Growing up Empath

Good evening!
I wanted to give a little background into growing up as a little Jocelyn. I also do want to say that I love my family, I love my parents. This is just my path and I had to go through it unknowingly to get to where I am today. We had many highs and many lows growing up and all is how it should have been.
I was the shy kid, the "introvert", the over emotional old soul. I suffered from asthma, lots of allergies, ear infections, got my period terribly early, horrific PMS and cramps, terrible and constant night terrors, I was always jumpy, scared and on edge, had the worst mood swings and was always so affected by my surroundings and environment. I didn't have very many friends and took comfort in alone time. I wasn't aware of the term "empath" until age 30. So as you can imagine I didn't have the easiest or most supportive environment and help to understand why I was the way I was in my early days. I had gut feelings about things - that I was different and not really the same as my peers and that things were going on in my body and with my emotions in particular.  But I tried to stifle and ignore things instead of face them head on.
What I have learned now is that I was taking on my surroundings and other peoples emotions as my own and these emotions can get stuck if you don't learn from an early age to allow them to flow through you and they can quickly manifest disease throughout your body. At times I literally thought I was going crazy. I also had physical symptoms such as skin rashes, constant UTIs and lady infections, terrible acne and lots of viral cold and flus that just would not leave me. I had so much pain in my body - took many days off work (turned into THAT unreliable co-worker) which was so not me!I was holding onto so much anger, despair and sadness. It manifested into autoimmune. I truly believe this.
For the longest time I actually thought I had a gluten allergy but turns out it was the candida along with thyroid issues that had been taking over my body for so long that was causing everything to be out of wack. Candida (and your thyroid) can actually control so much in your body and can take on different forms that I actually still suffer from today such as PCOS, Digestive issues, skin ailments, chronic pain and fatigue and much more.On top of all of this the binge eating exasperated all of these symptoms.
In my case, holding onto so much emotional stress during and from my past caused a manifestation of candida throughout my body. And it did spiral out of control! This is a big reason that I am taking back control of my life. It's so important to eat well, get proper exercise, minimize stress level and have an outlet for your emotions...like for me writing - in order to deal with everything properly.

Just some thoughts for today! Are you an empath?