> In many cases being highly empathetic was a survival mechanism for the child.. who had to attend to someone else's needs above their own to stay safe. This i

> In many cases being highly empathetic was a survival mechanism for the child.. who had to attend to someone else's needs above their own to stay safe. This is 100% the case for me. My parents had children when they were very young, immature, and with major problems of their own, and I had to learn from a very young age to be highly attentive to their (very frequently shifting) emotional state. And then I had to become essentially an extra surrogate parent for my younger siblings in order to fill in the gaps that our parents weren't able to fulfill.