If you know me then you are aware that I experience the world very intuitively. I am generally unable to accurately report events but tend to pick up on emotions and meaning a little bit more than others. This clearly benefits me when interacting with other people. It can be beneficial in social situations when I identify with another person. However, if I can't identify with someone, it generally hampers our communication. In some cases, I have even been able to find people who I know will be good friends simply by making eye-contact with them, both Kristen and Hayley are good examples of this. Unfortunately, being somewhat intuitive means that I also experience the world via emotions.
My earliesst memories are strong emotional memories. Some of them are memories of happiness but most of them are memories of fear. Not that my childhood was marked with great amounts of fear but because fear is one of the most intensely experienced human emotions. I do not think that this is an experience unique to me. Oddly, I have difficulty remembering many situations in which I myself was very afraid. Perhaps I can remember a few bad dreams that I had but it isn't my fear that has lingered. Rather, it is the memory of my family members' fear that is at the root of many of my memories. I suspect that these memories are colored by the fear of because, at that age, I did not understand fear, only intense emotion.
As a result of being the youngest child and having the greatest opportunity to learn by watching those older than I, I became rather empathic with all of my siblings. At even a young age I felt that I could perceive the emotional states of my family very accurately. Though I would have to wait to grow older to begin to understand the logic behind and the process undergone to reach that emotional state. To some degree I wish that I had never developed the ability to link present emotion to past experience because, while helpful for understanding many situations, it can often involve very deeply felt pain.
when my siblings experience pain, frustration, loneliness, fear, or anything else that leads them to anger or injury I am able to identify, at least to some degree, with them. In some respect, as the youngest child, my understanding of the world around me is proportional to how involved I am with the emotions of others. Despite having social support, comfort, and the ability to retreat from life for a brief period of time I experience the world as raw emotional states. Naturally, when those who are close to me are hurt, I feel that hurt very intensely. And, when the source of that pain is rooted in a dispute between to family members, I feel that hurt doubly. I can feel their frustration, one with the other, can understand the pain that leads to vituperative interactions, and am heavily weighted by their reciprocal agression. When the problem involves more than two other family members with intense emotions and complex expressions, the weight is absolutely crushing. I'm not asking anyone to change. I only wish for you to understand why I occassionally become upset, uncommunicative, and frustrated with the actions of those who are very close to me.
Posted by Mendon at December 30, 2005 3:02 PMIs something going on that I'm not aware of?