empathy overload Quotes

I lapsed into my pathetic cut-off period. Often with humans, both good and bad, my senses simply shut off, they get tired, I give up. I am polite. I nod. I pretend to understand because I don’t want anybody to be hurt. That is the one weakness that has lead me into the most trouble. Trying to be kind to others I often get my soul shredded into a kind of spiritual pasta. No matter. My brain shuts off. I listen. I respond. And they are too dumb to know that I am not there.

I let everybody else's negative energy feed on me a little.

I'm tired of making people sad and I'm tired of disappointing them and I'm tired of seeing them break. I have seen this too many times. He will be the last.

I tend to be overly responsible for other people's feelings.

I cry really easily. If I see a butterfly, I'll practically burst into tears. So it's really hard for me to yell at people, because I'll feel so guilty about it. But if I don't, then they don't take me seriously and it's this endless cycle.

If anything needs to get fixed in society, it's people's consumption of other people's problems.

We stand a professional distance apart, as if I can’t feel his pain screaming in my head. Mine amplifies his; they share a joint sound—that of glass breaking—until they swell to a crescendo that deafens.

It's always me, isn't it? I'm not really a very nice person, but for some reason it's always me that they come to with their problems.

I am an emotional plagiarist, stealing other people's pain, subsuming it into my own until I can't remember whose it is any more.

I had a strong sudden instinct that I must be alone. I didn’t want to see any people at all. I had seen so many people all my life -- I was an average mixer, but more than average in a tendency to identify myself, my ideas, my destiny, with those of all classes that came in contact with. I was always saving or being saved -- in a single morning I would go through the emotions ascribable to Wellington at Waterloo. I lived in a world of inscrutable hostiles and inalienable friends and supporters.

I just...feel like I need to save everyone. To redeem myself.

A woman's pity sometimes makes her mad.

Sympathy can be addictive and can kill strong men as surely as a diet of nothing but sugar.

It's a big issue for me - feeling like I should be helping every person who asks for something or who has a problem.