'What Have You Done to Yourself?'

As a small child, i returned from a week end in cromer with an exceptionally broad norfolk accent. My mother tells me a similar thing happened when they took me to wales and north yorkshire. Back then, we didn't have a name for this subconscious appropriation of other people's emotions and accents. Now it's fashionably referred to as being an empath, or, some cases, a hyper empath,. relating to some one else's pain is a natural human response.