“I am confused and I want to go home“. This is, personally, one of the most disturbing phrases I have ever heard as an adult. For as a child, I remember the few times I used this exact phrase. What I was really saying is help me!
I know this, because that is exactly how I felt. I developed a weird kind of stutter, my body and voice would shake, I would have tears choked in my eyes, feeling hurt, disturbed and embarrassed. Yet, a loud laughter would come out right after this cluster of emotions. And turning the whole situation into a joke. Pretend that I am OK. Because it is easier to cope with a scary situation when we make fun of it. Especially, when you are a child. When you are much younger you cry but once you get a little bit older you laugh and pretend that everything is fine. That is natural. Call it an escape mechanism or defense mechanism, it is absolutely real.
I have been through that as a child, and as a teenager. But thankfully, not so much as an adult. As an adult, I was able to simply remove myself from hurtful, abusive situations. A luxury a child can only dream of, even a runaway kid, who is returned into an abusive environment or sent to endure another. Blamed for trying to get away. Shamed and shunned. Which makes the child think, believe that this is it. This is life and there’s no way out.
Then when this child grows up. It’s really hard to shift that mentality. To break the cycle. It took me years to realize not all families are a certain way. Almost two decades before I began to realize and distinguish between what it is to be loved, and what it is to be used and abused, for someone to have the urge to control my every waking hour.
Feeling Confused Despite being a grown up
It took me years to be able to say no, to love myself, to realize I do not deserve to live like this and I do not have to accept it. Today, when I go through an emotional cluster, when I am confused, trying to process a situation, when I’m stressed, I still get that stutter, an accent of a sort, I stumble on my words. Being a multilingual, I brush it off as simply that, I sound funny and people laugh. I start laughing too. Just brush it off.
To this day, I am not a good communicator. Speaking in public, I get confused quickly and I cannot focus. I still cannot control my speech. That is one of the reasons I do not have many friends and I do not like talking to people. Probably I am an introvert, because I do not like to socialize. Even when I am surrounded by good people, friends, my heart starts pounding and my central nervous system goes off “Danger! Danger!”
All this goes on inside, no one else sees that. And I think this is why it is so easy for me to spot people who have been through similar experiences. I know exactly how they must be feeling. And I understand their behavior, weirdness. I never approach or ask or anything. I just know.
This is why, I believe empaths are people who have been through a series of extremely harsh situations, and there are only two ways out. You either become the abuser or continue the cycle as the victim. Maybe a third, if you are very lucky and find the right person to love you and set you free. Only then, you become an empath who helps others to love and live better lives. For I was so lucky, I had that person in my life. And for that is what I do now.