Empath or Trauma Response?

The Study of Empathy as a Trauma Response

In a research study led by David M. Greenberg of the University of Cambridge, two groups of adults were surveyed using different empathy measures. In both groups, adults who reported experiencing traumatic events as children (including death, sexual abuse, parental divorce, and physical abuse) reported higher levels of affective empathy. Meaning they were better equipped to understand the mental state of others and respond appropriately.

Another study published in 2019 followed 84 children— half of which had been exposed to traumatic events from a very young age — to assess their empathy responses when they became preadolescents. The study found that those children who had experienced strained mother-child relationships showed a higher amount of both affective and cognitive empathy.

The study concluded that “caregiving patterns” had a direct impact on the shaping and development of empathy.

Why Childhood Trauma Leads to Higher Empathy

Children raised in chaotic, unstable households or with parents who are selfish and display erratic behavior, learn from a young age to sense what is going on around them. Children learn to sense the energy of a person or situation and react accordingly. It is a survival technique.

Children who are raised by narcissists are also taught that they are responsible for the happiness (or unhappiness) of those around them and learn to carry other people’s emotions on their backs. They hold themselves responsible and are in a constant state of high alert in an attempt to keep the peace and feel as safe as possible.

These children are also taught that love is transactional and are in the constant pursuit of people-pleasing in order to earn love.

This is why highly empathetic and intuitive adults often unknowingly end up with narcissistic people. They are simply reliving their childhood and gravitating towards what they were taught is love.

Unfortunately, it will take getting hurt by selfish people quite a bit before an empath will begin to understand their own trauma responses and start to undo the programming.

Is your empathetic nature a trauma response? Science is starting to slowly understand that it is. And while discovering you are an empath can feel like both a blessing and a curse — simply taking the time to understand why you navigate the world as you do and also become aware of the kind of people who will take advantage of your big heart and caring nature will help you get a better grasp on the world around you.”

This excerpt is from the article Is Your Empathetic Nature a Trauma Response? by Lena Ann on Medium.

Am I an Empath, a Trauma Survivor or Both?

“When you hear descriptive details about someone, like they are profoundly empathic, feel the energy in the room, have well-honed senses, notice subtleties, isolate to recharge, or tune into others mood shifts, do you think, “They’re an empath?”

Of course, they may be an empath, but did you know these identifying details also describe a trauma survivor?

I am an empath. I am a highly sensitive, keenly perceptive, empathetic person who has endured traumatic events in my past that molded the way I experienced the world.

As an empath, I’m not just hearing the conversation, but noticing the energy all around me. As a trauma survivor, my brain comfortably sat in a hypervigilant state, searching for anything similar to my past trauma, hoping to protect me from future danger.⠀

Following trauma, we can have physical, emotional, and psychological changes within our brains. The structure of our brain can change in three ways: some parts grow more prominent, some shrink, and other processes deteriorate.

Three sections of our brain highly affected by trauma are:

1. The amygdala plays a critical role in emotional regulation, detecting threats, and alerting us of danger. After trauma, this part of our brain can grow larger, but unfortunately, through its growth, it begins to overpower the other parts of our brain (hypervigilance. When our amygdala is enlarged, emotions rather than reason become how we manage our responses.

2. The pre-frontal cortex, which is in charge of cognitive processing, becomes smaller and less efficient in response to trauma. When weakened, we lose our ability to reason and process new information logically, and our capacity to recall and store memories is also impaired.

3. The hippocampus supports learning and long-term memory. When stress chemicals like cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine routinely flood our bodies, they can damage the neural capacity of the hippocampus and the pre-frontal cortex.

Trauma and the empath.

Some empaths are afraid of their day-to-day life.

Believing they are powerless over what they feel and perceive, some can worry about what they will sense around others. A constant state of fear can lead to trauma and a hypervigilant state. Hypervigilance can make the empath feel like they are observant of unseen dangers, whether from people or their environment. However, many times, in a hypervigilant state, the threats we perceive are not real.

I realized I was an empath many years ago. For most of my life, my emotional world kept me in constant torment. Life felt difficult. The act of refining the extent of what I felt seemed an unrelenting task.

As I grew older and experienced the weight of personal trauma, it became impossible to distinguish my feelings from others. Finally, I started internalizing everything I experienced, and in hindsight, I see that I equated my overwhelm as proof I was fundamentally flawed.

Eventually, my encounters with trauma, which needed compassion and loving attention, were drowned by the unrelenting pain and suffering of the world around me.

To fully step into my potential, I had to sort out what was affecting my energy in each moment. As I identified and healed my trauma, I freed myself to feel stronger and more grounded around the energy of others.”

This excerpt is from the article Am I an Empath, a Trauma Survivor or Both? by Kristen Schwartz on elephant journal.