Heavy Lifting

There’s a fine line between caring for those around you and drowning in their issues. Excess empathy leaving you drained? Time to lighten your load

- Cassie Shortsleeve

Your friend calls you in tears about her recent break-up, your dad says he’s lonely and your husband is having work troubles. You feel for them, really feel for them and that’s a positive! Empathy, or the ability to understand a situation from another person’s point of view, helps build connections, says Dr Helen Riess, author of The Empathy Effect.

But like any other good thing, you can have too much of it. When you tune in to others’ emotions too deeply, you may wilt under their force, says Riess. Essentially, it can become too much to carry.

Being the shoulder others always cry on can be exhausting and overwhelming, particularly if you feel powerless to change their situation, says Dr Bianca Acevedo, a social neuroscientist at the University of California in the US. And if you lug someone else’s negative feelings around too much, you can become so depleted that you don’t share your own struggles. As a result, you might miss out on getting the support you need and even develop anxiety or depression, says psychiatrist Dr Judith Orloff, author of The Empath’s Survival Guide. Not good, to say the least.