Growing up without clear emotional differentiation between you and your family taught you to become an emotional sponge, constantly absorbing the feelings of everyone around you. This wasn't just about being sensitive—your family actively erased the line between where you ended and they began. Whether through a parent treating you as their emotional spouse after loss, making their mental health struggles the center of family life, or declaring "there are no secrets in this family" while violating your privacy, you learned that boundaries were selfish and dangerous. This `hypersensitivity` to others helped you navigate unpredictable family dynamics and kept you connected to caregivers who needed you to be their emotional support rather than the other way around. You developed a "flexible self"—constantly adjusting your personality to match your parent's emotional needs, becoming whoever they required you to be for their stability. Your ability to *feel what others feel* became both your superpower and your *survival strategy* 💪. But now this creates exhausting confusion in your mind about where your responsibilities to others end. You confuse care with responsibility and often *seek solutions to others' problems*. You carry others' stress in your body—physically aching when family members or your partner are upset, even at a distance. You feel guilty for wanting space, automatically wondering "What did I do?" when someone's mood shifts, and struggle to know what you actually want versus what you think others need from you. In relationships, you either merge completely and selflessly—feeling that universal sensation that unites bodies, minds and souls 💞—or feel like you're being selfish and cruel for having any boundaries at all 😔. You secretly believe you must be the stronger one because everyone else will fall apart, making love feel less like partnership and more like emotional caretaking.

The Emotional Absorber

Parent with anorexia and eating disorders

Parent with borderline personality disorder (bpd)

Parent with extreme paranoia, delusions, or conspiracy beliefs

Parent with obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd)

Parent with self-harm or suicidal behaviors

Parent with undiagnosed or untreated personality disorder

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