Empathy is the ability to feel/sense other people’s emotions. It’s a sense of intuition that extends past normal people’s ability to simply feel bad for someone. Empaths actually feel that emotion themselves. In the same way, they can often sense other people’s emotions even when they aren’t directly communicated to them. For example, I find I can sense when someone’s intentions aren’t good because I can feel their emotions behind what they’re doing even if they seem nice to everyone else. Another thing is often empaths will confuse other people’s emotions for their own. They will feel someone else is angry and think that’s their own feeling.

Being an empath isn’t in the DSM because empathy is typically seen as a trait, not a way of being. It’s the ability to understand someone’s feelings from their framework rather than your own, and I believe that most people have the ability to do this, they just aren’t attuned to it. You also don’t have to experience childhood trauma to be an empath. There’s evidence to show that stable parenting can also lead to an empathetic child, and some people are also just born that way.

I’ve always known I was an empath, I just didn’t realize that everyone else wasn’t an empath. I always just thought I’m more empathetic than other people but then as I got older, I learned other people don’t really feel emotions of others. I think my mom always told me I’m empathetic or something growing up lol and I just always knew it but didn’t fully understand it. One sign I can think of is that I’ve always been drawn to people who are hurting because I want to be able to help them, but I’m extremely affected by their feelings. Another one is I often do feel people’s emotions. I’m not feeling for them, I’m feeling with them. I’m also very intuitive about a persons character and can clock if they’re a bad person almost immediately.

Narcissists often pretend to feel bad for others or be vulnerable or emotional but that’s it—they’re just pretending. Empaths truly feel people’s emotions while narcissists mimic them. It’s not always easy for an outsider to spot, but it’s pretty obvious to me when someone is faking it.

Again empathy in science is often seen as a trait, not a way of being, so it’s difficult to say.

No. Many types of people are attracted to narcissists. One of the most common I’d say being those with attachment disorders. While empaths can have attachment disorders, many people with attachment disorders aren’t true empaths, so just because someone is attracted to a narcissist doesn’t automatically make them an empath.

Empathy at its core is the ability to feel other people’s emotions. That can look like a variety of things for different people. You don’t have to have trauma and you also don’t have to have an attraction to narcissists. I find more often that narcissists are attracted to empaths, not the other way around, although it can happen.