The 5 Stages of Evolution Empaths Endure
Stage 3 breaks most empaths; Stage 5 terrifies narcissists
The clinical term for a true empath is Borderline Personality Disorder, and if someone cannot admit to the DISORDERED nature of being an empath, then this person is NOT an empath.
Narcissists will often call themselves empaths, but they’ll go one step further: they are SUPER empaths (better than all other empaths!) or “Chosen Ones” (favored by God).
They see empath as a fantasy that means PERFECT.
These fantasy roles mirror their fantasies of being the GOLDEN CHILD in childhood — it’s a form of grandiosity.
Someone that sees the world in hierarchy isn’t empathetic or living in reality; empathy requires humility and the ability to emotionally connect and name/process difficult feelings. It also prevents you from abuse, making it revolting or causing feelings of GUILT.
But narcissists justify their delusions of empathy by asserting that they only abuse “those who deserve it.”
Due to their split thinking, narcissists see the world in terms of good people vs. bad people, and their false self believes in their inherent PERFECTION and MORAL SUPERIORITY. Hence, they hijack the term “empath” as a way to MASK.
But having an overly sensitive empathy is VERY REAL, and it’s not only excruciating for someone to endure, it’s dangerous — it’s a life fraught with abuse and life-threatening danger.
When you live in a world full of relentless suffering, the ability to feel the emotions of others in such a porous way is not only excruciatingly painful, you’ll wrestle with chronic SUICIDAL IDEATION as well, as so many people around you are operating in survival mode on the cusp of DESPAIR.
Additionally, a true empath can’t turn their empathy on and off like a switch, nor do we decide that we are some kind of Godlike superhero who can punish those we see fit.
That’s grandiose. If you can turn empathy on and off, you don’t have emotional empathy — you only have COGNITIVE empathy: the ability to IMAGINE and INTELLECTUALIZE how someone MIGHT be hurt.
A true empath has empathy even for their abusers, and that’s where we become disordered.
We’re trauma bonders, self-harmers, and self-loathers plagued by suicidal ideation and efforts to numb and escape the pain of empathy. We’re also extremely loving and we believe — naively — that redemption should be accessible to all people.
We fear abandonment so much that we abandon ourselves and our own needs for abusers, and we lack boundaries and people please because it’s how we survived our childhood with emotionally immature parents.
The disorder of BPD has widely been categorized as the MOST PAINFUL MENTAL ILLNESS to have, and it has a low survival rate: 80% of people with the disorder attempt or succeed at suicide.
The life expectancy for the disorder is 38, and that number comes both from suicide as well as from medical issues as a consequence of a history of trauma and abuse. We also are frequent sociopath targets for murder.
However, on the flip side, we’re currently the only Cluster B disorder that research shows promise of healing: 50% of borderlines no longer qualify for a diagnosis by age 50…if they survive that long.
(It’s worth remembering that many narcissists lie in therapy and don’t tell their full shames, so covert narcissists can get misdiagnosed frequently, and their presence in research studies is thought to make the data on BPD skewed).
An empath’s archetypal journey is ARDUOUS, and it comes in 5 stages.
There’s a reason many empaths can’t survive past stage 2…it’s a journey to the underworld and back.
But if you survive, a whole new world opens up for you….and your light can be used to illuminate rather than living as a feeding trough for gluttonous predators.