MagickFromtheMysts wrote:I am, among many things, a type of empath. No, if your bones hurt or your muscles ache, I will not feel that in my own physical body... but if your spirit sighs, your soul cries, if your heart breaks, if your mind quakes, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will know it, I will know the source of it, and I will know the path out of that pain. I can't help it. It's what makes me such a great therapist...

It's also what was killing me.

Imagine, for a moment... that every thought, every emotion, your conscious mind has... has a sound. Imagine now that every thought and emotion your SUBCONSCIOUS LAYERS have, have a sound.

Now imagine that every life-form on the planet has those layers - and that some of those life forms, such as trees, plants, grasses, have not only individual layers, but also hive-layers.

Now imagine that the very stars have those layers.

Now imagine that every life-form and spirit on the Astral has those layers.

Now imagine that those layers go backwards in time towards your physical birth... and forwards into your physical death.

Now imagine that those layers go beyond this lifetime... and into the past lives and future lives that you are living.

Now imagine ALL THAT INFORMATION... constantly pouring into one... tiny... little... brain.

That's the kind of empath I am.

It kind of sucks. I don't go out much. And... it was frying me. Physically. The migraines began about 13 years ago. It started with one. A year later, I got several. Slowly, over so much time, I didn't even really understand what was happening, the energy built up, until I was literally having a migraine or two a week, and sometimes, those migraines were lasting two or three days. Several times, the migraines lasted over five.

After a while, you learn to live with that kind of pain. You learn to wake up, haul your ass out of bed, determine your level of functionality, make a list of what you can probably accomplish that day, and push. And keep pushing. You learn how to wear sunglasses in the middle of the night at Walmart, and not worry about the fact that you look like a coked-out freak. You learn that walk-in closets with a towel across the door, and blackout curtains, are your savior. You learn that those black and white sparkles and the sudden ability to smell what the neighbors cooked for dinner last week means it's time to take a pill. Or maybe two. With Tylenol for added insurance. You learn to vacuum in the dark with ear-plugs in. You learn, in essence, how to move, ANYWAY.

I've known about shields for the majority of my life. For me, however, shielding doesn't seem to work. I can SEE them, sure... they just... aren't real to me. I really mean that. I've walked up to some of the most amazing practitioners, even long distance, and connected with them... and their shields, for me, weren't there. So... people can't keep me from reading them - all that information is going to come flying into my head whether we like it or not... and I gotta say, my vote's with the nots. Slowly, over the years, I've learned to push the current underground, so the majority of the information I receive constantly is all... subconscious noise. Still there, but I can ignore it. Give you the ILLUSION of privacy. But that doesn't solve the problem.

I'm a wide open receiver, and in this one situation, I cannot keep you out... and I cannot keep me in. I don't know why I'm made that way. I mean... I've helped a LOT of people with this particular gift, sure... but in the mean time... all that emotion, all that information, has been building in my system. Sure, I cleanse myself daily... but with such a constant massive influx, I may as well be bathing in MUD... the effectiveness is about the same.

Until I discovered Creepy Hollows, I'd just about resigned myself to Burnout. I'd recognized that the pain was going to get worse. The arthritis was spreading, and the migraines were becoming more frequent, more debilitating, and lasting longer and longer. I was becoming more and more reclusive. I had given up, given in to the idea that, eventually, I was going to help that last person, and I was going to get that final snap in my head, and I was going to be a vegetable. I'd even started to find a way to be ok with it all. After all... I am helping people to live better, happier, healthier lives.... and there's a ripple with that... when I help someone regain themselves and find their purpose, they go out and do that purpose... and that helps OTHER people... and THAT helps even MORE people... It was good enough, I told myself.

And then, my friend May sent me a Volkh, and a couple of Creepy Hollows spells - Gros Bon Ange being the most significant.

Volkhs eat negative energy - which means that whatever the world sends at me, my Volkh is there to eat. I still get the information, but it's not burdened by negative energy that attacks my system and corrupts my physical and energetic structures. Combined with the Gros Bon Ange, which allowed my physical body to, essentially, CATCH UP to my spiritual body in terms of vibration, thus allowing my physical body the ability to CHANNEL all that energy my spiritual nature was drawing to it, suddenly, I'm doing OK.

I have, at last count, 8 healing spirits, if you count the Volkh. I have a Gold Dragon and a Feldgrau Dragon, both who specialize in different types of healing (the Feldgrau specializes in energetic healing, the Gold in physical healing), I have five healer spirits from Lisa - a Zimada, a Moon Whisper, a Sin Eater, an Undine, and a Cherub.

I also have many healing and cleansing spells, which I and my spirits use to keep me at my best.

