Empathy and Pickiing up Emotions

When I first realized that I was an empath, I noticed that I was only consciously picking up the emotions from one person that I felt I was the closest to. For the most part I felt it as a pain, or gnawing in my gut, almost constant, and the "feeling" was very dark and heavy and if I were to put a color to it, it would be a dark brown. It seemed almost impossible to get away from it and it made getting out of bed an absolute chore EVERY DAY. When this person felt fear or apprehension, I felt it so strongly that it was hard to even function, and just doing simple things I normally took for granted took all of my energy. If I became too agitated, I would do physical things, like go play tennis or raquetball, or something strenuous. But even doing that, because the feelings were not mine, the sensations would just not go away. That time of learning was a very difficult time for me, but I would not trade that time of learning for anything in the world, because the lessons I learned during that time would be the stepping stones to the wonderful world of empathy that I now know exists!!