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UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONAL OVER-FUNCTIONING AND ITS IMPACT ON EMPATHS

  • Writer: Michaela Patel
    Michaela Patel
  • 2 days ago
  • 7 min read

Updated: 10 hours ago

Woman with red hair lies on bed, appearing sad, facing away from a man sitting behind her. Blue wall and window with plants in background.
Silent resentment eroding relational bond

Empathy is inherently tied with being emotionally accommodating. Noticing the emotional distress of another, highly empathic people, or empaths, park their emotional needs aside to zoom in on the distress of those around them. Pretty much every single time.


The toll of us being unaware of our emotional over-accommodation? Fatigue and silent resentment that reliably kills our love for those who repeatedly take us for granted.


Empaths make for extremely caring and understanding parents who are on hand to soothe their vulnerable children. Retaining this dynamic in adult relating is a detrimental exercise disguised as a virtue. Emotional over-functioning is particularly self-destructive within turbulent, emotionally unstable, relationships where the empath becomes trauma bonded to an emotional manipulator who purposefully skews her (or his) view of reality. Empathic partners are prone to regularly suffocating their inner truth - how they feel in a particular situation and what they actually need from their partner. Finding it hard to separate themselves from the emotional overwhelm of their partner In the heat of the moment, empaths invest all their energy into calming the situation down. Their emotional tendency primes them to encounter exploitative relationships where they are forced to work overtime, emotionally and otherwise.


Looking back, for most of my time spent in relationships, be it with my intimate partners or family members, I have been working round the clock to ease the discomfort of those less skilled in emotional self-regulation: The 0-to-100-in 3 seconds types. The easily frustrated and impatient kind. The overly stressed and stretched-by-life casualty (as if others were permanently holiday-ing). The, all too often, 'ill and incapable' ones. The hard-done-by victims of life circumstances (most of us encounter but get on with just fine). Looking back, it made me realise how someone else's emotional disregulation creates this peculiar sense of urgency within me, I find hard to ignore and disconnect from. It made me reflect on how I tend to nurse my own dis-ease by attending to someone else's - immediately, in a knee jerk reaction, even if the other is a 40-something year old, fully grown human.


Instead of stepping back to create space and time away for ourselves to effectively self-soothe, we become the anxious pacifiers, the keen counsellors, and the overly concerned parents.


Emotional over-functioning are all behaviours leading to the anticipation and pacification of a conflict born from one's inability to withstand the emotional discomfort of another, reading situation as unsafe.


With self-awareness, I became present to a relatively short lived high that followed having a conflict (somewhat) under control. Soon after that my resentment for being emotionally sidelined began to rise. Particularly when the same problem kept surfacing again and again. Swallowing my truth once is hard enough. Having to regurgitate it repeatedly, it becomes much harder to ignore it. I realised how, due to the repeated nature of the same, core issue (my partner's lack of emotional maturity and his inability to solve his own emotional burdens) my resentment kept mounting, eventually eroding my close connection with him. For years this familiar erosion, looping through the depths of my psyche, went largely unacknowledged. Showing up on the surface as my lack of patience with someone I so badly wanted to look up to and love, it led to the decline of my desire to be vulnerable with someone who made me feel unseen. His inability to hear the truth without reacting negatively in time manifested as my unwillingness to share how I truly felt about things. It led to my emotional distancing my partner sensed (weighing down our relating with extra baggage of his impatience and resentment towards me), to me eventually avoiding closeness and intimacy altogether.


Similarly to pulling away two magnets, emotional distancing leads to creation of an invisible chasm, which makes the physical pull, the previously strong attraction, disappear. It is how empathic partners fall out of love with someone they absolutely adored.


By breeding emotionally illiterate humans and promoting disconnection, patriarchy deeply erodes the fabric relationships are made of. Set aside emotional torture, like psychological manipulation within a coercively controlling relationship (the direct offering of toxic masculinity), an easily disregulated adult, who repeatedly emotionally (and practically) offloads onto their partner, is a ticking bomb for the whole nuclear family. In our society, and how it is (still) run, men are forced into a shape primarily carved by the male ego - far removed from the authentic masculine (the emotional protector and accountable backbone). While women, forced to pick up their slack, are criticised for being 'too masculine'. While the status quo is not going to change anytime soon (but may get worse with ego-maniacs in power), it is up to us to take some power back by becoming more mindful of our unconscious habits by tending to, and curating, our inner garden. Doing so will reflect in our FELT value, our sense of self-worth, and translate into how we interact with others. Additionally, it will allow us to consciously screen for who we choose to interact with, saving ourselves time and heartache.


