Dear Clover:

I will quote from you and then give you my input: “I have this weird habit of trying to feel others’ emotions… I try to put myself in their shoes completely and think from their perspective and not mine… It’s like I am focusing completely on their emotions rather than mine. I don’t know whether you understood this feeling, but if you do, can you please throw some light on it?”

I believe I do understand this focus, I experienced it myself most of my life and to the extreme:

It started when I was a young child: I was afraid of my  mother being upset because when she was she exploded with verbal attacks so powerful, so humiliating, that I really, really wanted to avoid those, so I focused  on her, paying attention to any sound she made, a sigh, the exhalation of air, the sound  of her footsteps (how fast she walked, faster means  angry), how her face looked, stern, angry or relaxed. I knew that if she was distressed, I better  appear distressed  myself, otherwise she will be angrier to be distressed all by herself. So I focused on  her moods, and when she was upset I tried  to say the things that will calm her.

It was an ongoing focus on her. When in her presence, there was  no time to focus  on myself, it was  too important to focus on her,  otherwise, bad things were going to happen and I wouldn’t  be prepared, or better I prevent those bad  things from happening!

If we watched a movie together I focused  on her face, I will look at the TV and at her face, then the TV, then her face- is she upset? If she seemed  relaxed, it was okay for me to enjoy the movie for the time being, but I had  to check periodically… if she disliked a scene, I better dislike it  too. If she felt X, I better feel X, otherwise she’ll be angry at me.

Before I attend to other things you wrote as well as your other questions, can you relate  to some of what I just expressed?

anita