I consider myself an empathic person. I am in tune with the feelings of others and often feel them as if they were my own. Having been through difficulties in my own life, I feel it acutely when someone is going through something bad, and more than that — I want to make it better.
Empathy is defined in the Cambridge English Dictionary as: “The ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person's situation.”
I believe that empathy is a strength. In my first career as a nurse, my ability to empathise made me better at my job. I was able to put myself in my patient’s shoes and go the extra mile for them. I had a genuine desire to “make people better,” be it by administering medication to alleviate their pain, explaining something they had previously found frightening or confusing, or simply taking the time to listen.
As a writer, empathy is essential. In order to describe how a character is feeling or behaving, I first need to imagine how I would feel in their situation. You can’t convey emotion as words on a page without empathy.
Empathy, it can be argued, is what makes us human, but is there a downside?
The relationship between narcissists and empaths has long been established. One of the main characteristics of a narcissist is a lack of empathy. They are able to use people for their own gain and discard them when they are no longer useful.
Narcissists often target empaths because empaths tend to see the best in people, forgive quickly, and are easy to control and manipulate. The empath may want to “fix them,” and believe that with help, they can change. They may also have grown up around a narcissistic parent (as I did) and see narcissistic behaviour as normal.
Narcissists are experts in building trust and rapport, creating intimacy, and using it to control the other person. All in all, it’s a match made in hell.
I have been attracted to narcissists my whole life. In my book, The Other Side of Fear, I describe the abuse I suffered at the hands of my husband Serkan. He controlled everything from my finances to my body, keeping me in line with a dripping tap of criticisms, put-downs, violent rages, threats, and cruelty, all while gaslighting me into believing it was my fault.
“I needed to make amends. To try harder. Maybe if I cooked better, cleaned better, had sex better, we could be like we were again.”
Excerpt from The Other Side of Fear
And I’m not alone. Almost every week there is yet another documentary on Netflix telling the shocking true story of women being fooled into parting with large sums of cash by an unscrupulous fraudster.
Like millions, I watched “The Tindler Swindler,” “Bad Vegan,” and “The Other Mrs Jordan: Catching The Ultimate Conman”, open-mouthed as these intelligent, articulate, beautiful, empathic women, fell for the charms of a narcissistic conman.
Since my marriage ended, I would like to say I’ve learned my lesson, but that isn’t entirely true.
A few years ago, I struck up a close friendship with a gay man I met in a nightclub. We hit it off immediately and began spending most of our time together. He was an asylum seeker from Columbia and worked as a takeaway delivery guy, cycling all over the city at all hours of the night. When we went out, I paid, which I never questioned as I had more money than him. Other times he would come over and cook me dinner, so it all seemed fair.
Then the requests started. Small at first. He needed a jacket because he was delivering food at night and the weather was getting colder. He needed an airfare to fly to Madrid for an interview regarding his asylum case. He needed a deposit and a month’s rent on an apartment.
The final straw came when he began sharing my Netflix email and password with people all over the world, without my knowledge or consent. When I confronted him, he blocked me. I never saw my money again.
In a recent relationship, I found myself agreeing to pay my partner’s ex-wife’s rent because he told me she and his children were about to be evicted.
Yes, you read that right. His ex-wife’s rent.
On that occasion at least, he paid me back eventually. But it took a really long time and left me feeling (once again) like an idiot.
So the dilemma I face is this. How do you remain empathic, be a good human, show kindness, help people in trouble, and not get taken advantage of?
At which point do we say “no” and walk away? It’s something I’m still struggling with, but I hope I’m finally getting there.
It’s almost impossible to tell a narcissist or a con man from a “normal” person. They look like everyone else. They behave like everyone else, at least in the beginning. They are experts in building trust and rapport and making you fall in love with them. That’s what they do.
I think, as empaths, we can continue to be empathic, but we have to set clear boundaries and be aware of early red flags such as:
· Guilt-tripping — pressuring you into doing something you don’t want to do by making you feel guilty and playing on your kind nature
· Excessive flattery — we all like a genuine compliment from time to time, but narcissists often use flattery to soften you up and make you more likely to say yes to their demands
· Making you feel like you owe them something — manipulators often do things for you, with the intention of calling in the favour at a later date
· Exploiting your dislike of confrontation — many narcissists will make you feel unreasonable for saying no and setting boundaries. They may start a confrontation with the aim of making you feel uncomfortable and backing down.
· Ignoring your boundaries — whether it’s time, money, or something else, you are within your rights to say no and set boundaries. Not accepting your boundaries is a major red flag in a relationship.
