I know this post is kind of emo, but I wanted to put this out there, so that I remember this realization on days when I feel alone and attacked and lost. 

Lori Ann

p.s.- I am making my blog private again. It's probably the right move for me professionally and for other reasons :) 

1 comment:

  1. I like your emo posts and I love the way you can objectively analyze your life and your surroundings. It is hard to accept people as they are and accept what they have to offer without wanting more or wishing they did things differently. I haven't learned how to do that yet. Make sure I still have access to our blog when it goes private or I will be very, very sad.

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