The morning I couldn't feel my son.

Last week I told you about the void.

For my whole life, I felt everyone's feelings before my own. So I asked spirit to thicken my insulation, and everyone else switched off. For two weeks, I felt nothing. Then my own pilot light caught, and I felt the first buzz of my own desire.

What I didn't tell you is how empty the void was. Or what happened the morning after it ended.

Stark and empty

For days, I kept waiting to feel something.

One morning I woke up and wondered if I even loved Jimmy. I'm sure I do. But I lay there thinking, would I even be sad if he died? I couldn't find the answer. That's how stark it was.

I'd watch the kids just doing what they do, and I had no idea how they were feeling. I'd always known I was an empath. I didn't understand what that actually meant until it was gone.

The kitchen

The morning after my desire came back, I told Jimmy everything. How I'd stopped feeling. How strange it had been. I asked if he'd noticed anything different. He said yes, he had, but he wanted to give me space to bring it up myself.

Then spirit, being the absolute bomb that it is, handed me a lesson before breakfast was over.

My son was at the table eating. I brought up a gang rape case I'd been reading about in the news. He said he didn't know anything about it, so I started telling him the little I knew.

He asked me to stop. I'm not proud of this part: I steered the conversation a little, but I didn't stop. I couldn't feel why I should. So I asked him why.

He started to sob. "I don't want to hear about gang rape while I'm eating my breakfast."

I was stunned. I had no idea he was that upset. Jimmy gave me a look and said, "Why did you keep pressing him?"

Pressing him? I was upset about that case. It had been sitting on my chest for days. I just didn't understand why everyone was upset with me.

And then it hit me.

I couldn't feel him.

I was always the one who stopped

My whole life, I've been the one who stops the conversation when someone is hurting. I feel it before they say a word.

That morning, I couldn't. So I kept going, and my son paid for it.

Jimmy saw it too. We just looked at each other. Oh.

Both

Here's what that morning taught me.

The radar that kept me braced my whole life is the same radar that lets me know when my son is hurting. It was a cage. And it's a gift.

But there's another side of that cage, and it's harder to say.

Because I always felt everyone first, my family never had to practice asking. They never had to say "stop" out loud and mean it. I'd usually stopped before the word ever came.

And I never had to practice hearing it. Not "no." Not "stop." I listened to the feeling, not the word.

So that morning, with the feeling gone, all I had was the word. And the word wasn't enough for me. I needed to understand why.

He shouldn't have had to explain. "Stop" is the whole explanation.

I write about this all the time. No doesn't need a footnote. And there I was at my own kitchen table, asking my son for the footnote.

That's my part. I'm learning to hear stop and actually stop, whether I can feel why or not.

My family has a part too. They're learning to ask for what they need, to say it straight, and if I don't hear them, to say it again until I do.

For years, everyone's signals ran through me, and my own fuse was blown. Then I switched everyone off, and for a while I couldn't feel anyone at all. Neither one is really living.

Insulation isn't the goal. Choice is.

And sometimes, I choose to turn it all the way up.

For a while after my radar came back, I felt like Superman. I could tell when Jimmy was in his chair watching TV because he wanted to be, and when he was sitting there full of anxiety.

At first I'd ask him, and he'd tell me no, he was fine. Maybe he didn't even know. Most men were never taught to name it. But I could feel it, and it was awful. I wanted to say, just go mow the lawn already. I knew if I did, he'd push back and tell me I was crazy.

So I waited. Then one day I said, "We can pause the show if you want to finish the lawn. I'll do the dishes, and we can meet up when we're both done."

He jumped out of that chair. Almost like I'd given him permission.

Was that choice, or the old babysitting with a nicer bow on it? Honestly? Both. I'm still learning where one ends and the other begins.

Now I'm learning to choose. Which feelings I pick up. Which ones I let pass through. When to turn my radar all the way up, like at the breakfast table with my son. And when to let it rest.

Your turn

First, the most important part: insulation comes after safety. If you're not safe yet, your radar is doing its job. Keep it on, and reach out for help.

If you are safe, try this. The next time a big feeling hits, ask three questions:

1. Is this mine?
2. If not, whose is it?
3. Do I want to carry it?

You don't have to switch everyone off. You just have to know which switch is yours.

This is Done Fawning. Who's with me?

If you're not safe at home, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 (or text START to 88788). If you've been sexually assaulted, RAINN is 800-656-4673, 24/7. More numbers on the Who to call page.