All Up IN Yo Feelings…

First, let me state that I could give less than 55 star spangled fucks if you believe in extrasensory abilities of human beings. They are realer than real.

So, I’m an empath. What that means is that I’m a person that is sensitive to other people’s emotional states. In MY case, I’m SUPER sensitive. It first started when I was about 4 or 5 but I never said anything to anyone in my family until the first time I went to North Carolina in 89. We were sitting around talking to my great-great grandmother *who, in actuality is my step great-great grandmother with her house nigga lookin ass, meh* and she proceeds to run down some family history for us.

You know when folks say “I come from a long line of [insert something here]”? Yerp, perty mush.

It’s not something I can control without a serious amount of effort.  So far, the only time I’ve ever been able to turn it off/ignore it is when I’m extremely happy or extremely mad. To be honest, I don’t think that’s turning it off..it’s more ignoring it than anything because I’m focused on the stimulus of the extremely emotion I’m feeling.

People that are empaths feel *see what I did there?* my pain. If you’re NOT an empath, let me throw this out there for you: think of it as being a raw nerve 95% of your day. You walk around bumping into tables and chairs. You trip and then fall on the concrete to roll about 5 ft. Really shitty right? That’s the bad things. The reason I don’t go to funerals. The reason I hate being around people that make it their life’s mission to make EVERYONE miserable.

The good stuff? It’s awesome. Love, caring, blah blah blah yada yada yada…super dope. The BEST part? The most GLORIOUS/using your powers for evil part? During sex. ESPECIALLY during the sex. For me, it’s always the best during foreplay. I can “control” more effectively what I’m feeling because I’m concentrating exclusively on pleasuring her. Sometimes it feels like when you lean into the wind on a REALLY gusty day. Other times that wave of euphoria and ecstasy feels like you’re a jetti at the shore and the waves are crashing into you but you’re standing in a protective bubble or something. The only thing you feel is the boom of the waves. I don’t know, it’s more nuanced that for me. Hard to explain.

There are times when the shit doesn’t work at ALL. Period. NOTHING. It’s just a dead zone for a cell phone and you keep checking your screen to see if your radio is picking up a cell tower or wifi anywhere. Nope. Nothing. That happens to me most often when I’m romantically interested in someone. I think it’s because I’m “cheating” trying to get a sense of how they feel about me and my body is like “nah nigga..you gotta do this the old fashioned way. write her a note that says I like you. do you like me?”. On the flip side of THAT, it gets AMPLIFIED if I’m romantically involved/interested in someone. That only happens sometimes though. And if I’ve had physical contact with that person numerous times? Meh…psychic bond like a MFer.

The strong psychic bond isn’t limited to me having physical contact with someone. If I feel like I’m relatively close to someone, I get tuned into them somehow. I had to prove that to two of the homies a couple weeks ago. *points and laughs*

Then there’s the smells. The smells are VERY specific to the person. VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY specific. I don’t know why these smells get associated with these people, but they do. I can be sitting home, playing Xbox or a PC game..then I’ll start smelling someone. Then I’ll get a text or an email from that person. Shit is weird and unnerving. And awesome.

I have a friend that smells like baked cinnamon. You know how cinnamon smells when someone makes bread then cuts the loaf open when it’s still warm? She smells like that.

I have a friend that smells like freshly sanded sandal wood. You know how when you walk in shop class and someone was working on something? Like that..but it’s sandal wood. When the wood is still hot from the sandpaper. She smells like that.

There is someone that smells like pears. I have NO idea what the fuck THAT is all about, but she smells like pears. I don’t even know if she EATS pears.

The homie smells like a room full of old books. The door hasn’t been opened in a month or so. Not that shitty smell of new books that been sitting around..but that smell like an annex of a library or something. He’s a good dude.

There’s someone that smells like the ocean after it rains. If you’ve ever been the beach RIGHT after it rains and you catch that first breeze DIRECTLY off the ocean…it’s salty but sweet smelling. That’s her.

Not everyone has a smell. Or if they do, it might not be a pleasant.

Being an empath also affects my depression, obviously. There are days where I feel the optimism radiating off folks and it helps me get through 8 hours at work. Days where co-workers are miserable but the guys that live at my job are happy so that evens out. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.

I’d GLADLY trade this shit for x-ray vision or flight or something.