Surviving as an Empath in the Time of Corona

I am here, surviving along side you, and loving you.

Today, I forgot about COVID-19 for an entire, glorious 45 minutes. I achieved this in the most mindless way I could imagine: by watching Vin Diesel cause vengeful, nano-bot fueled destruction in a darkened theater. But, as I washed my hands for longer than normal in the restroom after, the world descended upon me, resting squarely on my shoulders.

As I’ve aged, I have finally started to embrace who I am.

For a very long time, I hesitated to refer to myself as an empath. In much the same way I hesitate to refer to my anxiety and depression as mental illness, I pushed myself to reserve that label for people who really deserved it. As if the things I feel are not enough to be gentle and understanding with myself. I would always describe myself as sensitive, and that I am. But as I’ve aged, as I’ve come into myself as a woman on my own, I have finally started to embrace who I am.

A few weeks ago, I attended a training about dealing with difficult people, during which the instructor spoke about people being in control of their own emotions. He said we should not let other people’s feelings affect us “too much,” but this fails to recognize that some of us don’t have a choice, or that there is no real gauge of what is too much to feel, to little, or just the right amount.

It’s not that I want to take on other people’s emotions, or even that I do that on such a base level. I’m sensitive to energy, and the feeling of a room. The state of the world effects me in much the same way temperature affects me. Vibrations, auras, and planets in retrograde are things I would have made fun of 25 years ago. Through my experiences, I’ve been forced to open my mind and reach for words and concepts that will help me to make sense of my journey in this world.

I have to be careful about my consumption of media and social media. Stories of abuse and hardship my eyes fill with tears and my heart aches, and when I reach the end of the page, that isn’t the end of it for me. The lingering heaviness of secondhand grief and the weight of other people’s mourning is not easy to capture. It slithers through my fingers and runs through my veins for hours, my heart beating with the rhythm of our collective pain. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes there is a part of me that wants to let go completely, to curl up in the dark and let all of that pain channel through me, a ground for the emotions people emit.

My capacity for love and caring is immense, but in the same ways it lifts me, sometimes it undoes me.

My heart breaks over sorrowful things, but also over joy, something hauntingly beautiful might send me reeling for hours or days. These are not choices I make, things I can just be rid of. My receptiveness is also a huge positive in my life because it allows me to make deep connections with people, to love with rapturous abandon. The flipside is that sometimes, the world is really hard to keep moving through without feeling depleted. My capacity for love and caring is immense, but in the same ways it lifts me, sometimes it undoes me.

To say that the last week has been a struggle for me is a laughable understatement. I am exhausted, but that word doesn’t feel like enough. At the end of the days, I feel bone tired in a way I haven’t experienced since the end of my marriage.

It’s been 100 years since we faced this kind of threat, and I’ve been alive for less than half that. In that time, I have experienced emotional exhaustion from my own trauma and living in the uncertain limbo of my own life, but I have never lived in a wholly uncertain world.

The frequency at which the whole world vibrates has changed, my carefully placed moats and walls were not built to handle this wavelength.

In those times I hesitated to claim the label of empath, I never conceived of a world where I’d feel what I’m feeling now. It’s like the frequency at which the whole world vibrates has changed, my carefully placed moats and walls were not built to handle this wavelength. At first, I thought it was just fear. As the days have passed, I recognize nuances and expansions, the loss for an indeterminate period of those things which stabilize our lives and feel important.

When there are school shootings, natural disasters, mass death or destruction or human rights injustices, I have felt the pull, but this time it’s different. The intensity and duration of this disturbance is unprecedented. It’s not localized, it’s widespread, and it’s a strange, heady mixture of fear, uncertainty, grief, and disappointment.

Misinformation abounds, over-reactions and denial, conspiracy theories, a wild vacillation between disbelief and panic, anger, terror, and confusion. It runs over me like water over sandstone until what’s exposed is new and raw and delicate, unprepared for the onslaught.

One friend posts on Facebook asking how we are all doing. Not well, I reply, my mind and body are having trouble adjusting to the new frequency of things. This is my truth, which I struggle to articulate.

I come across a post by Kaitlin Hardy Shetler, and as I read, I deflate and feel the meniscus of my tears quivering until they can’t be contained.

My body feels unsettled. I don’t believe I’m the only one who feels this way — our bodies, made 60% of water, feel heavy and tossed. There’s a hurricane within our veins and when we breathe, the wind tosses our heart against our chest. Surely, it’s not just me, right?

It’s not just the virus. It’s the virus and. It’s the loss. The anticipation of loss. The unknown. In Tennessee, we’re keeping an eye on the weather. In the world, we’re keeping an eye on body counts. In my family, we’re keeping an eye on our girl. We’ve only got two eyes. No wonder we feel so exhausted.

I know I’m not alone, I’m not the only one feeling this. But the majority of my people are not feeling it in quite the same way I am, and the impossibility of explaining that is tiring in itself. It is the difference between feeling worried, and feeling the worry of the world. Energy shifts and my lungs fill with the heavy smoke of things that don’t belong to me.

Our work week ended on Thursday last week, and halfway through the day my coworker asked if I was okay, and I had no answer. I haven’t been laughing as much as usual. I am quiet. My eyes are sunken, I am visibly exhausted. I fell asleep on the mail-room futon and snored with abandon on my lunch break.

Though I can feel that I’m not quite right, I am also aware of that wrongness.

Beyond my lack of explanations, the last thing I want to do is worry people. There is enough to worry about right now, and though I can feel that I’m not quite right, I am also aware of that wrongness. I am not okay, but I am okay. I am not worried about myself, because if I get sick I will likely recover just fine, and I have a job where I work with less than 10 people in the office, and my kids have another parent to stay with them for the 6 or more weeks of school closure.

But I don’t have the words to explain why I am so worried about so many strangers. It isn’t logical for me to worry about everyone, and yet, here I am. I know people who are sick, right now. I know people who are worried about their jobs, who are worried about losing their businesses, their livelihoods. This is a time of loss, and the amount of loss won’t be known for quite some time.

In this time of coronavirus, I survive by the grace of cozy fleece pants and Jurassic Park 3 watched in the dark with my head on my boyfriends lap. I allowed myself to nap three of the last four days without worrying about whether there were other things I should be doing. The upside of all of this is I am throwing expectations and pressure out the window, and embracing indulgence in the most caring self-care I can think of.

I have support. I have outlets, and a three day weekend to unplug and rest, and a partner who supports my naps, and a box of brownie mix. I have my brain, reminding me to take it one step at a time. That it is okay if all I can do right now is read the stupid feed on CNN and put one foot in front of the other.

It’s okay if that’s all you can do, too. Right now, we must all survive this in the ways we know how. Forget plans and appearances. Let your house be messy while you take an extra long, extra hot bath. Give your kids more screen time than normal. Use the cat sleeping in your lap as an excuse to just sit and breathe. Binge-watch The Great British Baking Show.

Tell your friends and family how much you love them. Remember that I am here, surviving along side you, and loving you.

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