I've realized why empathy scares the shit out of me.

[XYZ]

Bear with me while I explore some fundamental observations about ego and emotions, through my own unique unusual experiences.

As a child, at some point I became aware that other people could tell what I was feeling just by looking at my face, even before I was consciously aware of it. I also observed the way other people interacted, they seemed to instinctively react to each other's faces involuntarily, particularly in the are around their eyes. Both these things frightened me, I felt like I had no emotional privacy: Other people could tell when I'm scared, angry, bored, aroused, mischievous, or sad, and this made me deeply uncomfortable. Likewise, absorbing other people's emotions with no filter via eye contact and facial expressions perturbed me. 

So from around age 8 or so, I made a conscious, determined effort to keep a straight face all of the time, which prevented conveyance of emotion with other people, but also blunted my own experience, and I felt emotionally numb around people. But the underlying psychological mechanisms were still there, I remember lots of times someone smiled at me, and the mirror neurons kicked in right away, causing me to form a smile with out realizing it. Though the moment I became conscious of what was happening, my face fell flat, straight paralyzed pokerface. Instead of numb I felt afraid and/or disgusted usually, like my emotional privacy had been invaded. If it was someone I would not want to smile at, it felt like emotional rape when I was caught off guard and they made me start to smile back at them. 

Several years ago I became aware that something was very abnormal about the way I interact with people, it became very evident at my last job, which involved lots of customer service, and of course, lots of complaints about the way I said things, even though from my perception I was just thinking thoughts and formulating sentences to convey information. My flat affect was interpreted as rude, aggressive or condescending, even though I was just being matter-of-fact, not feeling/expressing any emotions. At the time though I assumed the problem was "I don't know how to make facial expressions" because I never learned due to abnormal childhood and limited experience socializing. I read books on body language, practiced making faces in the mirror, but it was of no help, my face was still frozen when other people looked at me.

Through a long and indescribable process of letting of of psychological trauma, stop repressing emotions and let go of baggage, I'm now able to allow myself to open up to people I feel comfortable with, to look them in the eyes and smile, to react to their faces. It's still not the same as neurotypicals talk though, with what to me looks like all kinds of micro expressions, being all animated with lots of automatic nodding and eye movements. It is still unnerving when people try to make eye contact and facial expressions at me, my mirror neurons trying to get me to react, while my ego wants to avoid any emotional engagement. At this point though, I wonder not what is wrong with me, but why do people do this, what is the point, and how does something that feels so invasive to me like eye contact and smiling with a stranger in passing a thing people do all the time without thinking about it?

I've only recently learned the definitions of "cognitive" and affective" empathy. When I encountered the term empathy for most of my life, I interpreted it on a cerebral level, like observing other people and inferring how they are feeling. I am good at the type of tests that show pictures of people and ask you to describe their emotional states, this is cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is actually experiencing other people's emotions as your own, direct contagion of feelings. Seeing it spelled out like this gave me lots of clarity why I'm resistant to, and overwhelmed by people directing emotional expressions at me and anticipating a reciprocation. To do that would feel like I am surrendering control  of my emotions, making myself vulnerable to feeling other people's feelings with no filter. Someone makes a face at me and I automatically reflect it back, and feel the corresponding emotions. The idea of that is very uncomfortable, if not outright frightening.

There is an exception though, I've found that it actually feels pleasant, even heartwarming, to engage in nonverbal rapport with women I find attractive. It's obvious why, as it is a very sensual experience, and having direct empathy with someone is the next best thing to touching their body. But I couldn't help but feel some unease at the notion that I want to lock eyes and smile deeply at some cute girl, but my body won't let me show affective empathy towards men and unattractive women I encounter. It just feels so shallow and conceited, especially since it's obvious to people who observe me displaying cold, detached, avoidant & dismissive body language towards some, but lighting up and being all warm and welcoming towards a woman who is easy on the eyes. 

An epiphany that pooped into my head while on a walk today is that Affective empathy dissolves my sense of individual self, and eliminates boundaries between self and other. This is why it's so scary to directly empathize with people in general, but why it's so pleasurable to empathize with beautiful women, because in moments of emotional resonance, it's like we're becoming one together. So this definitely confirms my suspicions that I'm actually somewhat of an empath rather than autistic as I used to suspect. I feel emotions on a deep visceral level, and sharing emotional states with people in real time is like baring my soul to them, and I lose any sense of psychological separation. Now I don't know if I am just a hypersensitive person, or if normal people are just used to this and it doesn't even register when they're infected with other people's emotions.

What now, I'm not sure. I doubt that I would want to be emotionally vulnerable to people. I focused mostly on how I dislike having involuntary emotional reactions, but I generally don't feel any emotions towards other people in the first place. When I'm happy I smile to myself, not at people. I've also mastered my emotional feedback loop my being able to feel happy just by smiling widely until I feel the corresponding emotional state, and it feels really good. In this manner, it's like I live in an emotional bubble, where I author my own emotional states and don't want any outside interference. At the same time though I am seeing how this bubble prevents me from forming connections with people when I want to. For example, a few days ago a friend told me how one of our yoga instructors was in a car accident and couldn't make it. All I could manage to say was a deadpan "that sucks" which felt so indifferent and detached in hindsight. When other people heard, they said thinks like aww gosh, and made sad or concerned faces at each other. I don't know what I want really, to open myself up to more empathy, or tune out other people's feelings and keep living in an emotional bubble. 

[Leo Gura]

All fear is fear of losing one's self/identity.

So of course people fear intimacy & deep union with others. Other is the very thing you need to differentiate yourself from in order to be a self.

Self/other is the ultimate conceptual duality which birthed you into existence.

You were literally born the moment you thought: "self here, other there." And you've been under this delusion for your entire life.

Stop running away from feeling emotions. Do the opposite and push yourself to feel more deeply. The purpose of being alive is to FEEL everything! Stop being picky about where it feels good or bad. Just fucking FEEL! Make it your mission to feel the shit out of everything regardless of what it is.