Echoes of Empathy: My Shift from Therapy to the Power of Words

My entire life, I have had a knack for being the person to whom random strangers seem to want to unload the most bizarre information. I believe this may have partially influenced my decision to become a therapist later in life.

My mother had a paper route when I was a kid, and one of her coworkers had recently had a baby. I told her that I thought her baby looked just like her husband. Mind you, I was about 12 years old at the time. She said, “Ha, that’s funny because he’s not even my husband’s baby.”

I didn’t think much of it then, but my mom was shocked! She could not believe that someone had said such a thing to a kid of all people.

Then, when I was about 17 and working in a well-known retail store, I had a coworker who had just gone on maternity leave to have a baby. My mom had heard through one of her friends this wild story about her that involved drugs and running from the cops, and I don’t remember all the details, of course, since this is from so long ago.

I was shopping that day, and she got in line behind me, so I told her about this rumor I had heard. She denied all of it but started telling me some super personal stuff. When we left the store, my mom asked me how I always manage to get everyone’s whole life story without even trying, and I just responded with, “I don’t know.”

Twenty years later, this is still a thing for me; people I don’t know will tell me many super personal things about…