How To Know If I Am An Emotional Sponge And What To Do About It

Tension, worry, sadness, frustration … Sometimes, we come home with pesos that do not belong to us. Our backpack is filled with other people’s realities that often drain us psychologically. This is something that very empathic people experience every day and if you are also one of them, on some occasion you have asked yourself how to know if I am an “emotional sponge”.

Most likely, we tell ourselves that we are too empathetic. Being one of those types of personalities who have a greater facility to fit into the realities of others and to be impregnated in turn with their emotional universe is something frequent. Now, in these cases, another no less complicated factor is added to empathy itself: hypersensitivity.

That is, there are those who, despite being highly empathetic, tend to handle that reality well. The challenge comes when that trait is included in which it is a bit more difficult for one to manage emotions and is even more sensitive to environmental stimuli. Sometimes, it is enough to enter an office where a group of people work to instantly become attached to that stressful atmosphere.

Likewise, there is another obvious fact not without some interest. People who are conceived as emotional sponges have always manifested this emotional hypersensitivity. This is a characteristic that manifests itself in childhood and that often causes them to accumulate certain doses of stress and anxiety over time.

How do I know if I am an “emotional sponge”?

To know if I am an emotional sponge, it is not enough just to know that the emotions of the other affect me. It is putting yourself in the shoes of others with great ease and being impregnated with the feelings of others until you somatize. This emotional impregnation often translates into physical fatigue, headaches, insomnia …

Likewise, studies such as those carried out at the University of Indiana by Dr. Davis Mark show us that empathy falls within a wide spectrum. That is, there are people with much less competence in this skill and there are those who, on the other hand, show a very high sensitivity. The latter, when combined with hypersensitivity, forms the basis of what we commonly know as being an emotional sponge.

Does this imply that whoever fits this profile is perhaps doomed to suffering? No. The truth is that this set of personality traits trace someone more susceptible to any emotional stimulus. Something like this is complicated to handle and almost always takes its toll on a psychological level, it is true (increased stress, anxiety, etc.). Nonetheless, it can be managed.

To know if I am an emotional sponge, it is enough to attend to the following keys …

You “absorb” with greater intensity the negativity that floats around you and you somatize it

We pointed out at the beginning, the most empathetic and hypersensitive people process the stimuli of their environment in a more intense way. In addition, another fact is added, they have practically all their lives somatizing emotions, both their own and others.

This causes, for example, that many people suffer a more severe psychological exhaustion in their work environments and this sometimes leads to anxiety disorders. Moreover, it is common that at some point they end up suffering from the syndrome of empathy burnout and even work burnout .

On the other hand, the simple act of talking to someone who is having a hard time also processes it in a stressful way. In this way, although they connect and feel the happiness of others in a stimulating way, it is the negative valence emotions that take the greatest toll.

How do I know if I am an emotional sponge? You have very specific personality traits

Men and women, children, adults, the elderly … The combination of high empathy and hypersensitivity appears at any age.

On average, to know if I am an emotional sponge, I only have to attend if I meet at least 60% of the following factors:

• Being very reactive to the environment (anything affects me).
• High empathy.
• Tendency to take responsibility / take care of other people’s problems. They need to help, confer relief …
• Show high emotionality. 
• Problems managing emotions.
• Be very thoughtful.
• Tendency to analyze to the extreme each situation experienced, no matter how small (turn that conversation around, what was done in the morning, what I decided yesterday …).
• Tendency to self-demand.
• Process each fact in a very personal way. To the point that if something happens in the immediate environment, you reflect on whether what has happened will not have something to do with you.

• Be very sensitive to criticism.
• Special appreciation of artistic manifestations (art, music …).
• Negative news affects you greatly.

What to do if I suffer from sponge person syndrome?

How do I know if I am an emotional sponge? And if I am … what should I do? … It is common that in the life journey of the personality that combines high empathy and hypersensitivity, disappointments abound, the pain of carrying other people’s sufferings, feeling “burned” at work, as well as elevated stress and anxiety.

Therefore, if you identify with these characteristics, it is possible that you have a certain vulnerability in your mental health. It is therefore a priority that you apply very basic survival strategies in your day to day:

• Move from reactive empathy to self-compassionate empathy. As far as possible, it is necessary to direct a part of that energy that we pour into others in ourselves. Treating ourselves with compassion is asking ourselves what we need and giving it to ourselves. It is also knowing how to set limits to protect ourselves, knowing that we cannot reach everyone and that this is okay.
• Work ecpathy. This concept is not the opposite of empathy, but its complementary. It consists of developing a balancing strategy to protect yourself. Ecpathy is a mental resource that allows us to get involved with others from a healthier level, without being impregnated with their emotions.
• Management of daily emotions. Another essential strategy is to learn to mitigate the impact of our emotions on a day-to-day basis, both one’s own and those of others. Knowing how to identify, understand and lower the intensity of that emotionality is a better way of living.

To conclude, there is only one detail to remember. It is always appropriate to consult with professionals if we feel overwhelmed. Conditions such as empathy attrition, for example, tend to take a serious toll on us. In this way, we can learn to channel and use our abilities in a more positive way.