By Jeanni Ritchie
I noticed one word coming up in my writing more and more: absorb.
I was trying to heal from my mother’s death, but at the same time, I was absorbing my dad’s grief. I started realizing just how much of what was happening around me I was taking into myself.
I was becoming a human Bounty paper towel.
Remember those old commercials? The quicker picker upper. A huge spill would cover the counter, someone would drop a single paper towel on top of it, and somehow that little square soaked up everything in sight.
That was me.
Someone I loved was hurting? Absorb it.
Someone was afraid? Absorb it.
Someone was struggling? Hand it over. Apparently I had room.
Except I didn’t.
There is a difference between holding someone’s pain and absorbing it.
Usually I’d sit beside someone who was hurting and know that I was holding their pain in my hand. I could listen. I could empathize. I could offer comfort. I could help carry the weight for a little while and then set it down. I knew how to not make it my own.
I could walk in a room where the energy was off, and not let it affect my mood. If anything, I’d take it as a challenge to lighten up the atmosphere.
But now I seemed to be absorbing everything around me.
Their fear became something I worried about.
Their grief became something I grieved.
Their problem became something I felt responsible for solving.
And now I wasn’t simply trying to manage my own hurt, fears and grief. I was trying to manage theirs, too.
Empathy is a beautiful thing. It allows us to recognize and understand what another person is experiencing. But empathy does not require us to experience another person’s emotions as though they belong to us.
It’s called empathic distress, and it leaves us in turmoil. Instead of remaining connected and compassionate while recognizing that another person’s pain belongs to them, the boundary between their distress and ours can begin to blur. Suddenly we are trying to carry others’ pain for them, and we stay in a constant state of distress.
It doesn’t make us more loving. In fact, it leaves us emotionally depleted and less able to help anyone—including ourselves.
I had to remember to care without carrying. To listen without fixing. And to sit beside someone in pain without absorbing their pain as my own. Concepts I once knew that became foreign to me in a time of emotional disturbance.
I’ve done much better with this lately, though it’s still hard with my dad. When he hurts, my heart shatters.
I just have to remind myself that I am a person, not a paper towel.
Some things just aren’t mine to absorb.
