I wrote this a while back. This is how being an empath feels to me. Sorry for the length. I've been told that this has helped people understand better:

It begins not with a whisper sent from your breath nor does it fall upon my ear

It’s spoken by longing and emptiness calling made of sounds only my heart can hear

Cacophony dawning, confusion now spawning, tempest born from the plagues of your soul

Strangers no longer, forced knowledge now makes us both stand down inside your black hole

Tainted soil now filling the spaces around us, your weakness forbids its falling to cease

For who throw it upon us are the demons that haunt you - your soul they will not release

They tormented and tore you, lied to and courted you, filled your veins with love full of hate

Now that you’ve fallen in love with their madness, decent into their kingdom your fate

For I heard the cadence of your heart in that whisper, its calling was the reason I came

I can take some of your darkness so you can see clearer the path away from this flame

Take my hand as you pass me a bit of your cancer so God has a door to go through

Give Him room to shed light, let His mercy and love repair what you alone can’t undo

Stand on my shoulders, grab rim of dark hole with new strength and reach toward the light

I must stay here a while for some of your demons have now become my own to fight

I bid you adieu for once you have escaped what I have you will no longer need

When I do leave here more whispers will call me, on their sadness my essence does feed

Perhaps down in this hole I’ll linger a moment and sort what is mine from what’s not

And pray as you leave here you find the calm, comfort and peace your aching soul sought

I bleed out your sickness; fill our hole with its rot, bottom rising to take me topside

Where the chorus of emptiness starts calling again and from which my heart cannot hide