Thank you for this.
I've only skipped through this, haven't got the time right now, but I've bookmarked the article and will come back to it at a later point.

I probably mentalize "too much", esp. with regard to others. And it is probably my strategy to avoid "danger" - so I to all the anticipating I possibly can...Constant red alert.

I do it automatically, it's like a reflex, and I struggle to consciously stop this. I have the strong tendency to walk in their shoes too much, to "hijack" their issues and their emotions.

And by doing this I tend to avoid my inner void. That's the flip side for me: Whereas my capacity for "getting" the others is totally overdeveloped, the capacity for "feeling" myself, my feelings, my emotions is underdeveloped. My sense of self is very fragile. Whenever there's too much from the "other/s" this tends to overwrite my own things.

So the challenge lies in "turning off" the too much with regard to the outside. Whereas I need to practice my perception/s again and again with regard to myself. Which is deeply confusing. And it creates a lot of anxiety, since the focus on the others was my survival strategy when I was younger...
Also, this learning to "read" myself quite often feels like kindergarten-stuff. Basic things like: How do I know what I'm feeling? That I'm angry? That I'm happy? And how do I process this, and even more important: express this?

This will probably keep me busy for a long time to come...