Are you putting up a ‘tough exterior’ just so that you avoid being a doormat? 

You can demonstrate your self-respect simply by maintaining a healthy balance of trust, care and clear boundaries.

If you are a deeply empathetic person, the chances are that you are a magnet for narcissist.  They are so adept at identifying their targets.  They are also very good at mimicking the emotions of an empathy such that they attract or get your attention in reciprocity.

It so happens that most empathetic people are prone to ’annihilating’ themselves.  They seem to have a button ready to commit hara-kiri, almost like a samurai warrior would when he finds out that all his efforts to fight have been nulled and he has no chance of winning.  The only honorable exit seems to be to commit hara-kiri or the ritual suicide.

If you are a deeply empathetic person then chances are that you would too.  When all your efforts to maintain the relationship finally come to naught.  The only option for you then is to go on a self-destruct mode.

How would then find out that you are in the process of committing hara-kiri?

Here are few signs…

Desperation – when you find yourselves trying to empathize with everyone around you.  You start to reach out to as many people as you can in an attempt to give them what you think they might need and hoping for some appreciation and love in return.  You start to spend a lot of time, energy and your resources on people in need.  You become agreeable to everything and everyone.  You want to somehow prove to the world that any situation or person can be changed by demonstrating empathy.  All this for an equal and more reciprocal response.  The danger in this and if you are in this stage of hara-kiri is that you might get more and more disappointed and start to overdo your empathy bit to the point of irritation of others at the receiving end.  If you ever heard people telling you to back off or feeling uncomfortable about empathy they are receiving from you which they didn’t ask for? – then you surely are in desperation.

Rage – If you are often filled rage around people who you feel are never satisfied or do not reciprocate or understand the amount of effort you are putting to satisfy them then you are for sure getting further into a self-destruct mode.  You become furious and start to detest yourself and the values you once stood for.  You drop your nice guy/girl image and got the opposite way.  Becoming agitated, abrasive, rude and often in the process losing friends.  You start to actually blame yourselves for your condition and also berate yourself for being ‘who you are’; hara-kiri.

Detachment – after long periods of rage around people who seemingly have taken advantage of your so-called nicety, you start to ‘shun’ people and start asking for more and more ‘me-time’. 

Are you in a situation where you are yearning for ‘quiet time’ ? Alone time? Then you are definitely moving to the next phase of overcoming your pain of being an empath around toxic people. 

You will at this time feel like getting away – fed up of people, this world.  You frequently talk about going and sitting on top of a mountain peak away from the disturbance of toxic people and meditate.  You want to show that it’s you who is ‘in-charge’ of your life.  You want to regain your self-respect.  Then it’s hara-kiri as would a warrior do.

Now I am not suggesting that you literally take your life, but just to ‘get back your life’. Going through the process of detachment is great for you.  It is like moving from limited contact to ‘no-contact’. 

This quite time helps you to re-discover your self-worth and know ‘who you truly are’.  You begin to rebuild your identity – self-respect!

While the first three stages look quite destructive at the outset; they do help in getting back your life on track after being in a toxic environment and relationship.

So don’t be afraid of committing ‘hara-kiri’! I urge you to go through the pain till you finally find some balance.

Remember ‘Empathy’ is a quality which you must not shun just because of toxic people or to avoid being hurt. 

You only need to save your empathy for people you trust and care about – those people who are capable of reciprocating it.