The Silent Struggles of an Empath
Sensitivity wasn’t something I was raised for.
Caring wasn’t something we talked about. Emotions weren’t explored, let alone encouraged. Kindness wasn’t a strength, and tenderness certainly wasn’t a virtue. Looking back now, I can see the contradiction: even as a child, something in me leaned towards care. I had for a while dreams of becoming a nurse. I was drawn to roles that involved holding space for others. Deep down, I was wired for gentleness. But life didn’t exactly pave a road for that kind of person.
It wasn’t until I became a mother that my sensitivity resurfaced in full force. Not as a passing emotion, but as a way of being. The kind that sees, hears, and feels everything. The kind that aches when others ache. That maternal instincts sort of cracked me open. It made me whole in a new way. I could no longer ignore how much I felt, how deeply I cared.
And yet, I found myself utterly unequipped for a world that doesn’t know what to do with people like me. Not only was my way being undervalued—it was often misread. My empathy, seen as an open door for people who had no intention of giving anything back. Caring, it turns out, doesn’t always invite kindness in return. Sometimes it attracts the very opposite.
In most workplaces, care doesn’t make it onto the agenda. It’s not in the KPIs or mission statements. Not even in the very jobs that had “care” written all over it. Being the person who “takes care” of things—and people—isn’t rewarded. Often, it’s not even noticed. Not even embraced by people sometimes who need it. I’ve even witnessed that it gets you bullied. I wasn’t prepared for that. I had no inner map, no external mentor to help me navigate to a space where someone like me could thrive. What I did hear growing up, on repeat, was that knowledge matters. That qualifications count. That credentials are what earn you your place in the world. And that you adapt best by being inaccessible and aloof.
But what if your gift is not what you know, but what you feel?
When I started to unravel the layers of myself on a self-healing journey, I found myself drawn to the subject of trauma. I soaked up every bit of information I could. Somewhere along the way, I read that sensitivity is often a result of trauma. I’ve wrestled with that since. I’m not convinced. Because if anything, trauma seems more likely to breed defensiveness, apathy, or cruelty—not compassion. Then again, maybe some people’s trauma does open the door to empathy. Maybe it depends on how you're wired. But honestly, I don’t think it matters. Traumatised or not—I still deserve my place in this world.
And still, I’ve had to fight for it. Especially when my sensitivity became inconvenient. Problematic. Pathologised. I saw it coming, to some extent. A strange, intuitive knowing told me that my capacity for care would get me into trouble. And it did.
As a mother to a neurodivergent child, I gave everything I had. I went against the grain, made choices that honoured my children’s emotional needs. I tried—truly tried—to do what I believed would prevent the attachment wounds that have become so normalised in our culture. And still, I found myself under scrutiny. Rejected. Misunderstood. Accused of being too much—of refusing to break my children to fit a broken norm.
And maybe that’s what empathy is born from—not just pain, but the inability to escape it. When you’ve felt injustice pressed against your skin, when you’ve been told your will doesn’t matter, when you’ve had your dignity stripped away—then you understand. Not in theory. Not from books. But in your bones.
That’s when empathy becomes a survival instinct.
I don’t know if I was always empathetic. I was certainly perceptive. I noticed things. But caring about other people’s feelings? That came later. It wasn’t indifference—I just didn’t think about it much. What I did have was a strong sense of justice. Even as a child, I couldn’t stay silent in the face of unfairness. Tiny moments where I stood up for someone, where I knew something wasn’t right. Looking back, those were the early signs. The sensitivity was always there. The empathy was waiting for me to grow into it.
These days, I believe compassion doesn’t come easy. It’s not automatic. It’s forged. Forged in adversity. It emerges when you begin to process what’s been done to you. When you stop turning away from your own pain and start letting it teach you something. I think that’s the heart of compassion—not softness, but resilience. Not pity, but understanding.
Some of the worst traumas of my life came more recently. Not in childhood, but in the years I spent trying to parent with integrity—and being punished for it. For loving too much. For not conforming. For refusing to override my child’s needs to meet social expectations. And the worst of it was this: having my will denied. Being told my instincts were wrong. That my integrity was something to be ashamed of.
So yes, maybe that’s where my empathy comes from now. From the understanding that some of the most painful moments in life are when you do your best, act from your heart—and still get cast out. That kind of rejection leaves scars. But it also births a new kind of awareness. An understanding of what it’s like to be invisible, dismissed, unwelcome. And with it, a deep, unshakeable resolve to never let another person feel that way in your presence.
I’ve come to understand myself differently. I’ve always been someone who cared. Life just kept placing me in the wrong spaces—places that didn’t see the value in what I offered. Until motherhood came. Until pain clarified what matters.
Some say that a high sense of justice is a neurodivergent trait. I once read that it’s strongly associated with autism. And now we’re in a place culturally where sensitivity—what we used to call empathy or intuition—is increasingly seen as neurodivergent, too. So, what does it say about us that something as vital as caring has become something to diagnose?
What kind of world labels compassion as abnormal?
Somehow, we’ve ended up in a place where being selfish is “normal,” and being sensitive is “too much.” Where people who feel deeply are seen as weak, or broken, or difficult. But maybe that’s a reflection of how far we've drifted from ourselves. Because those who don’t see the value of kindness, who look down on it, who mock it—they’re the ones I pity. They must have betrayed their own hearts a long time ago, as human an experience as it is.
I don’t care much about the labels anymore. HSP. Empath. Autistic. Neurodivergent. I probably tick every box. But none of those words will change me. They don’t need to.
What matters is that I’m finally done ignoring my sensitivity. I will protect it. I will honour it. I will keep choosing it, even in a world that sees it as a flaw. And if you are someone who still cares—who hasn’t let life harden you—I will fight for your sensitivity, too.
Because we need kindness. Desperately. And those of us who still believe in it—we’re not the problem.
We’re the hope.