A Gift, or a Curse?

In Joey’s blog post today (http://perspectiveodysseum.blogspot.com/2013/05/06-something-is-wrong-with-me-part-3.html), he talked about his unique gift of empathy and how it has helped and hurt him in various ways throughout his life.  In response, he asked his readers (Walking Buddies) to respond talking about what makes them special and unique.  So, here goes nothing:

If I had to state what I see as my biggest strength and identifying factor, I would say..... (long pause while I think and look up some terms on thesaurus.com...)

My search brought me to this nice simple explanatory page on the differences between empathy, sympathy and compassion: http://www.stephencrippen.com/blog/empathy-sympathy-and-compassion-101/.

To sum it up, empathy is knowing exactly how another person feels (and why).  It doesn't mean you feel the same way, but you know what they are feeling.  Joey, this is you.

Sympathy, on the other hand, is feeling what another person feels.  This is hard to do without empathy, unless you are suffering from the same situation yourself.  You actually FEEL the same feelings.

Compassion is one of the above coupled with WANTING or NEEDING to DO SOMETHING to help them.  You understand or you feel the same way, and you NEED TO HELP.  I think this is me.

I feel deeply, all the time.  I get really stressed out about things that wouldn't bother other people.  I cry more easily than some.  I get hurt more easily than some.  In many ways I have thought of this as my greatest weakness, but as with the stereotypically difficult to answer non-cheesily job interview question, I will now attempt to illuminate (for myself as much as anyone listening out there) how this might also be construed as my greatest strength.

Feeling things deeply gives me an ability to connect with people on an emotional level.  This is sometimes offset by an innate shyness that over the years has manifested itself in preventing me from becoming close enough to truly trust more than a handful of people.  Those people in my inner circle, however, I trust with my life and would tell anything.  Joey worked himself into that central role after about a year of knowing each other as friends, and after living together for seven years I’d say we know each other better than most of the people in our lives know us, as we have both also changed ourselves and each other during those years to where outsiders might not realize or recognize the differences.

When someone I know is in trouble or hurting, I FEEL pain on their behalf.  I suffer, because they are suffering.  I NEED to help them, to make it better, to heal the rift if the pain was caused by me.  I am a person who cannot ‘go to bed angry’ without doing everything in my power to ‘fix’ the cause.  This has led to many sleepless nights and many a sleep-deprived discussion or argument extending hours beyond any useful conclusion.  When I get upset about something, truly deeply affected by a situation or conversation, I carry it with me for days and weeks afterwards and often recall it in future conversations with that person or situation.

This sounds very negative so far, but the upside is that true moments of joy and happiness stay with me too.  I love to share these feelings with others, whether it is through photos or stories or just (accidentally) retelling the same funny story three times because I forgot I’d already shared and was still so excited about it that I wanted you to know, again.

I don’t have the best memory or attention to detail.  Again, this is something Joey excels at and I’ve always marveled at his ability to recall minute details of everything from the location of a hidden item in a video game he played 15 years ago to what we discussed in our last serious conversation.  For me, the emotions of the conversation are what stay with me long afterwards, and the moments leading to them or creating them sometimes get lost in the shuffle of my mind, much to his frustration at times.

I agree with the assertion by many that moving in with a friend generally turns out badly.  In probably 95% of cases, from my personal experience, a friendship is worsened for having to share space and habits for a prolonged length of time.  This is part of why my younger sister and I practically hated each other growing up but have come to be friends as adults – we shared space, we got in each other’s way, we annoyed the living crap out of each other on a daily basis because of the clash of ideals and just the infringement of personal time and space inherent in living in the same household, especially as young women going through puberty, middle school, and high school, which are difficult times for a girl to get along with anybody let alone other emotionally-charged and confused girls.

There is one instance in my life where living with a friend has strengthened, enriched and expanded the relationship, and that is with my dear friend Joey.  For all the assertions that we were finally at the point where our continued personal growth as adults was best served by beginning to move apart now, I will never regret the time that we lived through as roommates, because those have been the most important developmental years of my life thus far and he was witness to all of it, even the parts I was too embarrassed to share with anyone else.  He was there when I was sick, when I was angry, when I was sad or depressed, when I was broke.

I won’t deny that we reached a point where we started to restrict each other’s growth, by being too insulated, too isolated, to co-dependent.  Where we started having trouble maintaining other relationships because of this fact.  But I console myself with the reasoning that we recognized that fact and took steps to correct it by making plans to get our own apartments this year.  It’s true that this recognition and action took far more time than they should have, that I almost ruined (and thought I *had* ruined) a wonderful relationship because I could not commit to another person in the emotional and psychological state of depression induced by years of being broke and lonely, and that it took me a further year and a half and much urging – again, by Joey himself – to give that particular relationship a second shot when I realized just how crazy I was about this guy (who is now, I am happy to report, my loving boyfriend of six months) and that I was starting to be able to separate myself and my life and relationships from those of my roommate.

This was the year we were supposed to separate ourselves, and we had worked out a plan to do so in a gradual enough manner to minimize my ‘freaking out’ about the whole thing.  We would move to the new apartment in the new town that I had chosen and which I could afford on my own.  Joey would move with me and stay in the spare room for long enough to help me feel settled and comfortable and to meet some new friends in the area.  When I was feeling comfortable and he had split living costs with me for enough time to save up some money for his own apartment, he would move … somewhere.  It depended on the job whether that would be nearby or someplace entirely new, but the plan was always for him to move.

All of you reading this will know by now that our plans got ripped out from under us and switched onto a new path the day Joey went to the emergency room and they found the tumor in his chest.  It’s been two weeks and I still haven’t figured out how to cope with such a sudden and dramatic change, but reaching out, via this blog and to the many friends I have spoken to during those two weeks, and with whom I plan to spend more time talking in the next two weeks, has helped.  My boyfriend has helped tremendously, proving himself more than I ever could have hoped as both willing and capable of being there, of listening, of taking care of me.  Our relationship has been so strengthened and continues to grow that I marvel at the ways in which a previous version of myself would have pulled away from him at times like these.  A previous version would have been afraid to open myself up, afraid for him to see me at my worst, embarrassed to have him see me curled up and crying on my bed and surrounded by dirty laundry and still-needing-to-be-unpacked moving boxes.

This has not been an easy time for any of us affected by the revelation of Joey’s Lyphoma, but it has been an enlightening time, a time of growth and discovery.  I invite you to continue to join me on this path if you will, and to let me know your thoughts, suggestions, comments and feelings as I somewhat hesitantly share mine with the world wide web – partially out of a need to connect and partially in fear of the reactions of others to my self-perceived weaknesses.

In a situation where I feel everything too much, and Joey sees what everyone feels, it is no wonder he understood me so deeply and completely, and no wonder I could never hide my thoughts from him as I did with others who I was afraid to open up to.  He saw me for me, and never rejected what he saw.  And in return, I like to believe I softened him a little, helped him to become more in tune with his own feelings, and helped to prepare him for the avalanche that is coming down the road here aways.

I’ve rambled on far enough for one morning.  Thank you, Joey, for your continued support even when I’ve been too busy freaking out and crying a lot to really support you yet in turn.  The writing, and the encouragement to keep doing so, is helping me to keep everything under control.  And the connections we are both making with our group of supporters will stay with us long after the crisis has passed.

Stay well, my friends and readers.  Please leave some comments so that I don’t feel I am speaking to an empty void.  It’s back to work and normalcy for me for awhile, but I will be back before you know it with some more words to share…

Please follow Joey’s blog as well, if you haven’t already: http://perspectiveodysseum.blogspot.com