The last headache I had that was NOT a bonding headache was the result of a storm that was going to be coming through the next day, and because it was the result of a hurricane south of us, it would probably be around for a few days. Pressure changes register with me, sometimes DAYS before the actual weather hits... and a storm can lay me out for nearly a week... up to three days before the storms hit, the days the storms are around, and about a day afterwards just to recover. When I mentioned that I missed being able to actually ENJOY storms, that once they had been things of awesome majesty, and now the coming of them only meant PAIN... I got suddenly extremely sleepy.... I went to bed... and I woke up without pain.

I have not had a storm-related headache since.

I have not had a psychic-related headache in the past three months.

For once in my life... I actually feel optimistic about my physical future. I actually feel like it might not be a bad thing to go out in public. Of course, I take every protective and cleansing item I own, and when I get home I use every cleansing and healing object in my household to clean up any possible mess, but I can do it.

I can sit in Applebee's during the dinner rush.

I can go to Walmart on a Friday evening.

I can live... and it won't lay me out for a week. It won't kill me, slowly.

If you're anything like me... and you need help... This is the place to be. This is where you begin to save yourself. This is where you learn to be alive, and not stumble through life, mindlessly in pain. This is where you discover...

HOPE.

Brightest blessings...
Selqet

MagickFromtheMysts wrote:NOTE: All the above go either on my skin or in my pockets. The purse is not close enough to my aura for the spells to do quite as much good... contact makes their impact MUCH greater.

Likes2Read wrote:I've only had a limited number of times when sensitivity ran rampant, thank goodness. It wasn't unending empathy in those cases, but telepathy that would not quit.

Once, during my first semester in college, I was taking the final exam in Accounting 101. It was a huge lecture hall with a lot of students, and we had a proctor, rather than our regular instructor, for the exam. They handed out the exams and the blue books, and everyone went to work on the exams.

And I was distracted by all the talking in the room. It sounded like everyone was blabbing all at once. It got on my nerves immediately, and I thought, "Why isn't the proctor telling people to be quiet! Its the freaking FINAL EXAM, for Pete's sake!" And I looked around angrily.

And everyone was focused on their exam. Everyone. Not one person was speaking to anyone else, and yet I could still hear the noise.

That was when it dawned on me that my EARS weren't doing the hearing. It was telepathic. It just SOUNDED like it was auditory voices.

Well, poop. I could hardly blame the proctor for not silencing people from THINKING too loudly, could I? So I did my best to ignore the noise and train my focus on the exam. I got a good grade in that class, so I must have been doing something right, but it sure was an annoying way to take a final.

Then there was the time that I joined a bunch of friends in going to a housewarming party for a friend. There was a crowd there, and some of us (including me) were nonsmokers. The others, including the person whose party it was, smoked not just tobacco products, but pot. When products made from the latter were ignited, the non-smokers in the group TRIED to stay in the living room for a while to be sociable, but eventually we retreated to the kitchen and played cards. Crazy Eights, IIRC. But I digress.

During the game, I suddenly knew which card the person after me was going to throw down. Not just the suit, not just the face value, but both. And she did. I thought, "Cool." In the next turn, it happened again. And again. And then I randomly thought of a different friend and abruptly saw in my mind's eye that he was with a particular classmate in a romantic restaurant (later verified to be true). And the info kept pouring in. At some point, I realized that I couldn't shut off the info faucet, no matter what I did. Then it dawned on me -- it was probably the fault of our staying in that smoke-filled room for all those minutes. Inhaling that secondhand smoke made my extra senses go haywire. I had to wait hours for it to wear off on its own, and I was NOT happy about it. Chalk up another reason I don't get drunk or high, lol. First of all, am I more than goofy enough without chemical enhancement Second, I really have no desire for more out-of-control telepathic input.

I'm glad you found spirits and cleansing items that work for you! If my experiences were aggravating enough that I still remember them 30 years later, I can't imagine what it's like to have unending torrential overloads of input 24/7/365. If you haven't got CH's Convert Negative Energy to Positive Energy item, that's a device you might want to look into, too. I have been carrying mine on my person as close to 24/7 as humanly possible in the past few weeks, because I have had some dreadfully upsetting stuff going on. The combo of this item plus all my spirits working overtime is probably the only reason I haven't had a bout of major depression while this stuff is going on. Bless my spirit family, they've been very attentive!

Oh, and for migraines, the only thing that I've ever found that will stop a headache in its tracks is an Imitrex prescription. There's a generic version available, too: I think it's called sumatriptan. My migraines aren't from psychic overload, though -- I had a concussion in 2000 and my body learned how to have a migraine thanks to that. Now they will sometimes happen when I am having a stress overload. Talk about having incentive to learn how to manage stress! "Learn coping strategies or feel like someone is applying an axe to your head." Phooey -- thank goodness I finally went to the doctor and got a prescription. I regret that I didn't go way sooner.