If you are highly empathic, become present to the patterns in your relating and how they are eroding your connection to your self. Get into the habit of asking yourself:

Right now, what do I need for myself? Under what conditions would I feel internally balanced and calm? What is the ideal scenario in how I would like my partner to approach the arisen situation, considering my own feelings on the matter?


Pausing, while recognising the other is a fully fledged adult who needs to get hold of their own emotions, is really about stepping back, shifting focus away from others (being fair and considerate towards ourselves) and re-calibrating our inner system. When relating to an emotionally disregulated child, things will be quite different because children need our support in how to decipher what they are feeling and why. In fact, we need to show them how to effectively self-soothe so that, one day, they can do it on their own. The follow up questions will determine what we'll do next:

What do I actually need them to do? How will I communicate these in an age appropriate language?


When communicating with another adult, I would like to draw your attention to a key caveat: Deeply emotionally immature adults are skilled emotional manipulators, who will stop at nothing to get their way - be it by making you feel small, or sorry. An emotional manipulator is unashamed to use your vulnerabilities against you in the most cunning way. Think shocking revelations and under-the-belt gut punches, wrapped in 'you made me do it' type of excuse. If you've previously experienced similar, un-dignifying descend to the ground, consider if:

Is it safe for me to stay where I am and lead with my feelings on the matter? Based on past experience, will my truth be likely carefully considered and honoured, or will my disclosure be used against me?


Answering 'yes' to the last question can make you feel profoundly alone. Realising how emotionally neglected you’ve been, perhaps for years, while experiencing the lack of emotional safety in your own home, is a deeply destabilising experience.


When you are faced with your own emotional overwhelm around someone who is incapable of genuinely appreciating you opening up (with the tendency to shift blame and playing the vulnerable victim), you are forced to over-function in order to restore the feelings of safety in your relationship. When another adult is truly incapable of equally emotionally contributing (by remaining open during confrontation without the need to hurt you), being genuinely concerned for your wellbeing and receptive to your emotional truth, they will create a threatening environment in which you are forced to shut down and emotionally, or physically, disconnect.


Empaths are the experts on shutting and disconnecting from themselves in order to placate and over-perform for others. Their empathy has developed, and deepened, as a result of the many forced shut downs of the self around emotionally immature leaders.


The exposure to emotionally traumatic environments in your past has amplified your emotional receiver. You've learned to cope by making others comfortable because they couldn't do it themselves. But today, why should you be responsible for regulating another adult? You had to learn it too, and you managed it pretty damn well!


No, you are not broken. Think of yourself as a skilled emotional gardener, who has rather a sharp tool in their arsenal - a particular emotional setting as a coping strategy. The question is, how you do you use it?


Ironically, empathic people (who deserve all the love and care in the world!) often struggle with loving and caring for themselves simply because of their unacknowledged inner setting, unaware how is it used against them by people who want to remain comfortable.


The more we were made responsible for the ups and downs of others, the more we value harmony and peace. Paradoxically, the harder we try to maintain someone else's garden, the more our one turns into a wasteland. Self-care and self-love is realising that peace is not found in controlling the chaos around us, but rather in discerning what belongs to us, and what clearly does not. But self-love can feel like a far fetched theory, rather than a living experience, when we are surrounded by people who are used to taking from us. Partly because we've internalised their self-serving narrative, enforced by our cultural and societal conditioning at every turn. It takes time and courage to sort through our restrictive belief system, built to enable others. Truly, there is nothing wrong with putting ourselves first. But if our habitual 'need' is putting others first, it becomes very uncomfortable (if not impossible!) to go against it...


Learn how to love yourself from my book available free on Amazon Unlimited.



Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.

Copyright © 2025 Michaela Patel

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