Thank you first for making me feel less alone in having those feelings. Thank you more for making me feel NOT INSANE.

Teppy, if it makes you feel any better: I had to learn how to shield myself because of much the same thing. And right now, while dealing with grief? I have to consciously work on shielding, because I can't cope with anyone else's emotions.

So, you're not insane. Not even a little bit.

Andi, thank you for linking to your post.

Snowpocalypse update...

The wind must have shifted because it is now chilly in my usually warm apartment.

Which makes me feel insane, because -- WHO reacts like that, to *friends*?

the people who are your friends will understand and keep their distance because they know that your reticence doesn't mean that you don't love them, you just need space.

waves from across the room.

I'm glad if sharing any of that can help. It really is good to know you aren't the only one.

To put it another way: you know what Prom at the F2F is like? High energy -- INSANE high energy, with people bouncing off the walls and each other because they're vibrating with joy and ebullience? That's what these dinners are like for me, and while it's awesome fun and cameraderie for most folks, for me it is honestly like an assault.

Prom IS amazing. But really? Once a year is enough for me. Having the same ultra-high experience at every simple gathering of friends, would be like always having dessert and never having dinner. Instead of being always winter but never Christmas, it would be always Christmas but never winter, nor yet spring, summer or autumn. Too much is too much, even of a good thing.

The thing about empathic shielding is that intention is very much the key. It doesn't matter what image a person uses - cosmic duck tape is every bit as good as mystic white light. What matters is the intent behind it. Design your shields to do what you want them to do. Some empaths will not only shield themselves, but also their whole house, their pets, their children, and (with permission) their partners. You can design your shields to stay open between you and Tim, but put a reasonable distance between you and others. There are those who design their shields to bounce any negative energy back to whomever sends it their way. I choose not to do that, because so many of the people whose negative energy I may pick up, are already vulnerable, and really cannot help what they are suffering. So I design my shields to drain negative energies off into the earth. I specifically design my shields to not block awareness of others' negative feelings, but merely to prevent me from absorbing them. There are some empaths who prefer to be more completely shielded. There are also those who prefer not to be shielded at all, but to protect themselves by allowing negative energies to pass through them rather than be absorbed.

And for someone who is being overwhelmed by even positive energies, again, intent is key. You can design your shields to protect you from whatever is too much for you. And the more you practice, the more you can tweak the visualizations and design to suit you.

I think, without having read the link , that i put up shields naturally. because I can go from being at a party to letting it flow around me. . Sometimes that is a signal for me to leave, sometimes I am just taking a break)

Shir, i don't know if it helps - but even in a peaceful place trying to explain that a woman feels much more vulnerable than a man is hard. one of my male friends asked if i was afraid when i was out alone. I said no -- and he thought I was unusual. And then he explained that all the women he knew check out the are a around their car ,, were careful where they sit on public transportation, noticed strange men on the street, etc. Oh , I said , that is just being cautious and aware, it is a normal part of being a woman . Always wary and watchful of potential danger.

So the simple explanation might be : Women, under the best of circumstance , are often the subjet of minor harassment to major physical violence. Due to physical difference and long standing historical roles. In times of stress - war - economic crisis, etc. the most vulnerable members of society see anger and frustrations focused on them.

and now after spilling words all over the page, i must sleep

Teppy, thanks for discussing this, and WindSparrow, thank you so much for linking to your post. I don't know why I didn't read at the time. Oh, who'm I kidding, I probably did read it, then got distracted by something shiny before I could follow up on it.

I think I've tried to approach personal psyche protection from a purely intellectual direction, and sought a place for repair and renewal in the spiritual. How much more sense does it make to arm oneself psycho-spiritually against the emotional onslaught of social contact?

I've known for a long time that my depression, while not situational, traditionally defined as in my situation, it is nonetheless deeply affected by proximity to the strong emotions of others. So now I have a new clue, and a new direction to learn. Thank you both.

Mmm, very interesting. Meditation is good, but visualizations don't generally work for me. Still, this is good stuff to think about and adapt. I do have issues with this kind of stuff, especially when I'm feeling down or low-energy myself. Remember when River said something like, "I feel everything; I can't not?" Yeah.

