First question. What do we call someone who is able to put themselves in others’ shoes? An Empath. They have the ability to understand and relate to the emotions felt by the other person. Now, how about someone who has the ability to understand others’ feelings, able to portray the feeling of concern and love, but at the same time, have ulterior motives up their sleeves? This is why it is crucial to learn the traits of a dark empath.
What Is Dark Empathy?
Dark empaths are those who comprehend others’ emotions without experiencing them themselves. Although they may appear to care, they actually don’t feel sorry for you. With their ability to comprehend your feelings and emotions, they take advantage of them by using their manipulation skills. There are 7 traits of a dark empath.
They include…
1. Manipulative
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Dark empaths manipulate others into doing what they wish by using their highly developed manipulation skills. They possess remarkable talents in manipulation due to their understanding of other people and desire to deceive. Gaslighting, which is the practice of trying to persuade someone that they are misunderstood, is one of their strategies.
They might even resort to guilt-tripping, a deceptive strategy that turns your good nature against you, by making you feel bad for refusing the evil empath’s requests.
2. Hurtful Sense of Humor
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Although having a sense of humor is often regarded as a desirable quality, dark empaths often employ humor in hurtful ways. They take pleasure in using sarcasm to subtly ridicule others. They tell deceitful jokes that are intended to offend people as well as hurt those who are the target of the joke.
Their humor causes conflict for the targeted person since they can sense how hurtful the message is yet still feel compelled to laugh in response as a proper social response. Through making fun of other people’s flaws or mistakes, their humor discredits and degrades others.
3. Self-Critical
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Self-criticism is the act of thinking negatively about oneself or judging oneself severely. Due to their higher levels of neuroticism and empathy, dark empaths are more likely to engage in self-criticism. Dark empaths may be more sensitive to criticism from others due to their increased awareness of others’ emotional states.
Dark empaths possess and internalize other people’s feelings. Their narcissistic inclinations cause them to have power-hungry fantasies, yet these two traits may be countered with self-doubt and self-loathing.
4. Emotionally Detached
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Dark empaths often have high levels of psychopathy and are emotionally cold towards others. They do not experience a wide range of emotions or develop emotional bonds. Their empathy gives them a cognitive understanding of other people’s emotions, but instead of using this ability to connect with people or establish relationships, they use it to draw their targets even closer to them compared to if they lack empathy.
5. Exploitative Of Others
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People who display these attributes have a strong desire to win at all costs. Similar to those who exhibit the dark triad features, their motivations are solely egocentric. The dark empath, however, has a larger skill set in their attempts to influence others for their own benefit due to the extremely high level of empathy. They can read people’s emotions and determine what they want to hear based on those emotions, and they use these two abilities to manipulate people in order to further their own objectives.
6. Extroverted
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Extroversion tends to be highly scored by dark empaths, indicating that they feel at ease around other people and enjoy being involved in social activities. Extraversion becomes one of the more harmful attributes when paired with a higher level of empathy than people with dark triad traits. Dark empaths are able to interact with people and form social connections, which gives them better access to knowing how and what other people are feeling.
7. Perceptive Of Others’ Feelings
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Dark empaths are exceptionally observant of how others are feeling and reacting due to their high empathy levels. A dark empath can cause greater harm the more knowledge they have about a person. Due to their ability to blend in so well, it might be a bit challenging for them to be identified as harmful to you.
They will utilize all facts they can learn about a person to their advantage in an effort to get what they want from that person. Most people consider their own feelings while making decisions. Dark empaths take this as an opportunity to manipulate the way others feel to persuade them to give them what they want.
There you go! Be aware of these traits of a dark empath to avoid falling into one of their traps. It is unarguably difficult to pinpoint a dark empath in a sea of caring and kind-hearted people. If you find these traits in someone you are associated with, try talking to them and encouraging them to go to therapy. It might help them improve their life by making good use of their empathy and self-awareness traits.
You might be attracted to dark empaths because of how they care about you. But, why is a small act of love alone enough to tie you to them? Now, let’s dive into the 7 Stages of Trauma Bonding.
