So for the record, I never considered myself an empath. I did feel empathy throughout my childhood, but once I developed severe depression and anxiety it got harder. I'd just be so self absorbed in my own thoughts that the outer world didn't even seem real to me.

I remember grieving very hard when a cat or a grandparent would die when I was a child. But slowly as I grew older I really hated crying. I hated seeing people crying. It just made me incredibly uncomfortable. I remember distancing myself from my grandmother as she was dying because I didn't want to feel so much grief when she went away. As I grew older and people died around me, I'd just feel this strange little sense of unreality. Once people started crying around me I'd leave the room.

Around 17 I developed severe depression and anxiety, along with OCD. I've been on and off meds for 5 years. They've done weird things to my emotions as well as my sexuality. Currently I'm on bupropion and I'm not sure if I really like it.

Often, I feel completely numb to the events and people around me.

And yet...there's a lot of bizarre things that make me sad. Anything in the arts in the particular can stir powerful emotions in me. I usually hold back tears however since I don't like the sensation of crying and I don't want to be mocked or coddled by other people. Sometimes, nature will give me this strange sense of comfort--I feel as if it knows me somehow. I can't quite describe it.

Sometimes I feel the strange sensation of crying--the tighetening of muscles in my face, particularly my jaw, but mentally I don't feel sad at all.

There's a part of me that wants people to do good things for me, but if they actually do go out of their way to help me I feel guilty and weak. I feel as if I must pay it back to them somehow.

A few years ago, I lost a friend at a young age. On the anniversary of her death I visited her grave. And I didn't feel much of anything for her at that moment. But I wandered through the graveyard and I started looking at all these old, abandoned graves from the 1800s. They were sinking into the ground, their names were faded and overgrown with moss. I realized no one loved these people anymore. No one remembered them. They had lives just as valuable as our own. Maybe they'd be frowned upon today since their values were different, but like they're still people. And that just made me cry.

But there's also many moments where I know for a fact I'm supposed to be sad, but I don't feel anything. There's a lot of times when my friends are talking and I won't listen simply because what they're saying is boring to me (I'm trying to fight this and listen anyway).

Is there something wrong with me? Am I an empath or a sociopath? I'm not sure.