Thanks for sharing, Andi and Steph.

Teppy and Andi - I'm not really here, but thanks for sharing your thoughts on empathy and shielding. I have similar issues from an ASD perspective. (It's a common misapprehension that all autistic spectrum types are unable to empathise, but some of us are so far the opposite of this that we get mired in others' emotions - or our misperceptions of those.) I often have trouble distinguishing my emotions from those of others. I've learnt a few techniques to deal with it over the years - mainly NLP stuff, like methods of dissociating from a memory or experience - but I'm not very good at it. Anyway, thank you both for talking about this. It's easy to feel like you're the only one! (Especially when I'm surrounded by lovely, but ridiculously normal people, as I am in my work life at the moment.) Andi, do you have any links to info about the type of meditation you do around this?

In not-unrelated stuff, I have a doc's appt next week, and I think I'm going to stick with the Effexor. It's very helpful, despite a few side effects. It's nice to be feeling a bit better. And to be able to work!

{{{Shir}}} That all sounds really complicated and painful. I won't pretend to know what it's like, but I can imagine (from how messed-up my arguments over Israel with The Girl get) that people's strong feelings over some of this stuff must be very difficult to handle. Especially when people are already oblivious to women's situation in society. I wish you patience and strength. As I was saying to The Girl yesterday (she was stressed over someone who won't think about his opinion on trans issues), sometimes people need a lot of slow, careful education before they even begin to rethink their opinions, but I still think it's worth the effort. Your Hollaback work is awesome, and you are a star. (And insent, on a totally different matter.)

Thinking of you, smonster. You sound like a great teacher.

Chronologically answering:

{{smonster}} I got nothing to offer you but hugs. Sorry. But I'm glad for the chance to hug you, even if only virtually.

Thanks, everyone, and especially Typo Boy for extremely good advices which I'll think of how to carry out. Just after shutting down my computer last night and heading to bed it hit me - I am doing the best thing possible to handle this situation and trying to state my arguments rationally. I do it by doing most of the battle virtually - where I know I can write and write well, where I can edit me posts and comments and emails and think of them before I hit "send", where I'm in best terms of control. And it's working. So I'm already doing all that I can do - wording myself carefully, sensitively and rationally while building a base of evidences from other women and LGBTQ. And when it'll be up and running, I'll be able to say "you know, it's a complicated issue. I have a strong stand in it, but it's better if I'll send you something first in email before we'll talk about it". If I could only figure out what to say by then, well...

On empaths and shielding: Like others, I want to thank you for sharing your feelings on the subject (I didn't know you write somewhere online, Andi). Because it makes sense in some cases for me. At first I thought of it wrt the empathic listening I'm practicing daily thanks to Hollaback Israel and the 1325 projects (and I think that sort of listening makes me a better researcher). I do have a problem there, which I acknowledge, for I am taking upon myself too much (getting better at it slowly but surely. For 3 months I run Hollaback Israel almost on my own, and did it daily. After almost caving in under the stress and pressure, I'm now working on it 2-4 days of the week, and only few hours per day).
But then I understood something else. With the closest to me and my friends, I always pick up their mood. If they're cranky, I get cranky. If they're thrilled, so am I. I know a way of shielding myself from that, but then people think I'm not sociable and all that jazz, and I do enjoy some of that kind of connection. But I never thought of it as something that takes a toll. Not saying that "wow, I'm an empath and all of that!" just from reading about few things online, but it makes sense, in a way, to me. And like other recent posts, I know I can get very hurt from romantic relationship (which is maybe why I'm avoiding from it like The Plague). I remember myself in the past, thinking that I feel too much. I think I avoided full connection with a lot of people for a long time because of that, as a sort of a shield. It's VERY hard for me to trust anyone completely, too, because I'm just not sure if I'll be able to bounce back from a complete and utter feeling of betrayal after trusting someone completely (not just in romantic/sexual relationships). On a daily basis, I have my ways of shielding myself and venting. They might not be perfect, but it's something I can live with.

Stay safe during the snowpocalypse, people. Stay home, drink a lot, and write funny drunk posts over here (why yes, it's All About Me And My Will To Read Your Drunk Posts).