Hit the nail on the head. There's so much projection going on its not even funny. When not triggered, the empathy varies per person. I had to learn how to read others- and I have a lot of difficulty doing it. And before even trying, I have to purposefully ignore my gut. And its hard, BC where do you draw the line? What if your gut is rightly telling you that you're being taken advantage of vs wrongly jumping to conclusions about someone? It's a mess, and frankly no amount of DBT or CBT has helped me in this regard.