Absorbent Personalities Who Adopt The Problems Of Others

Some people have the ability to absorb other people’s problems. They are those people who, when you play the “hot potato” game, end up keeping it to themselves while getting burned. They are not aware of it, but absorbent personalities are mediators by nature.

They try to mediate in the conciliation phase, to extend that hand that others need, to understand and encourage. They are like rescuers of human systems.

The problem is not being present and “reaching out”, but adopting the problems of others and taking on the responsibility of others, ending up feeling overwhelmed and with a frightening amount of stress.

The absorbent personalities in the community and their counterpart

Within human systems, each of us develops certain roles. There are always pairs of peers that are complementary to each other.

As we said, absorbent personalities always show themselves willing to listen to the problems of others, behaving as open channels, always willing to understand those around them.

The counterpart to absorbent personalities are those people who tend not to take responsibility for their problems and who “give them up for adoption”. And this happens either because they do not have the ability to solve them immediately or because they are not pragmatic and tend to constantly change their minds, indecisive or not very capable as they are.

In these situations, the emotional sponges jump through hoops and, thanks to their role, adopt the problem of others as if it were their own. All this, without realizing that those looking for advice or help, have now got rid of the problem itself.

Therefore, a person who acts as an emotional sponge takes on the problems of others without even being asked, taking possession of them and freeing the other person from the bond of responsibility, which requires to face the problem and solve it.

Who the absorbent personalities really are

Their attitude leads them to absorb information and emotions of those around them, but without being aware of them.

Precisely for this reason they exert a great fascination and are particularly sensitive and emotional towards the situations that concern their context of belonging.

Many of these personalities put others first and neglect themselves.

They are attentive to what happens to others, they are attentive observers and they are reactive towards their environment; moreover, they are looking for affection and recognition for their actions, even if they are not aware of it. They are hyper responsible, that is, they are too much responsible, since they take on responsibilities that are not their responsibility.

At the same time, people who act as emotional sponges are very creative, ingenious in finding possible solutions, extremely empathic and intuitive.

All aspects that make them find themselves in the right place at the right time, to help others. But as we said earlier, the problem lies in the fact that they take on the problems of others as if they were their own.

The desire to help others, combined with their extraordinary empathy, makes them emotional intermediaries and conciliators, skilled in negotiating in case of conflicts, endowed with a Samaritan attitude. This is why we are not talking about professional negotiators or strategy players.

Sponges, highly sensitive people (HSPs) and overly empathetic ones

In some ways, these personality traits have characteristics in common with so-called sponge people. The latter are extremely sensitive and show a natural tendency to re-elaborate everything they receive from the external environment, as if their senses were continually in a state of alert and sharpened.

Specifically, the concept of the highly sensitive person (PAS) was proposed about 20 years ago by the therapist Elain Aron, who used it to describe these typical traits of a greater perceptual and cognitive sensitivity to stimuli from the external environment. These are people subjected to all the details concerning people and situations specific to the context with which they interact.

They show a reflective attitude and reason about life, tending by nature to investigate others, as psychologists of spontaneity, since they are people with intuition. They manage to identify the slightest nuances, those that for many people go unnoticed. But to this characteristic – typical of “sponges” – we must add the fact that in the presence of a problem, the absorbent person adopts it to solve it.

Help not (always) required

There are people who feel the need to talk and face a catharsis of what they are going through, and this relaxes and calms them … and it is precisely in these cases that sponges and absorbent personalities act: ready as they are to assist others with their listening skills and their enthusiasm in trying to solve (and gain weight) the problem.

If an absorbent personality feels comfortable with air conditioning on a hot day with 40 degrees in the shade and someone asks for company on city center errands, this person is absolutely capable of leaving everything to contribute. They are like this: always ready to find a solution. The word NO is not in their vocabularies

In general, sponges act as fuses for human circuits. On many occasions they take on the role of scapegoat and attract all the tension of a system.

In the case of children, sponge boys, in addition to having all these characteristics, the way in which they absorb and deal with the problems of others tends to become a symptom. In other words, their tendency to denounce the dysfunctionality of the family-system manifests itself through symptoms.

The typical empathy of absorbent personalities: a vicious circle

If by empathy we mean the ability to put themselves in the shoes of the other, these personalities have a lot to sell: they feel an innate desire to help others, to solve the problems and difficulties of those they believe to be in need of their intervention.

This attitude is typical of their personality, which makes them unable to be selective towards those who approach them. This is why they often find themselves victims of manipulators or people who can harm them.

Precisely for this reason, a “sponge” can find itself involved in situations involving triangles, alliances and coalitions, intrigues and gossip in which there are no limits or borders of privacy . 

Absorbent personalities, also very empathic, try to solve problems in a conscious way : they act as mediators, talk to the parties involved, get distressed and feel anxious, in front of the problem that is gripping them. They find themselves in the midst of difficult problems to solve, even if they don’t even know how they got there.

The downside of having an absorbent personality

This tendency to always be willing to help those around us, in absorbent personalities, on the other hand, also causes negative effects (despite the momentary gratitude received).

For example, they feel constantly overwhelmed by external stimuli, it s ono extremely stressed, loads of responsibility that are not within their competence . Finally, they find themselves in a perennial state of extreme alert that causes them anxiety.

In general, they have to manage the weight of a more active mind than others from a cognitive point of view, they are too demanding and become real satellites of their context of belonging.

When they become satellites, they put others first and neglect themselves. Furthermore, their self-esteem depends on the appreciation others show.

Furthermore, given that they are naturally in the eye of the storm, absorbent personalities find themselves in the midst of difficult situations, because they absorb the voltage of the circuits, set no limits and, moreover, force themselves to take charge of solving the problem.

Being able to count on a free intermediary is a good deal for anyone, but not for the absorbent personality, which very often comes out damaged, as indeed happens to the scapegoats of any system.