Likes2Read wrote:Hearing angst from classmates reminds me of another unexpected event, which also took place during my college years.

I lived at home and commuted to my college classes via the subway. We lived closest to the next-to-last subway stop, so that's the one I normally used. The last stop, at the south end of the subway line, was where my city has multiple sporting venues. There was, on one particular Friday, some HUGE concert or other going on at the sports complex. I forget what genre of music it was, but IIRC it was some kind of heavy metal event with multiple different performers and bands throughout the day.

I knew this event was going to occur, so when I got on the subway train to go home in the early afternoon, I was not surprised that the train was already full of people heading to the event. It got increasingly crowded all along the route. But the longer I sat in the train car, the more I sensed something was... wrong. It took me a few minutes to identify what was so peculiar and creepy.

Normally, a train car full of people has a certain energy level. Everybody emits a little energy field, for lack of a better description. So being in a subway car full of people creates a little bit of energetic "white noise" due to everyone's mental activity, and that's to be expected. It's not like I am hearing any one specific person's thought patterns clearly, necessarily, but the energetic feel of a crowd has the same kind of murmuring, babbling, but identifiable-as-human energy emissions as the auditory equivalent of a crowd's voices carries.

But this subway car that was jammed to capacity with concertgoers had NO such energy. It was the strangest thing to be around all those people, and have NOT ONE blip of energy. Not one iota of a thought pattern. Nothing. It was like sitting in a car full of organic, breathing STATUES giving off no obvious life energy and no thought patterns. The longer I sat there, the more it made me feel claustrophobic and creeped out to be in the midst of all this nothingness.

Eventually, I couldn't stand it anymore. I got off one station earlier than my usual stop. I needed to be in sunlight and fresh air, and around normal people with normal energy signatures. I couldn't take being around all those energetically shut-down, blank slates anymore. It felt as suffocating as being in an airless room. (Looking back, I wonder if they were drawing energy OUT of everyone else around them, in addition to not giving off so much as one particle of energy themselves.) I kept thinking, "If THIS is what that kind of music does to your brain, I want NO parts of it! Ick!"

I still live near that subway. I've commuted in cars full of a LOT of different sports fans and concert-goers over the years. But I never, never experienced such a strange, yucky, suffocating energy vacuum from any other group of fans.

All in all, I think I'd rather have the too-much-info sensation. And that's saying something, because I didn't like that, either. But at least getting info means the people around me stand a chance of being alive inside and normal. That energetic deadness.... blech.

EGOIST wrote:

Likes2Read wrote:Hearing angst from classmates reminds me of another unexpected event, which also took place during my college years.

I lived at home and commuted to my college classes via the subway. We lived closest to the next-to-last subway stop, so that's the one I normally used. The last stop, at the south end of the subway line, was where my city has multiple sporting venues. There was, on one particular Friday, some HUGE concert or other going on at the sports complex. I forget what genre of music it was, but IIRC it was some kind of heavy metal event with multiple different performers and bands throughout the day.

I knew this event was going to occur, so when I got on the subway train to go home in the early afternoon, I was not surprised that the train was already full of people heading to the event. It got increasingly crowded all along the route. But the longer I sat in the train car, the more I sensed something was... wrong. It took me a few minutes to identify what was so peculiar and creepy.

Normally, a train car full of people has a certain energy level. Everybody emits a little energy field, for lack of a better description. So being in a subway car full of people creates a little bit of energetic "white noise" due to everyone's mental activity, and that's to be expected. It's not like I am hearing any one specific person's thought patterns clearly, necessarily, but the energetic feel of a crowd has the same kind of murmuring, babbling, but identifiable-as-human energy emissions as the auditory equivalent of a crowd's voices carries.

But this subway car that was jammed to capacity with concertgoers had NO such energy. It was the strangest thing to be around all those people, and have NOT ONE blip of energy. Not one iota of a thought pattern. Nothing. It was like sitting in a car full of organic, breathing STATUES giving off no obvious life energy and no thought patterns. The longer I sat there, the more it made me feel claustrophobic and creeped out to be in the midst of all this nothingness.

Eventually, I couldn't stand it anymore. I got off one station earlier than my usual stop. I needed to be in sunlight and fresh air, and around normal people with normal energy signatures. I couldn't take being around all those energetically shut-down, blank slates anymore. It felt as suffocating as being in an airless room. (Looking back, I wonder if they were drawing energy OUT of everyone else around them, in addition to not giving off so much as one particle of energy themselves.) I kept thinking, "If THIS is what that kind of music does to your brain, I want NO parts of it! Ick!"

