Forgive me for what is about to be an insane ramble, and with all due respect to REAL empaths, I just really hate this idea, especially if you’ve come from a very toxic and abusive household. Maybe I’m wrong for saying this, but any person who claims they’re an empath because they think they feel way more than the average person, in my opinion very well might be a narcissist. I think this narrative is also really dangerous considering the people that will be reading these types of things about narcissism online. A lot of them are girls and women who were previously abused, and the internet is telling them that they’re probably an empath because they “feel so much”, which can in my opinion usually be attributed to the amount of stress they’re always under, or have been under for a long period of time, or literally anything under the sun. They also tell them that they’re just the perfectly pure and naive little creature for the evil narcissist to corrupt. Yes, I fucking hate my abusive dad, but I am honestly so goddamn tired of this narrative. I believed it at one point and that I was just so perfect and innocent (of course I was, I was a child), but still, I was raised by a narcissist, survived by one, and often times survived by being one from time to time. I think it’s silly to acknowledge that someone has lived in a toxic, narcissistic, codependent household and not expect them to act at all like their toxic parent from time to time. Even if it is a trauma related reaction, I don’t think it’s right to push this narrative so much because I think it excuses not continuing to look inward, only because you have been a victim at some point in your life. For example, my mother considers herself an empath(no surprise to me). Her parents, specifically her mother, was and still is extremely narcissistic and my mom has her own traumas as well. But me being a child when she was still with my dad, and looking back today and noticing how she acted a lot of times, just does not add up. Maybe I’m bitter, I’m not sure, but being spoon fed this story from communities and blogposts online honestly did not benefit me. Maybe it was all I could swallow at that time, I don’t know. Today I have CPTSD, I used to consider myself an “empath” but in the past year I’ve realized, this story just doesn’t align with me anymore and I’d rather confront my darker parts than just talk about how I’m an empath and I struggle feeling so much every single day, or whatever. It’s probably just because of my parents I feel this way, but oh well. If even one person read this all the way through, then thank you. 

TLDR: The narcissism and empath talk that goes on online very much grinds my gears because so many people who have endured abuse have used what they read online as a free pass so that they basically believe they are completely perfect, don’t need to dig deeper into their psyche, and allows them to stay/be very unaware. Especially when talking about families that have people who are narcissists, it is a literal chain. You have to confront everything so you can break the train. Lastly, in no way shape or form am I trying to offend real empaths and psychics or people in the spiritual community. These are mostly people in abuse self help areas of the internet who don’t really know what they’re talking about.