Very big, very powerful. Basically I realized that as an empath, I go overboard, becoming a mirror of the people in my life (family, friends, significant others, you name it). That makes them think that I'm exactly like them, when I'm not. That also makes each of them think that they own me to the exclusion of all others. They isolate me, like a...pet rock or something. 
Eventually I "bust out" of the prisons they build, and then they're shocked that I'm actually not a mirror image of them. They feel betrayed. I feel suffocated and feel an urgent need to get away. So the relationship/friendship/whatever implodes, and there's no going back.
I can't believe it's taken me 46 years to figure this out, but now that I do see the pattern, I am going to work on breaking it--changing my current relationships, and building new ones on a more honest foundation.
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