I still live near that subway. I've commuted in cars full of a LOT of different sports fans and concert-goers over the years. But I never, never experienced such a strange, yucky, suffocating energy vacuum from any other group of fans.

All in all, I think I'd rather have the too-much-info sensation. And that's saying something, because I didn't like that, either. But at least getting info means the people around me stand a chance of being alive inside and normal. That energetic deadness.... blech.

o.o Well crack, now THAT sounds horrid. Not even the unenthusiatic vibe of my classmates can compare. o.o I'd best prepare myself for the real world. *gets army helmet and bazooka* :8

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

o.o But anyways, I wonder what other kind of music can do that to you ..... AH YA YAE! What if Linkin' Park or Three Days Grace did that? NOOO ...... THOSE ARE MY FAVORITE ROCK BANDS, MAN! 8h

Likes2Read wrote:

EGOIST wrote:

Likes2Read wrote:Hearing angst from classmates reminds me of another unexpected event, which also took place during my college years.

I lived at home and commuted to my college classes via the subway. We lived closest to the next-to-last subway stop, so that's the one I normally used. The last stop, at the south end of the subway line, was where my city has multiple sporting venues. There was, on one particular Friday, some HUGE concert or other going on at the sports complex. I forget what genre of music it was, but IIRC it was some kind of heavy metal event with multiple different performers and bands throughout the day.

I knew this event was going to occur, so when I got on the subway train to go home in the early afternoon, I was not surprised that the train was already full of people heading to the event. It got increasingly crowded all along the route. But the longer I sat in the train car, the more I sensed something was... wrong. It took me a few minutes to identify what was so peculiar and creepy.

Normally, a train car full of people has a certain energy level. Everybody emits a little energy field, for lack of a better description. So being in a subway car full of people creates a little bit of energetic "white noise" due to everyone's mental activity, and that's to be expected. It's not like I am hearing any one specific person's thought patterns clearly, necessarily, but the energetic feel of a crowd has the same kind of murmuring, babbling, but identifiable-as-human energy emissions as the auditory equivalent of a crowd's voices carries.

But this subway car that was jammed to capacity with concertgoers had NO such energy. It was the strangest thing to be around all those people, and have NOT ONE blip of energy. Not one iota of a thought pattern. Nothing. It was like sitting in a car full of organic, breathing STATUES giving off no obvious life energy and no thought patterns. The longer I sat there, the more it made me feel claustrophobic and creeped out to be in the midst of all this nothingness.

Eventually, I couldn't stand it anymore. I got off one station earlier than my usual stop. I needed to be in sunlight and fresh air, and around normal people with normal energy signatures. I couldn't take being around all those energetically shut-down, blank slates anymore. It felt as suffocating as being in an airless room. (Looking back, I wonder if they were drawing energy OUT of everyone else around them, in addition to not giving off so much as one particle of energy themselves.) I kept thinking, "If THIS is what that kind of music does to your brain, I want NO parts of it! Ick!"

I still live near that subway. I've commuted in cars full of a LOT of different sports fans and concert-goers over the years. But I never, never experienced such a strange, yucky, suffocating energy vacuum from any other group of fans.

All in all, I think I'd rather have the too-much-info sensation. And that's saying something, because I didn't like that, either. But at least getting info means the people around me stand a chance of being alive inside and normal. That energetic deadness.... blech.

o.o Well crack, now THAT sounds horrid. Not even the unenthusiatic vibe of my classmates can compare. o.o I'd best prepare myself for the real world. *gets army helmet and bazooka* :8

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

o.o But anyways, I wonder what other kind of music can do that to you ..... AH YA YAE! What if Linkin' Park or Three Days Grace did that? NOOO ...... THOSE ARE MY FAVORITE ROCK BANDS, MAN! 8h

LOL, I would say that being alert to what the music is actually saying will give you an idea of how it'll impact your energy intake and output. If you only listen to music that's all about being dead inside, or is full of hateful or violent words, that's what your thoughts will be processing and it's going to leave an imprint on your energies.

If you vary your music so there's content other than "I'm dead inside", anger, and violence, and make sure there's uplifting content mixed in there, your energies will reflect that, too.

I went to college when the Walkman and the personal music player (cassette tapes and radios, at the time) were just starting to get popular. It was the dawn of the time when people went everywhere with headphones on, tuning their music in and tuning the world out. I suspect that the unnervingly energy-less passengers were people who tended to overdose themselves on the kinds of thought patterns and music that left them vacant inside.

So while I'm not suggesting that you fill your life only with sunshine and flowers and unicorns that sneeze rainbows, I am definitely recommending that you find time to read, listen to, and look at things that provide uplifting, strengthening energies. That's how to avoid becoming a walking blank slate or energy vacuum.