I have an over abundance of empathy. I feel other people’s emotions as if they were my own and I am acutely aware of so much that so many people don’t even notice. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed by everything coming at me that I can’t do anything more than just sit silently, trying to sort through what are my feelings and what are someone else’s. Am I really sad or am I picking up someone else’s sadness? Why do I feel this emotion when I shouldn’t be and have no reason to be? What do I do with the knowledge that so and so is depressed or scared or needs help but doesn’t want anyone to know? Combine that with my own emotions, me dwelling on accidentally stepping on that spider the other day and still feeling bad about it, stress over bills or work or such things, thinking about what I have to do or accomplish even though I’m utterly exhausted and just want to go to bed, utterly despising myself for mistakes I’ve made in the past and being unable to forgive myself...it’s a real shitshow some days.

I just call it “being lost”. Because that’s exactly what it feels like. So much going on at once that you don’t even know where to begin, how to fix any of it, or even how to deal with any of it.